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the ghosts & my mind
Knock, knock.
The ghosts come tapping at your head.
Silently.
Ever so silently.
You could ignore them, but they are much too loud for that. Silence is the thing that buries into your soul and rattles you. It’s the thing that finds its way into your bones and jumbles everything up until you don’t know what’s right anymore. The worst kind of volume.
You could shut them out, but they have the keys to the doors of your mind. More so than you, anyway. You don’t own anything but the darkness inside.
Knock, knock.
They’re here again. Tap-tap-tapping at the wooden walls of your mind.
You fade. They appear.
Fading.
Appearing.
They’ll come back for you soon enough.
-hiding- found again
Knock, knock.
If you can trust anything in this world, it’s them. When everything and everyone else leaves you behind, they’re still there.
They’re good at finding their way back. They can hunt for the path you’ve left, and they know you by your trails of shadows. They’ve learned how to see you even when you run from them, to get away, to hide.
Why would you hide from us?
-I’m sorry. I should have known better.-
Remember that next time.
-I will.-
the friends i didn’t know i had
Knock, knock.
They’ve found you.
That’s no shock, you would think. It shouldn’t be. You know them far too well for it to be a surprise.
They scare you, but that’s why you love them. They’re the ones that know you. At your best. At your worst. -At the points when you’re fading and nothing and so, so lost.-
To the little ghosts that hide away, you’re somebody. And somebody is better than nobody. Anybody Anything is better than nobody.
Rarely do the ghosts venture up to you in person. Rarely do they have the courage to do anything other than stay in your head. Today, though, they do.
She comes up to you with a smile, or a wisp of one, at least. The ghosts don’t quite feel enough to give a full one.
The ghost girl slips her frozen hand into your own. She lacks the warmth of hope and revels in the chill of frosted invisibility. She is made up of whispers, too quiet and far too silent to reach the ears of anyone but you. She is made of bone and vicious kindness.
The ghost girl squeezes your hand, and for a moment, there is no threat. For a moment, there is nothing but you and her.
And she sings. Her voice is husky and mournful, but the tune is soothing. You sleep, finally, her right by your side the whole time. She brushes the hair from your face and guards you from the nightmares as they come, and then all of the darkness parts for you
to make friends with the ghost.
the other ghosts (the ones that never leave)
Knock, knock.
You whisper a hello to them, a greeting to their longing voices. The ghosts, your ghosts, pull you into their embrace, and although they are people of the winter, things of the kingdom of the long-gone, there’s a certain comfort that comes with it.
When you wake, the ghost girl that you knew is gone, but the others have replaced her.
The others = the rest of them. The others = the many, many ghosts you can’t escape.
They knock at the doors to your head, less asking permission than announcing their presence. They don’t need to, though. You would understand better than anyone the way that they’re—
-always vengeful-
-always angry-
-always taking-
—always there.
Yes. You know better than anyone.
a palace for the liars
You make
yourself a palace
littered with the bones of
a person that you were before.
A pyramid of all the things you left,
the things you promised you would never, ever
look back on but did.
You liar.
You little liar.
That’s the ghosts talking. They don’t mean that.
ever-so-cruel relief
Knock, knock.
You shake your head to clear them away, to drive them out, but they’re persistent. They sink their claws into you and hold you tight and don’t let you go because the whole time they’re whispering that
you’re nothing without them.
And you know they’re telling the truth.
You let them slink back to their places in your brain, hide themselves in the folds of your consciousness, let them live where they mean something. Let them be the artists and create and spin stories from what is theirs, what is rightfully theirs. Let them lay claim to you, because deep down, you know.
You belong to them. Not the other way around.
the iron grip of their silence
Knock, knock.
You love them, even after everything. Without the ghosts, you are a body lacking any kind of soul, deprived of life and all that matters. Without them, you fall away with the wind and haze until you are nothing but a blur of what was.
You don’t even have to turn the knob for them to come spilling in. They know their way around this place. So instead, all you do is to offer them a drink and greet them like the old friends they are. You beckon them into the humble home you call your mind with a smile on your face, and they hang their coats at the side and find their way to the table, more so out of habit than anything.
In a manner of speaking, the ghosts control you. They know their way around this maze far better than you. They’re the ones that hold the reins, the keys, the power to bring you back and push you further.
It’s not a bad thing, though. You need them. You do.
They soothe you with your words, and their murmurs chase away your darkest fears. They perch themselves high above you and watch. You listen to their humming, the humming so silent it blocks out everything but the drone of the voices in your heads. They are your protectors. The ones who watch out for you, no matter what.
But that’s why you have us.
We keep the order.
Without us, there is only
chaos.
