Short Term, Long Term

poem

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After 36,000 hours,
you've begun to understand
that some of the people
who left you
aren't coming back.
So you walk around

the lake where dozens
of wrecked planes sit
on the water's floor.
Some of those wrecks
are ghosts. But some aren't
because ghosts only serve

as ghosts when they're still
remembered by the living.
Someday, you'll forget 
those beloved people
who've forgotten you.
Or maybe you won't.