#ghoststories
By day he wore a face of stone,
a man at work, a man at home.
Mid-tier, mid-forties, fading fast,
a shadow built to never last.
Unseen, unseen, the hours crawled,
his name half-heard, his voice forestalled.
Reliable. Invisible.
Forgettable. Admissible.
But night —
night gave him another skin,
a grinning mask, a skeleton grin.
Blurry selfies, pumpkin puns,
cheap delights for midnight ones.
And they laughed.
They saw.
He mattered more
than the man he’d left behind the door.
She answered louder than the rest,
late-twenties, lonely, dispossessed.
Her laughter quick, replies too fast,
his irony returned as gospel, cast.
“I know this isn’t you,” she said.
“I want the man who hides instead.”
He recoiled.
Deleted.
Ghosted.
Fled.
But silence is a mask that turns,
and absence is a fire that burns.
3:33, the phone alight,
a skeleton meme each waiting night.
3:33, a plastic hand,
a note enclosed: You’ll understand.
3:33, the offering grows —
a pumpkin smashed, its seeds exposed.
Her love became a ritual rhyme,
his jokes became a curse in time.
“You don’t get to leave,” she swore,
“You owe me you, forevermore.”
And he —
the man who sought the crowd,
who wanted laughter, not too loud,
who craved the gaze but feared the weight,
found every mask could seal his fate.
No one is innocent here, no one.
Not the trickster, not the one undone.
He wore deception like a shield,
she made obsession her battlefield.
Now only one mask still remains —
cheap plastic grin through windowpanes.
Spoopy, childish, still, absurd,
yet sharper than his final word.
The curtains gap, the silence bends,
a tilted grin that never ends.
And he knows, beneath the grin so slight:
her mask will never leave the night.
Sep 22, 2025
Sep 22, 2025 at 4:41 AM UTC
It's soooooooooo
cold,
You could snap my toes off
Like mould,
In buildings old,
Where erry ghost stories
Will be told…
Jul 28, 2025
Jul 28, 2025 at 3:01 PM UTC
Mammy had a cauldron of stories,
And Mammy never lied;
Strange tales about the living,
Still touched by those who've died.
She spoke of a friend who read the leafs:
When babies died, she heard banshees;
She foresaw the cornice collapse,
Saved me when I was three.
She whispered these tales
Through pressed lips,
Would pause to sip her tea.
Seers told her of her one-legged mother
Standing guard at the foot of her bed,
Long after she was dead.
One prophet spoke of an open door,
A one-way trip to a foreign shore,
And agonies she'd bend to endure.
For me, these stories rang so true,
For mothers wouldn't lie to you;
Yet Father said she was a sinner,
Spinning yarns against God's will.
That's not the story in Bethany,
Or the fairy homes beneath the hills.
Are there ghosts under our beds,
In the closets in our heads;
Hovering over marked graveyards,
Abandoned houses and Tarot Cards?
When the unknown night tore at me,
I'd been told I could pray
To the Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Now they're the ones I fear the most,
They're the stories she often chose.
May 13, 2019
May 13, 2019 at 10:02 AM UTC
A brightly lit room still holds darkness.
Look deeply,
Leopard like sharpness.
In a corner or behind the door.
Look closely,
Maybe under the floor.
Look high, look low.
Bring a friend,
Let the search grow.
Look to the wardrobe,
Maybe you see it.
Pressure building in your lobe.
Look under the bed,
Creepy crawlies,
Infecting your head.
Look in the closet,
Careful there I say,
Untold, unknown,
A ghoulish made deposit.
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 4:43 AM UTC
Scared of the wolf,
and the world,
oh so dark.
Keep it together,
come on don’t fall apart.
Outside my window,
he creeps through the night,
why does it scare me?
This cowardice art.
Hiding in fear,
no light in sight,
twilights gone and so is the fright.
Footsteps nor shadows,
it’s silent for now,
but he’ll be back soon
when the light has sufficed.
- BRTN
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 9:26 AM UTC