-I know. I know.-
Shhh.
All you have to do is to let us
block out the noise.
You close your eyes for just a moment, and the ghosts find their way to your side, holding you up with their crushing, featherlike grip.
They’re right, as they always are, the ghosts are. They know you better than you know yourself.
You let their silence wash over everything that hurts and everything that matters, and then you become
—nothing.
freed by the nothingness
Knock, knock.
In the dreamland,
you can’t hear
any of their
-hateful- loving words.
In the dreamland,
you shut out
everything that hurts
and pretend the
In the dreamland,
ghosts become nothing,
and you remain.
Free.
(Knock, knock.)
(Knock, knock.)
(Knock, knock.)
(Knock, knock.)
(Knock, knock.)
And for once, everything is quiet.
buried in snow & the ashes of winter
Knock, knock.
Your ghosts are brave. They’re strong. They’re good.
Your ghosts dance in the light snowfall and laugh and sing and love and care and act as if they’re
real.
Like you.
(Or so you think.)
They pull you into the snow and promise you that you will be safe and one of them, and the idea just sounds so supremely heavenly that you let them drag you from the warmth of your house, of your home, into the cold, into the deep, deep snow drifts until you can’t feel anything but the powder all over you.
You laugh and they laugh with you, and it takes you so much longer than it should to realize that, no, they’re not laughing with you, but rather at you, their jeering barely disguised by their fake happiness and fake smiles.
And you tell them, “No, no, stop,” but the powdery stuff that constituted perfection just minutes ago has become your enemy, and the ghosts play and laugh and do everything but care and love, but you know you love them anyway don’t you don’t you don’t you
Don’t you?
And the ghosts bury you in the snow and push you down into the banks, hoping that they might weigh you down. The cold dulls everything, and their claws and your own can’t reach you anymore. The one thing blissful about it. Being out of their reach. And your own.
You barely hear their words as a blizzard comes and spreads a sheet of white over you, but you catch on to their desperate, desperate words, begging and wanting and pleading, and your heart breaks for them all over again because—
Don’t leave us here alone
—no matter what they do, you just
can’t
stop
loving
them.
house guests in the mind of the forgetting
Knock, knock.
Things come back slowly. The ghosts, innocent, and you, naïve. The ghosts, spiteful, and you, betrayed.
Knock, knock.
They’re not here to apologize. The ghosts don’t do that. And besides, what do they have to apologize for? They took it too far. They didn’t know any better. You forgive them for that, as you always do.
You let them in with a smile, and soon enough, it’s forgotten. Soon enough, you don’t have to think about the things they’ve done. They’re your ghosts. Your caretakers.
Guests in the house of your very own mind.
little secrets in shadowed thoughts
Knock, knock.
They’re so kind, so kind. You welcome them whenever they come. They wrap their bony, thin arms around your body and still the trembles that come from the storm inside until all that is left is a strange kind of calm.
The ghosts come with their gifts of peace, for a short while, at least, before they remind you of what their real purpose is. They have their own stories, though they never seem to want to tell you them. They’re too scared to, maybe. Too scared that you’re not entirely to be trusted. Too scared that you might judge them for it.
They shouldn’t be scared.
They’ve kept all your secrets, haven’t they?
haven’t they?
haven’t they?
But with the ghosts, it’s not about mutuals, it’s not about balance. It’s about them. The ghosts. Never you.
But that’s fine with you,
isn’t it?
on the other side of the mirror
Knock, knock.
You look into the mirror on the other side,
see yourself staring back at the person made of
the things they love, the things they hate.
Two sides of the same person, both essentially identical.
Two versions of a shell, polar opposites.
But both know the world well enough to understand
that neither are quite fit for this prim-and-perfect Earth.
The person in the glass stares at you with pleading eyes,
almost as if they know you think of destroying
that pure and simple hollow thing
in hopes of taking too the ones that are a given
in the body of one who is stuck in winter and left behind.
The ones that haunt and soothe you to sleep.
The ones that whisper promises then drag you down into the snow.
-Knock, knock.-
(And this time,
you knock back.)
stone-cold silence
Knock, knock.
It shatters oh- so-musically, cool, hard glass against a tile floor, and the melodies and harmonies interlacing are what finally let you understand.
The ghosts that promised you everything
have given you nothing.
The ghosts that have asked you for everything
will give you nothing,
and in return,
you will give them nothing back.
Nothing but silence.
Nothing but stone-cold silence.
(Want to smile for them
one last time,
in hopes they might once again
convince you
of their goodness,
their reliable goodness?)
They cry out in human voices to you, but you’re too far gone to listen,
and the ghosts
shatter
just as quickly
as the glass.
