Nov 2019
Have you ever seen a ghost?…
When I look out of my apartment’s 2nd story window at the street below, I see them. I see them when I look into the dim eyes of a hooded youth walking by, hands in pockets. I see them in a woman, shoulders slumped as she sweeps the front steps of her shop. And as the sun sets on another day, I see them… I see them in the souls that shuffle into the bar just down the street and in the tired, weathered faces of some of my fellow tenants as they return to their homes, another week of their lives wrung out of them.
I once pondered these things one early morning as I sat on my balcony, coffee in hand, and listen to the silence of a sleeping city in the twilight of a young November day. As I observe people going about their routines, certain ones stand out to me… I can see the ghosts in them. When I look into certain people’s eyes the dark reflection of their presence reaches into me, hungrily calculating the imperceptible. You see, souls, like panes of glass, are fragile impressions into a reality. In order to preserve these self serving realities, humans shrivel into pathetic shells of the essence they used to be. They put on a mask.
And that is when they come.
Like a breath of stale wind they fall into you, clawing at one’s heart and wrapping the mind in a numbing layer of torpidity. Their roots creep silently down one’s spine, intertwining with bone and sinew. They feast ceaselessly attempting to satiate their appetites on the droplets of resolve, of hope, of meaning that is left in a person’s life. The eyes… they are the tell-tale. I stare into the hallowed holes behind the eyes, behind the mask, and I know… I see them hovering there.
I write these things now from my bathroom. The orange glint of an empty pill bottle to my left, on the right, the shimmering of many thin, red rivulets streaming off my arm onto the tile below. As I stare into the mirror I reach up and touch the cool, white shape I see there, peering into the the two black abysses staring back at me. I watch as a single tear slips out from under the porcelain and glides effortlessly down my throat as the corners of my vision begin to blacken and my knees give way to weakness.
And I ask you again… have you ever seen a ghost?
When I look out of my apartment’s 2nd story window at the street below, I see them. I see them when I look into the dim eyes of a hooded youth walking by, hands in pockets. I see them in a woman, shoulders slumped as she sweeps the front steps of her shop. And as the sun sets on another day, I see them… I see them in the souls that shuffle into the bar just down the street and in the tired, weathered faces of some of my fellow tenants as they return to their homes, another week of their lives wrung out of them.
I once pondered these things one early morning as I sat on my balcony, coffee in hand, and listen to the silence of a sleeping city in the twilight of a young November day. As I observe people going about their routines, certain ones stand out to me… I can see the ghosts in them. When I look into certain people’s eyes the dark reflection of their presence reaches into me, hungrily calculating the imperceptible. You see, souls, like panes of glass, are fragile impressions into a reality. In order to preserve these self serving realities, humans shrivel into pathetic shells of the essence they used to be. They put on a mask.
And that is when they come.
Like a breath of stale wind they fall into you, clawing at one’s heart and wrapping the mind in a numbing layer of torpidity. Their roots creep silently down one’s spine, intertwining with bone and sinew. They feast ceaselessly attempting to satiate their appetites on the droplets of resolve, of hope, of meaning that is left in a person’s life. The eyes… they are the tell-tale. I stare into the hallowed holes behind the eyes, behind the mask, and I know… I see them hovering there.
I write these things now from my bathroom. The orange glint of an empty pill bottle to my left, on the right, the shimmering of many thin, red rivulets streaming off my arm onto the tile below. As I stare into the mirror I reach up and touch the cool, white shape I see there, peering into the the two black abysses staring back at me. I watch as a single tear slips out from under the porcelain and glides effortlessly down my throat as the corners of my vision begin to blacken and my knees give way to weakness.
And I ask you again… have you ever seen a ghost?
© Dysphoria, 2019
If anyone you know is already wearing a mask, I hope you care enough to help them take it off.
If anyone you know is already wearing a mask, I hope you care enough to help them take it off.
