The ghosts - 

They do not scare me lately

Standing over there

In the corner

Over my shoulder

Waiting,

Disappearing at a glance

They are not mean ghosts. 

They are friendly ghosts

Watching, passively

Contently

Without much thought

Or intention

Benevolent observation

And so I do not flinch

When I see them

Sense them

Lurking shadow

Vanishing 

As soon as I check

To see if they’re here

I know they aren’t

And they are

No, the ghosts don’t scare me

When they visit, as promised

At daytime, in sunlight

Glowing like angels

I just smile to myself

Softly, sadly

And say hello

And wish them well

God, why do those stupid, crazy people

“Have to”

Climb the tallest mountain in the world?

I mean

Any other mountain would do

But here I am

Nearing the top

Up where the air is thinning

I’m shedding all my baggage

It tumbles down the slope

And I watch it go

And I ration my oxygen supply

Was it worth it?

Was it worth the climb? The risk?

The fingers I lost to frostbite?

The peak is in sight

And I cannot stop now

Not so close

God, why did I have to climb the highest mountain?

How did I convince myself I wouldn’t die?

And suddenly I’m twenty three

And the house of cards is falling 

My fingers

Skin shredded and bleeding

My hands shaking

The cards bent

I think of a lifetime spent

Buying another chance with paper cuts

And realize that this time

No matter how hard I try

I cannot balance the cards

Or build the house again

The dealer looks at me

Hand outstretched

Waiting for me to return my hand

The cards I’ve held my whole life

That feel familiar under my fingertips

On the table in front of me

A pill

A gun

Poker chips

And an outstretched hand

I look the dealer in the eye

They quirk an eyebrow

I shake my head

They shrug, and smirk

And pull the chips to their side

Where the rest of them are, stacked to the ceiling

They motion to their tower of spoils won

To the cards

The pill

The gun

I shake my head again

Holding my cards to my chest

The dealer taps the table

I reach into my pockets and pull out

Twenty five cents and one wheat penny

The dealer shakes their head

It’s not enough

I turn my pockets inside out

And out falls a crumpled scrap of paper

I smooth it out to reveal a list

Written by a younger me

On wide ruled paper

Detailing my plans for the money I’d win

Some hopes, some dreams

The dealer pucks the paper from my hands

Satisfied

Leaning back 

To watch me try again

I thumb the worn corner of one of my cards

Caked and crusty with my own dried blood

The dealer watches 

As I lie the cards on the table 

Next to the poker chips

The pill

The gun

Setting them down 

For the first time 

And walking away

To look out the window 

And wonder

How I’ll make a house

Out of cards bent and bloody

Why I can’t just be complacent

Enough to take the pill

The gun

Why I’m dumb enough to keep betting

Against the house

And I realize

That I cannot remember

Any of the dreams I wrote

On that crumpled piece of paper

The one I just gambled away

In exchange for one more chance

It begins with dawn, as it always does

A gentle crescendo over a horizon

Coming into the light

Made of the light

Rising over a hill

And then it begins to wonder where it came from

As it always does

It questions the meaning of rising

And considers, without knowing the word

What it means to fall

It conceptualizes the idea of down

If from towards up it came

And so it tries it out

Down

And then it comes back up again

And it has learned that there is somewhere else to go

Somewhere from which it can begin its gentle rise

I just never listened

To those lies you told me

When you said fairies weren’t real

And that we were alone

A case for the C student

My GPA sucks and the world isn’t over

It exploded, but it had nothing to do with me

A case for quantity over quality

Somewhere between

“Here for a good time not a long time”

And 

“I want to live forever”

And

“What’s the point if you’re miserable”

And

“We’re not helpless”

Somewhere in there

A case for hope

I can’t shake it

Against reason

It rises like the sun

Let me remember, someday

When I have made peace 

And forgiven, forgotten 

All these November years

Metallic on my tongue

Heavy in my throat

Swallowing, enduring

Forcing down the nausea

Unclenching my jaw

Softening my features

Rinsing the emotions from my sleeves

Unpainting my face of envy, green and ugly

That I have always valued the high road

Taking it often

Even when no good deed goes unpunished

That I am proper, well-mannered

Especially for a degenerate

Polite enough that I almost deserve to speak

And the Nice People almost listen

That those Nice People have good intentions

And when a sinkhole swallowed me

They asked kindly if I’d tried

Knowing the man who made the floor

Clutching their ladders like their pearls

Oh, the Nice People have always been so deserving

Sitting up straight

Moisturizing their smooth cuticles

Donating to charity

Oh, the Nice People work so hard and are so, so nice

Sticky, syrupy, cyanide with their sweetness

Oh, those poor Nice People

They balk in horror

As I take the low road

They watch me throw my fit

Clutching their pearls like their ladders

As I spit small, sloppy words

Stomping my feet

Tears, the works

Oh, those poor Nice People

Witness their worthy, beloved degenerate

Slip on her tightrope

Plummeting to her death

Collapsing on the street below

By the trash pickup

Where the garbage man reminds me of my uncle

And it’s pathetic

Sad, really

A shame

That she could not escape her lowly inclinations

And went on to hate those kind Nice People

Boiling their sticky, syrupy, cyanide sweetness

In her resentment

With her sticky, syrupy, cyanide silence

Distilling it into bitter almond candy

And selling it back to them in the spring

I measure time in days of sunshine

In hours since the warmth has graced my skin

In the time between sleeping and waking

Not to count hours of rest

But to mathematically determine

For how many hours I have been awake, alive

I measure time by how long ago I saw my parents

But also by familiarity

Which is how I find it possible

That I was seventeen last week

But haven’t been home with my family in years

The sun was out today, so I am alive

And only twenty-two

A number that happens to match

The number of times I have orbited the sun