Why is he there

Never moving

Never taking his eyes off me

Never able to appear outside of my mind

Yet every time he opens his mouth

Something that I can't see stops him

The force pulls him backwards

And I am back in reality

And he disappears for a while

But only for a while.

He always comes back

With that sly smile

He makes me laugh

And people stare because I am laughing at air

And that is when the force pulls him back

And I am left alone.

We have shared a lot of laughter

We have shared a lot of tears

But what is scary about the man

Is that we never touch

He hears me

I can't hear him

We are pretending

But I fear when he doesn't come back

What will it be like?

I will realize I have been pretending

The river's just a river again

A shadow is a shadow

My friends expect me to laugh at air, as usual

The weight of reality drops like a boulder

Onto my shoulders

And I am forced to keep it up.

But for now

He never leaves me.