Moments of Literature: Cosmic Cathartic

Clouded Minds, Raging Hearts

"So you love him, but he doesn't love you?" I asked the ghost standing right beside me, leaning on an old wooden railing as I did. Which was weathered and rough and could give you splinters easily.

"Pretty much," the ghost replied while leaning on the old balcony as well, looking out onto the seashore as they did. Which was littered with garbage and had a dull grey sky accompanying it. A glossy glaze coating his eye.

"Well, why doesn't he love you?" I asked the ghost of the rough and grizzly man, who looked like he had come from the 1940's or 50's and was wearing a collared work shirt with suspenders and khaki pants.

And who had a toothpick in his mouth that he was chewing on, although that could have been a splinter he had picked off the balcony. Since it had a little bit of brown paint on it.

"I don't know," the ghost shrugged, not taking his eyes off the depressing seashore. Which was taunting us with rain and thunder from the looming storm clouds above it. Making it seem like it was going to threaten to storm on us any moment.

Like a cat, who puts their paw on a glass mug on the edge of a counter.

"I guess he didn't like men like I did. Or maybe he did, but he was too afraid to disappoint his family by loving me."

"Why would you two be afraid to disappoint his family?" I asked, casting a curious glance at him.

The ghost furrowed his thick and large brows, which reminded me of caterpillars. "Why do you care so much?"

"Because being afraid to disappoint one's family is the reason my boyfriend left me at the altar," I replied while furrowing my brows as well, mirroring the old ghost's withered expression. "Which is why I'm here alone in the first place."

"Well, at least you have the chance to be with your man friend," the ghost replied while peering at me and shifting the 'toothpick' in his mouth. Giving me an icy glare. Probably jealous of my freedom to be with whomever I wished.

"And at least your unrequited love lived in a time where keeping yourself in the closet to please your family was the norm-" "Hey, watch your tongue, boy!" the ghost exclaimed to my angrily, getting up from the balcony as they did, their calm crystal blue body turning an angry blush pink.

"It may have been socially acceptable, but that don't make it right!"

I sighed after the man ghost had said, this realizing that he was right, and realizing that we were both in the same both. For we were both two lonely gay men, who loved closeted men with homophobic families, and who were both stuck at the same old shabby beach hotel.

With me being there because I didn't want to waste my honeymoon vacation, and him being there because he had too much bourbon to drink. All to drown out a broken heart.

Which was why I decided to stop torturing the poor deceased soul, and just turned back to look at the ocean, which had seemed to get more drearier. And after the ghost had saw that I wasn't continuing the debate about our poor unloved souls, he just grumbled and turned back to look at the ocean.

Probably for the thousandth time that he had in this life time. Just like it had been the thousandth time for me to be rejected by a gay boy, who's family didn't allow him to be a gay man.