Dear ghost,

Remember that time, 

when we were about twelve or thirteen,

and we thought the only way to

get over a boy

was to burn all of the notes they

had written to us?

We thought that if we got rid of the evidence,

that if the feelings were just brushed away,

it would be as if they never existed.

That we had never fallen so hard,

That we had never drawn hearts 

in our school books with their names inside,

That we had never gotten nervous 

as they came down the hall towards us.

It would be over. 

The feeling would be gone, 

and the past would be erased.

So we did it. We burnt the letters.

Do you remember that day?

We rushed home from school, 

took the ash pail from the fireplace,

and while you filled it with water,

I ran upstairs.

I grabbed a pack of matches from

my mother's bedroom dresser,

and couldn't stop myself 

from enjoying this moment of shocking rebellion.

I led you out the back door 

and we dug a hole in the snow.

The paranoia was starting to set in

as we realized what we were about to do,

in broad daylight, with the world watching.

But before we could stop ourselves,

the matches were lit and the 

papers filled with sappy sentiments were ablaze.

In the commotion, we were perhaps more 

afraid of our own destruction than 

what the act signified.

Before the papers were entirely burned,

we doused the flames and buried the evidence.

The papers are still there,

incase you wanted to know.

But I never went back for them.

I quickly learned how easy it was

for new notes to be written,

and how hard it was 

for feelings to disappear.