Resemblance

            It’s strange meeting someone who almost exactly resembles a person you no longer talk to. A person who fidgets with their hair like that ghost who still floats around your memory, peeking around corners every two dreams or so. You try to ignore this and certainly don’t tell the new person about it, because you kind of like the presence of this half-forgotten ghost, breathing and in your face again. Their inhabitance is cathartic.

            You remember kissing the ghost and wonder if kissing this new being will feel as enthralling, removing clothes while you’re at it. Will they order the same drink when you go out to a bar with them? Will they be excellent at conversing about anything but your now coupled existence because “that is the most banal of conversation topics”? You hope so.

            Every single detail you can remember about said ghost is perused and considered with a somewhat ephemerally languorous exertion. You take your time with this task you feel obligated to endure, because when you think about someone in a certain way, they exist in precisely that way.

            However, once you have catalogued every viable option, you are somewhat stung by the knowledge that this new being will, given enough time, be just as much a ghost as the ghost they resemble. And you wonder to yourself, Just how many of these familiar spirits are stacked on top of one another?