Do the malevolent poltergeists of my past haunt your benevolent spirit?
When I ride through my ghost-towns like an old west gunslinger,
Will the ricochets shatter your fragile glass house?
If I slash through phantom limbs, is it your blood that I spill on the altar of revenge?
Do all the periods of falling leaves and sundowns I spend at the graveyard
Will away the only real wisps of life I know?

Phantom hands on my earth
Exploring crevices deep within
Phantom eyes on my lanes
Phantom fingers creeping in.

Phantom kisses and phantom breath
On my neck, on my breast
Phantom bite marks on my fields
Planting weeds on my chest.

Phantom laughters, phantom curses
I open my mouth, phantom screams
My earth slumbers in a phantom home
With true nightmares, phantom dreams.

bearing a face i can barely recall
wearing a body that falls through your arms
i was born with these phantom limbs
hands that can't hold anything
grip that won't leave fingerprints
nothing in my possession
i'll haunt the halls that were held from me
always at arm's reach
never in my possession

for what sweet maiden
and what soft lamb
would dare accept
my crooked heart?

cursed words of mine
twisted mercilessly into
wretched ballads
that no one will ever sing.

there’s no salvation for me now
nowhere for me to heal
destruction runs in these veins
beating in my heart of steel

have mercy on my dark heart
be still, these wild thoughts
a pen dipped in jet-black ink
scratched across tormented soul.

I move from room to room,
A phantom in the morning sun

I move to fill the vacant,
I move to fill the stillness,
I move to mirror my interior.

Restless in the comfort of silk,
Confined to the four walls of my brain,
I move to an irregular beat,
My feet dance across the negative space,
Fingers outstretched to nothingness

Maybe if I move,
Maybe if I manifest,
I’ll find tactility,
Maybe,

i have a scar, on the inside of my wrist
not from a blade

it's from my own fingernail
that time i tried to peel my skin off
tired, so tired, of being a
person

i told everyone it was from the curling iron

Don’t know how, don’t know when
I just started looking for you every now and then
Can’t shake off the feeling that you’re always nearby
Knowing that it’s hopeless, don’t know why I try

Searching for you through countless faces
I'm everywhere pulling out all my aces
I must have already bumped into you before---
---maybe that’s the reason why I happen to finally open my door

I start to close my eyes and I’m suddenly in a different place
We’re caught in between winds leaving me in a daze
It’s all in my head but I can’t seem to make out your face
You remain a phantom—dangerous, but beguiling and made by grace

- c.s. (110213)

Phantom of the night
Hides in plain sight
Pretends to be alright
Goodnight