Reasons to Run
They came separately, as if
They had planned it,
staggering like lions sick
with demons, possessed without mind.
The first ghost appeared
as a black cat and slunk
past, hiding like silence
hides in a priest’s confessional,
your father’s briefcase you were never
allowed to touch. What was
in there?
My therapist said my divorce made me
angry but that I should feel my anger
more because I didn’t know how to be angry.
So I started jogging to Electric Wizard
until my body couldn’t
move anymore and my breath wasn’t breath
but mist
and the second ghost I met was a dad
but not my dad and I called this ghost daddy
and I wanted him but I didn’t know why.
Have you ever met the one, he asked—
and I asked, are you the one?
If you like bad boys and daddys,
then I’m all yours—
baby, forever, cause I can’t die anymore.
I’m already dead
and that’s how I fell in love the first time.
The third ghost came to me
as the third rail hovering below
me like an angel
and the angel was sad like a lightning
bolt off timing, instead coursing
through someone’s veins
instead of the sky.
This person is already dead,
coffin shut dead, spirit gone and dancing
with a stiff leg gone phantom
and a daddy willing to buy
anything to make his beloved happy and
when I was about to ask
them
who they were, who they loved—
they were gone and none of it mattered
because it’s always been about
me the whole time anyway.
(Originally published at Pink Plastic House, 2020)