Wishing You Were a Ghost

Perfect Sonnet

If you've ever been to an open casket funeral, there's a chance that you've made the earth-shattering mistake of touching the corpse of a loved one.

Frank had done it once, with a great uncle on his father's side. The old man had just looked so peaceful, like he was sleeping; and little Frankie, not even 10 years old, had thought that maybe if he touched him, he would wake up.

He didn't.

His skin was cold, and it felt like wax, and Frank had leapt back from the coffin and ran from the church to hide in the attached cemetery to cry as he listened to the church bells ring out the toll of four in the afternoon.

Losing someone you love romantically is... Not like that, or not exactly like that, anyway. But it's familiar to him in a way.

When he reached for Gerard's hand across the table at breakfast last week, there was no warmth.

Where there used to be a heat between them, something nearly palpable, there was nothing left. Gerard's hand felt lifeless, and foreign in Frank's own, and it made him want to run back to his little churchyard cemetery. The one where he could listen to the bells and count the doves all perched in a line across the branch of the old oak tree that hung out to cast shade over the large angel statue who looked like she was weeping.

Frank wants to weep with her.

Death, even metaphorical, is a hard pill to swallow.

Breakups happen. That's what he keeps trying to remind himself. Even in long-standing relationships, they happen. It's a normal part of life. Everyone has at least one great love in their life, and at least one great tragedy.

Frank happens to be experiencing both of them at the same time.

It's not that it's new. It's been coming. They've both known about it. They've both seen the shift and the gradual pull apart. They've known, but they were at least both on the same page. The page that said, 'we're not talking about it'.

Not until it was too late and Frank came home to this.

To boxes in the dining room wrapped in brown tape with familiar writing across the sides.

LIVING ROOM
KITCHEN
BATHROOM
DINING ROOM
OFFICE
CLOTHES

"Gerard?"

Frank thinks back to the commercials of his youth. Of volunteers holding little baby ducks, or penguins, or seals. They were always trying to gently suction thick, toxic oil out of their mouths and wipe it from their eyes with Dawn dish soap.

That's what it feels like to call his boyfriend's name again as Frank drops his bag unceremoniously to the floor. Like there is something thick and vile flooding his throat and choking his vocal chords.

"Gerard?" His voice rasps.

"I'm in the bedroom." Gerard's voice is broken.

His heart plummets at the same time his stomach does. Not just to the floor but through it. Down through all four stories of their apartment building and into the basement. Beneath the basement. Six feet under, to be specific.

Frank steps out of his shoes, and part of him debates if he even wants to follow through with it. With any of it. Taking off his shoes, walking into the rest of the apartment, finding out what the fuck it is that's actually going on. If he turns around and leaves, he can just pretend-

What, exactly? Pretend that it's not happening? No. If he doesn't face it now, he'll just come back home, and not only will Gerard and his things be gone, but so will the boxes. Maybe a note, if he's lucky.