Overcoming Ghosts in a Ghost Town

A friend came to me in desperation.

"I think I messed things up again" he said;

"And I can't go on living this way.

Living in the past.

I can't live here and see her face

In damn near everything.

These ghosts that haunt me

Seem to make it clear.

I have to get out of here.

I have to forget."

And I sat and talked with him.

And we stayed there forever,

Interlocked in games of do and do not

Live and forgive, and haves and have nots, 

and he promised me

"I won't let this happen to me again,

I won't give myself so completely again,

I won't ever let another person win.

I'm done forever, I promise my friend."

He left after that with a stutter in his voice. 

I said, "Don't forget to write."

days turned to weeks, 

And he called me one night

alone, completely incoherent

Drunk.

"I lost myself so totally,

Drowned in the end.

I don't see the world in color anymore.

It's faded so distantly. 

Not grey, not black, Just molded together 

Into an infinite mass.

I found my self in the devil's nectar

He spoke to me in words

What I always knew what I always understood.

I was absolutely nothing.

I had to let go, I had to forget."

I told him he needed to get out of town,

But things weren't so simple as trying to drown

Out the feelings and visions, and history now;

It may seem impossible.

It may be so;

But you can't forget the roads you took to get here,

You might get lost and walk down them again.

You just can't get so lost in what you've done wrong

That you repeat them again and again and again.

Do what you can to keep yourself sober,

And remember the pain that you've felt,

And overcome.