Knock, knock.
The ghosts come tapping at your head.
Silently.
Ever so silently.
You could ignore them, but they are much too loud for that. Silence is the thing that buries into your soul and rattles you. It’s the thing that finds its way into your bones and jumbles everything up until you don’t know what’s right anymore. The worst kind of volume.
You could shut them out, but they have the keys to the doors of your mind. More so than you, anyway. You don’t own anything but the darkness inside.
Knock, knock.
They’re here again. Tap-tap-tapping at the wooden walls of your mind.
You fade. They appear.
Fading.
Appearing.
They’ll come back for you soon enough.
-hiding- found again
Knock, knock.
If you can trust anything in this world, it’s them. When everything and everyone else leaves you behind, they’re still there.
They’re good at finding their way back. They can hunt for the path you’ve left, and they know you by your trails of shadows. They’ve learned how to see you even when you run from them, to get away, to hide.
Why would you hide from us?
-I’m sorry. I should have known better.-
Remember that next time.
-I will.-
the friends i didn’t know i had
Knock, knock.
They’ve found you.
That’s no shock, you would think. It shouldn’t be. You know them far too well for it to be a surprise.
They scare you, but that’s why you love them. They’re the ones that know you. At your best. At your worst. -At the points when you’re fading and nothing and so, so lost.-
To the little ghosts that hide away, you’re somebody. And somebody is better than nobody. Anybody Anything is better than nobody.
Rarely do the ghosts venture up to you in person. Rarely do they have the courage to do anything other than stay in your head. Today, though, they do.
She comes up to you with a smile, or a wisp of one, at least. The ghosts don’t quite feel enough to give a full one.
The ghost girl slips her frozen hand into your own. She lacks the warmth of hope and revels in the chill of frosted invisibility. She is made up of whispers, too quiet and far too silent to reach the ears of anyone but you. She is made of bone and vicious kindness.
The ghost girl squeezes your hand, and for a moment, there is no threat. For a moment, there is nothing but you and her.
And she sings. Her voice is husky and mournful, but the tune is soothing. You sleep, finally, her right by your side the whole time. She brushes the hair from your face and guards you from the nightmares as they come, and then all of the darkness parts for you
to make friends with the ghost.
the other ghosts (the ones that never leave)
Knock, knock.
You whisper a hello to them, a greeting to their longing voices. The ghosts, your ghosts, pull you into their embrace, and although they are people of the winter, things of the kingdom of the long-gone, there’s a certain comfort that comes with it.
When you wake, the ghost girl that you knew is gone, but the others have replaced her.
The others = the rest of them. The others = the many, many ghosts you can’t escape.
They knock at the doors to your head, less asking permission than announcing their presence. They don’t need to, though. You would understand better than anyone the way that they’re—
-always vengeful-
-always angry-
-always taking-
—always there.
Yes. You know better than anyone.
a palace for the liars
You make
yourself a palace
littered with the bones of
a person that you were before.
A pyramid of all the things you left,
the things you promised you would never, ever
look back on but did.
You liar.
You little liar.
That’s the ghosts talking. They don’t mean that.
ever-so-cruel relief
Knock, knock.
You shake your head to clear them away, to drive them out, but they’re persistent. They sink their claws into you and hold you tight and don’t let you go because the whole time they’re whispering that
you’re nothing without them.
And you know they’re telling the truth.
You let them slink back to their places in your brain, hide themselves in the folds of your consciousness, let them live where they mean something. Let them be the artists and create and spin stories from what is theirs, what is rightfully theirs. Let them lay claim to you, because deep down, you know.
You belong to them. Not the other way around.
the iron grip of their silence
Knock, knock.
You love them, even after everything. Without the ghosts, you are a body lacking any kind of soul, deprived of life and all that matters. Without them, you fall away with the wind and haze until you are nothing but a blur of what was.
You don’t even have to turn the knob for them to come spilling in. They know their way around this place. So instead, all you do is to offer them a drink and greet them like the old friends they are. You beckon them into the humble home you call your mind with a smile on your face, and they hang their coats at the side and find their way to the table, more so out of habit than anything.
In a manner of speaking, the ghosts control you. They know their way around this maze far better than you. They’re the ones that hold the reins, the keys, the power to bring you back and push you further.
It’s not a bad thing, though. You need them. You do.
They soothe you with your words, and their murmurs chase away your darkest fears. They perch themselves high above you and watch. You listen to their humming, the humming so silent it blocks out everything but the drone of the voices in your heads. They are your protectors. The ones who watch out for you, no matter what.
But that’s why you have us.
We keep the order.
Without us, there is only
chaos.
