I Live with Ghosts

I live with ghosts.

They flash into the corner

And then vanish.

They keep me up at night,

Pounding like hail upon the roof,

Upon the floor.

They scream at me

As one would scream at themself,

With tired lungs, through froth,

Within a lonely, dusty desolation they had brought.

They hide from me,

Those times when I go looking for the ghosts.

And then they surprise me,

Popping out, with blazing eyes, from in the dark,

With twisted, horrible faces,

Looking like crooked souls;

Nothing like the ghosts I’d known before.

But still,

They drag me on,

The ghosts that haunt me,

Through my dusty desolation,

Through the dark.

Still, they keep me smiling, in the deep hazes of my mind.

And still, I cannot help but look into the dark

When I hear my ghosts come screaming,

Their faces indescribable, harrowing, gleaming.

But always, I wake up and understand that I was dreaming,

Sadly, dreaming.

And I call out vainly to the ghosts who are no more.

They will come back in a different form, I am sure.

The ghosts, they are my dreams.