i keep seeing a ghost in the corner of my eye.
it sits on a box just outside my door, looking vacantly, vaguely in my direction. it's hard for me not to glance back.
it's sitting on a box of old clothes.
i cleaned my closet this morning, as well as my desk and floor.
but while i threw out the dust and old tissues, the clothes remain, in the box, outside my door, being used as a chair for the ghost. it's still there.
i just reread and edited all that i've written so far. still there.
it doesn't knock, or pace, or threaten, or cage. it just stares. and yet its gaze feels like it is doing all of the things i mentioned, and a little more.
why are all my poems about death? perhaps all these ghosts that pass by my house beg me to tell their story. perhaps i am an ouija board, with a laptop. perhaps i'm a dream-catcher, looking for some place to write down all these nightmares i catch. perhaps i'm just dumb and spiritual. ghost's still sitting on that box of old clothes. it's glanced away.

you can sell me coffee or tequila
a big cigar or a pack of cigarettes

*** and its consequences
a family life and a family saloon

tell me everything will work out fine
or all is lost never to return

give me a free coffin when I buy that plot of land
the one in the churchyard next the sea

make me believe in reincarnation
I was a butterfly once

but in the end I will wish I drank one more tequila
and one more coffee to revive my numbed out mind.

The wiggle waggle of this little tongue
will one day flop out the side of my mouth
all the muscles will be totally relaxed
and I will lay there stone dead.

I hear you're going through a rough time
Returning to your roots, watching life pass by
Endorsing your own importance, until the last of july
So they'll keep you alive somehow, you'll never die

Everybody wants to think, life is really fair
Everybody wants to think, that they really care

Wait as their smile trickles down your lilac veins
Curious you are, but nothing to explain in a space of raspberry canes
You're swerving in the open lane while others paint their image in chains

The ones you love and the ones you need, you must neglect
Journey to the savage and heady places to connect
Now what you want is what you prefer to reject

What you strive to become is a luminous peacock worm
*But you're an avian flying with what you've earned

Dear mother,
I love you,
but I don't,
don't know what to do.

I've not felt right,
for so long,
I don't know what's left,
I feel so wrong.

I've walked a lonely road,
leading away from society,
been drinking too much,
and long for sobriety.

It's why I look so sad,
even though I say I'm okay,
It's why I have so much fun,
but come home with bloodied fists
at the end of each day.

I can put on that smile,
wear it with bright eyes,
but as soon as I'm alone,
the light dies.

I'm not sure what to do now,
so I write to you mother,
I know you have been through this,
we are a lot alike each other.

I hope you understand,
why I've hid this from you,
because I don't want to worry about me,
or what I might do.

I don't like pills,
or men in white,
so I've made my own therapy,
and I've learned to write.

I am painting this dark picture,
so you know how bad I can feel,
but I end on hope,
that maybe I can heal.

It certainly ain't a cure,
I don't think there is one,
but there is easement,
and I'm certainly not done.

So for now I write this letter,
and head off to bed.

Yours Lovingly,

ED