-I know. I know.-
Shhh.
All you have to do is to let us
block out the noise.
You close your eyes for just a moment, and the ghosts find their way to your side, holding you up with their crushing, featherlike grip.
They’re right, as they always are, the ghosts are. They know you better than you know yourself.
You let their silence wash over everything that hurts and everything that matters, and then you become
—nothing.
freed by the nothingness
Knock, knock.
In the dreamland,
you can’t hear
any of their
-hateful- loving words.
In the dreamland,
you shut out
everything that hurts
and pretend the
In the dreamland,
ghosts become nothing,
and you remain.
Free.
(Knock, knock.)
(Knock, knock.)
(Knock, knock.)
(Knock, knock.)
(Knock, knock.)
And for once, everything is quiet.
buried in snow & the ashes of winter
Knock, knock.
Your ghosts are brave. They’re strong. They’re good.
Your ghosts dance in the light snowfall and laugh and sing and love and care and act as if they’re
real.
Like you.
(Or so you think.)
They pull you into the snow and promise you that you will be safe and one of them, and the idea just sounds so supremely heavenly that you let them drag you from the warmth of your house, of your home, into the cold, into the deep, deep snow drifts until you can’t feel anything but the powder all over you.
You laugh and they laugh with you, and it takes you so much longer than it should to realize that, no, they’re not laughing with you, but rather at you, their jeering barely disguised by their fake happiness and fake smiles.
And you tell them, “No, no, stop,” but the powdery stuff that constituted perfection just minutes ago has become your enemy, and the ghosts play and laugh and do everything but care and love, but you know you love them anyway don’t you don’t you don’t you
Don’t you?
And the ghosts bury you in the snow and push you down into the banks, hoping that they might weigh you down. The cold dulls everything, and their claws and your own can’t reach you anymore. The one thing blissful about it. Being out of their reach. And your own.
You barely hear their words as a blizzard comes and spreads a sheet of white over you, but you catch on to their desperate, desperate words, begging and wanting and pleading, and your heart breaks for them all over again because—
Don’t leave us here alone
—no matter what they do, you just
can’t
stop
loving
them.
house guests in the mind of the forgetting
Knock, knock.
Things come back slowly. The ghosts, innocent, and you, naïve. The ghosts, spiteful, and you, betrayed.
Knock, knock.
They’re not here to apologize. The ghosts don’t do that. And besides, what do they have to apologize for? They took it too far. They didn’t know any better. You forgive them for that, as you always do.
You let them in with a smile, and soon enough, it’s forgotten. Soon enough, you don’t have to think about the things they’ve done. They’re your ghosts. Your caretakers.
Guests in the house of your very own mind.
little secrets in shadowed thoughts
Knock, knock.
They’re so kind, so kind. You welcome them whenever they come. They wrap their bony, thin arms around your body and still the trembles that come from the storm inside until all that is left is a strange kind of calm.
The ghosts come with their gifts of peace, for a short while, at least, before they remind you of what their real purpose is. They have their own stories, though they never seem to want to tell you them. They’re too scared to, maybe. Too scared that you’re not entirely to be trusted. Too scared that you might judge them for it.
They shouldn’t be scared.
They’ve kept all your secrets, haven’t they?
haven’t they?
haven’t they?
But with the ghosts, it’s not about mutuals, it’s not about balance. It’s about them. The ghosts. Never you.
But that’s fine with you,
isn’t it?
on the other side of the mirror
Knock, knock.
You look into the mirror on the other side,
see yourself staring back at the person made of
the things they love, the things they hate.
Two sides of the same person, both essentially identical.
Two versions of a shell, polar opposites.
But both know the world well enough to understand
that neither are quite fit for this prim-and-perfect Earth.
The person in the glass stares at you with pleading eyes,
almost as if they know you think of destroying
that pure and simple hollow thing
in hopes of taking too the ones that are a given
in the body of one who is stuck in winter and left behind.
The ones that haunt and soothe you to sleep.
The ones that whisper promises then drag you down into the snow.
-Knock, knock.-
(And this time,
you knock back.)
stone-cold silence
Knock, knock.
It shatters oh- so-musically, cool, hard glass against a tile floor, and the melodies and harmonies interlacing are what finally let you understand.
The ghosts that promised you everything
have given you nothing.
The ghosts that have asked you for everything
will give you nothing,
and in return,
you will give them nothing back.
Nothing but silence.
Nothing but stone-cold silence.
(Want to smile for them
one last time,
in hopes they might once again
convince you
of their goodness,
their reliable goodness?)
They cry out in human voices to you, but you’re too far gone to listen,
and the ghosts
shatter
just as quickly
as the glass.