I heard a ghost story once.
It left my mouth tasting sour
my mind turned dark
my mood bleak and dour.
I was spitting for weeks
but the taste didn't come out.
I'd been screaming for hours
but only managed to shout.
Everything seemed bigger once
in dreams or in our youth.
Maybe that was just me
maybe that is the truth.


There was once a house
where a murderer lived, high on the hill,
that we were afraid to walk by
because we'd heard he was there, still.
The curtain would move
you told me smiling wide,
I couldn't prove it but
I suspected you'd lied.

You mocked and you jeered
called me a coward.
Dared me to approach
and my stomach soured.
I stood out on the street
for a long time with shaking knees
before coming to my senses
and retreating into the bordering trees.
I could hear your laughter
even as you called my name
but I didn't turn around.
I couldn't face my shame.

One autumn I plucked up my nerve
and visited that haunted old place.
I walked through the front door
a chill in the air and sun on my face.
It was clear that no one lived there
and had not for a great while.
There was graffiti and trash everywhere,
holes in the hard wood, cracks in the tile.
I looked out a broken window
at the street down below.
I swear I could see me
as I was so many years ago.

I heard a ghost story once
in which I was the ghost.
No hooks for hands
no sounding heavenly host.
Just a man standing in an
empty house all alone,
looking back on the years
and thinking, my how you've grown.
Everything seemed bigger once
in dreams or in our youth.
Maybe that was just me
maybe none of this is the truth.