The Ghosts We Carry

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From the Desk of Lord Northwood

June 2nd, Still waking up with ghosts, still trying not to chase them.

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There are nights I find myself trying to bargain with the heart. Trying to force it into submission. Trying to move on.

We try, as modern creatures do, to outwit the heart with logic. To trick it with calendars and checklists, and good decisions. "You are better than this," we say in the mirror. "Move on. Rise above." But the heart is not a servant to the mind—it is a stubborn creature, fond of old wounds and inconvenient memories.

And there are names, you see, that echo even in silence. Faces that sit across from you in every room, though they haven’t walked through the door in months.

I’ve done what people say to do. Go out. Get under someone to get over someone. Fill the ache with new attention. Let lips and hands blur the memory. But here’s the thing they don’t tell you: You can sleep in the arms of ten strangers, and still find yourself whispering the name of one ghost as you wake alone. Because, sometimes, no matter how much time passes… no matter how many mornings you survive without them…you still love them.

And not in the way that hurts all the time, but in the quietest, cruelest way, where you almost forget they’re gone. Until something, some song or obscure smell or stranger’s laugh, rips the memory out of you like a thread pulled from skin.

It is not a weakness to love this deeply. It is simply human. And though we try to paint over the ache with fresh distractions, the truth remains:

Some loves—however brief, however doomed—etch themselves into the marble of our soul; not always bleeding, but permanent.

In the end, we are all just stories unfinished, waiting for closure that never comes. And so, we carry on—haunted, hopeful, and hopelessly human. Faithfully,

Lord Nicholas Northwood