I think everyone is being haunted
Maybe not by something supernatural
But something more sinister:
Regrets
Missed opportunities
and
the choking sensation of their fear

And as I turned the corner
Into her old room
I saw what I had been warned not to see.
The apparition.

To describe its features would be a great feat;
It had no features so to speak
Just a vague veil
Of a time and place gone by.

In truth it was not terrifying to look at,
In fact it was rather soothing;
The history kept behind the pale old eyes
Kept me drawn to its pale old face.

I was rather calmed by its presence
Until suddenly features started to appear
On its cold dead face
And what had previously been a vacant plane

Was now the vessel of a horrifying creature.
And the sound.
The sound which shattered all the windows
And had with it a tone of fury and anger

Which made my ears cry out in contempt.
And at that point I understood it.
Why it was called what it was.
When I’d heard the cautionary tales of Draymore

I assumed they were nothing but wild fantasy.
But with her scream of a shivering evil
With no compassion in the tone
I realised why
They called her the scream.

My life, it's like a Night Garden
The flowers all folded up
Grown cold and deathly looking in the pale moonlight.

Me! I've just been dreaming... dreaming of the sun
And all the colours like in a painting
How they'd run

How they'd light me up inside, from within
And how I'd smile, just like I smiled back then.

I've just been thinking, thinking of the fun...all the old fun
And dreaming... dreaming of the sun.

(I've just been sitting here in my Night Garden just sitting here waiting... waiting for the ghosts to come).

I had a ghost, too polite to scare,
haunting took the form of kind notes,
a fridge periodically restocked,
socks paired and put in drawers

Eschewing rattled chains and wails
it chose to put the radio on,
only ever easy listening,
Sunday mourning

No ectoplasm,
no unexplained temperature drops
no arcanely spelled clues
to the tragedy of a restless soul

In time, it exorcised itself
and my communion was lost,
with a tidied kitchen,
all brass fittings shone

And I was left with everyday fear

Monk Taio Kaneta

In everyday life
we sacrifice our need to feel
without even knowing it

I see them in reflections - the orange juice glass at breakfast or my iPhone where they can pop, like notifications - I keep my phone face down.

They usually want to tell you something - how it was for them - their history. I discount these emotional messages - they come with the jester's assumption that I care - that I need the performance and will get involved.

“What are you doing?” My mom asks, as I’m taking all the shiny, mirror-like ornaments off the Christmas tree.
“The glare gives me a headache” I say, without stopping.
“Your Grandma does that too”, she says, wiping her hands on a Santa-themed dish-towel.
“Really?” I say, but I know that and I know why.

I started having nightmares, when I was in first grade. My mom thought I had an overactive imagination but when she described it to my grandma, she soon showed up for a visit.

Over the next few weeks my Grandma told me about our “gift”. About how we were both born on the same day, under a waning third moon, in Autumn. That we're both “Yins,” doxies (sweethearts) of the dead and that we could, at times, see and hear people who were between stops on their way to their after-lives.

That’s why the dead parachute into my unused moments from reflective surfaces. They can be anxious or in despair - when their death is cruel or sudden but I'm an adolescent - I'm in school - what can I do??

The presence of water discourages them - which is perfect - can you imagine seeing spirits in the reflections of your bath? EEUUUWWW!  You’ll hardly ever see me without a water bottle or polarized sunglasses - which seem to break-up the images. I'll not be smothered in other people's afterlives.

“Haunted Houses” (1858)
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table, than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star,
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,–

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.