I flirt with the Ghost of Christmas Past on lonely nights like these. Where I sit in the corner of the grimiest bar, watching people from a room-length distance. And he sits across from me, with faded jeans, and worn-out tees, and the same bud light my ex-boyfriend drinks, only twenty foot away from us. His arm around Adonis, as mine hangs limply over the back of a beer-stained sofa, my other hand nurses bottom shelf poison.

"We have to stop meeting like this," I say, in a drawn-out sigh, as though the effort it takes to speak is more than I am willing to part with, but beneath my nonchalance I crave the nostalgia.

And so, we sit, and watch each other, and he reminds me of all my failures, and the crushing solitude, the cold side of the bed once warmed by the man twenty foot behind him, and the showers I take alone these days. His face is lit by rainbows. Christmas lights reflected in the sweat of his cheeks.

"Then you have to stop inviting me."

I once looked to the future. The future I had with the man whose fingers entwine with the fingers of his Adonis. Even for a while after, I still looked at a future I would never meet, a future in which he realised he'd made the worst of mistakes, but that day never came, and I lived each day from moment to moment, awaiting the call that never came, and then I lay numb on his cold side of my bed, wishing for acceptance that never came, and now I just dwell in the misery of memories fading.

The Ghost of Christmas Past follows me, watching me like a vulture as I stumble home drunk, his solemn, pitying eyes reminding me of the man who once made sure I made it home safely.

He moves in my wake as I clumsily twist the keys in the lock, and push open the door that rattles. He breathes down my neck as I ascend the stairs, and turn the cold tap, the tap that whistles, the tap that used to join in on our three-part harmony, turning every bath into a symphony, the tap that now wails in grief, and I wail with it.

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The Ghost of Christmas Past dips his fingers into the tub, and turns to me as I undress. I stare down at the dark water, lit only by the street lamp that glimmers like distant hope through the dappled glass of the bathroom window.

The Ghost of Christmas Past holds my trembling hands as I lower myself into darkness, and the Ghost of Christmas Past strokes my hair as I shiver, and the Ghost of Christmas Past presses his lips against mine when they turn blue, and the Ghost of Christmas Past closes my eyes when they stop blinking.

And when I climb out of the bath that I am still laying in, he nods to me, cups my cheek, and fades into another cold memory.

I flirt with the Ghost of Christmas Future, though she doesn't notice, as she clings to the arm of a man who wears the same moth-eaten jacket that I might wear. In his hand, the same bottom shelf poison as in mine. I take a seat across from where she sits, and watch her smile gleam with the same optimism I used to know well. She looks right through me.

Her eyes are filled with the hopes and dreams of a girl who cannot linger in the moment, her mind too busy with a wedding she will never attend, and children she will never bear, and a family she will never raise.

I reach out to touch her hand as she leans forward to take her drink from the table, sticky with the drunken memories of every patron that has crossed through the heavy front doors. She looks right through me. I follow her home, and watch her sleep in a warm bed, and I watch her climb into the shower in the morning. The blurry outline of her body dances behind the curtain. I stand beside her as she pulls at her face in the mirror, feeling beautiful for the first time in years. Her eyes flick my way, for the briefest of moments, and I wonder if she sees me, but she looks away without another word. I stand in the doorway. She looks right through me.

I flirt with the Ghost of Christmas Future every night. I tell her that she is beautiful, and she is wonderful, and I tell her that I love her, and she is worth more than any person will ever make her believe but she can't see me. Not yet, anyway.