Haunting words

I scribbled them on the calendar. A new month arrived and the page was flipped, and I thought the words would be lost in the layers of time. But I press too hard as I write I guess (how gently can you write words you hate anyway). They showed up month after month, year after year on every page that was flipped, on every calendar that was changed.

I stuffed them all up  in a trash bag abandoned them in a deserted place in the middle of a moonless night, but they still found their way back to me. I shut the door tight, every piece of furniture I could find, resting against it. All in vain,  they managed to sneak in through the heating vent, that crack in the wall, an unfastened screw in the door hinge or that kitchen window that was carelessly closed or carefully opened.

I wrote them down on the mirror, and punched them in the face, shattered sharp shiny pieces, scattered, a bloody mess, only to see the bits come together in perfect order, with that evil grin they read to me every word, interrupted at times by the red stains, but no missed phrases, no skipped sentences, making sure I remember everything I wanted to forget.

I put them down on a piece of paper and set fire, watched every sheet, every slice go from the dazzling white to curling red to the dreary gray. At last, they are gone, a faint smile escaped my lips, and just as I was about to leave, a gusty wind from nowhere, blew all the ash onto my face, into my eyes, it was hard to see, even harder to breathe, I slipped, I fell, suffocated, panic-stricken, trying to crawl away from the ash, but that wind followed me all the way and when I could move no more, it engulfed me, whispering every scorched and charred word right into my ears, again and again, as it moved around me in a perfect circle, no chipped edges, no leaks, no escape.

I tried to forget, to disown, to destroy, to kill but they somehow come back to me every time, every single time. I despise them, but they love me. I torture them and they give it back to me. I kill them, and they haunt me.

There is only so far I can run and so much I can fight. I don’t even try now.

I can never find a place, a moment with myself anymore.  I want to be left alone I tell them, but they never get me, I wish I did not get them either. They just walk in whenever they want and  most times they never leave. Words, haunting words…I hear them all the time, I just live with them now.