It has to be said for there is no way

to hide it,

you make me feel invisible, imaginary,

that when you close your eyes at night

or look away at the rain in a far off county,

to you I have become the person you once

dreamed of, slowly dissipating into thin

noxious air, gassed and slumped over

for your amusement and only then do

you poke me in the eye via a spiky bark-less

tree limb, poke me in the guts and praise

the gods that I am still; invisible

and imaginary, not here at all.

 

Not here, not there,

I am not real, thin and watered down,

just a forgotten comma or apostrophe

atrophying on your eye lid muscle, blink…

and threadlike I am gone through the needle,

vanished into air, vanished into air,

vanished and never there;

I am but imaginary, your dream,

your shake it off when you wash your eyes

clear of discharge, to make more Rheum

in which to encase me in…

 

Imaginary friend.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016