I came across the relatively new word ‘ghosting’ a few months ago when a friend asked me if I had been ghosted. The question arose because I had told her about a so-called ex-relative/ friend who suddenly gave me the cold shoulder and didn’t answer any of my messages. When I looked up the definition, it seemed that I surely had been ‘ghosted’. The definition explains that one of the parts of a friendship acts like a ghost: they disappear without warning or giving any explanation, truncating any possibility of having a conversation. Is this due to cowardice, malice, fear of confrontation, or was that friendship just a farse, however many years it appeared to have existed? Or perhaps you are just no longer ‘useful’ to that person. If it is because of a misunderstanding, usually unknown to the ghosted partner, then there’s nothing like a good air-clearing argument or simple clarification which a true friend would anxiously be waiting for.

But going back to the term ‘ghosting’, I really have to disagree with the use of the root word ‘ghost’. Because ghosts don’t disappear; they come back and haunt you. They definitely want their presence to be felt. They usually want to give a message they weren’t able to transmit in their lifetime. They don’t represent absence but an ethereal presence that has slipped through the veils of the other world. What has that to do with someone who has turned their physical back on you? The unanswered WhatsApp is at first felt like an unghostly stab in the back which gradually progresses from consternation and hurt to a deep understanding of the hypocrisy of that ‘friendship’. The wound was painful but it heals over and no hearts have been broken. Real ghosts continue to show themselves to those who can see them; ghosters disappear and make room for authentic human beings to appear in your life. So maybe in the end we should be grateful to them and wish them well on their new ghosting paths.

Here is a poem from my book Poems of Joy and Melancholy (available on Amazon).

NAKED

No more stories No fancy theories No social traps Nor false gurus Just let go Of what’s not me And what’s not you. Divine sculptor Carve out pride Tap away fear, So all that’s left Is pure naked me Mirroring you, A triple flame Burning to ashes Hard earned fiction, So all that’s left is Love.

Let go of chatter And elusive silence May stay a while. Blow away illusions With your gentle breath, So I may play Light as a child. Open my tired eyes softly To see heaven creep in And crumble the stones Of ancient walls Where wild roses Push through the cracks.