Here is something I am writing to you, you who are anonymous, un-answering and untrue - a figment of my imagination or perhaps a haunter of my day-dreams.
Here is something I am writing to you out of need to write to a ghost.
My god how life slips away from us. We keep things noisy so as not to hear the footsteps of death as she sneaks in to souvenir our breath right out of our lungs but eventually we come to a quiet moment and notice all the damage that we have done.
How can life be so familiar and repetitive and yet blindside us with something we always knew would come?
I once dreamed of a future truth and my face drained of blood when I saw it approach me and then I saw it approach you.
But we didn't stop still like I know we should have instead we trudged on with imperceptible steps toward something shiny and light, our tiny hands patting down the earth where our fathers have died and children have danced but the heart remains sodden with hope.
Do you remember that the joker at the bed-side of death was candid and charming?
The fleeting vision of her, her me-ness, myself encapsulated in this tiny stranger who borrowed my mind and did better with it than I ever could. She would soon move on to also dwell in my previous heart; it is just a relic now. I sometimes remove it from my chest and stare at it like a fossil dug from the earth. I wonder what it was when it was alive for it is more dust now than solid matter.
Dust, in a small box behind a door of glass, this is where memory lives.
From that sodden earth where our handprints lay, a curly-hair boy springs up like a wild flower.
He tells me stories of pink gorillas and trees so tall that you could never hope to reach the top. From the wastes of our death this boy is born, for death steals only our present and gifts to us the children that we had long misplaced.
So take this note and hide it in the future of history for me; place it somewhere safe where the child will one day play. When she cries knock-knock you will jump out of the grave and surprise her. She will know then that we had briefly held her love.
Be a silent ghost and be a good one. Don't prickle us with pain and visions of cold yellow flesh but visit us gently when we are alone. Sit in our souls silently and remind us that we are all there ever was.
Copyright 2020 Sonny Clarke
Here is something I am writing to you out of need to write to a ghost.
My god how life slips away from us. We keep things noisy so as not to hear the footsteps of death as she sneaks in to souvenir our breath right out of our lungs but eventually we come to a quiet moment and notice all the damage that we have done.
How can life be so familiar and repetitive and yet blindside us with something we always knew would come?
I once dreamed of a future truth and my face drained of blood when I saw it approach me and then I saw it approach you.
But we didn't stop still like I know we should have instead we trudged on with imperceptible steps toward something shiny and light, our tiny hands patting down the earth where our fathers have died and children have danced but the heart remains sodden with hope.
Do you remember that the joker at the bed-side of death was candid and charming?
The fleeting vision of her, her me-ness, myself encapsulated in this tiny stranger who borrowed my mind and did better with it than I ever could. She would soon move on to also dwell in my previous heart; it is just a relic now. I sometimes remove it from my chest and stare at it like a fossil dug from the earth. I wonder what it was when it was alive for it is more dust now than solid matter.
Dust, in a small box behind a door of glass, this is where memory lives.
From that sodden earth where our handprints lay, a curly-hair boy springs up like a wild flower.
He tells me stories of pink gorillas and trees so tall that you could never hope to reach the top. From the wastes of our death this boy is born, for death steals only our present and gifts to us the children that we had long misplaced.
So take this note and hide it in the future of history for me; place it somewhere safe where the child will one day play. When she cries knock-knock you will jump out of the grave and surprise her. She will know then that we had briefly held her love.
Be a silent ghost and be a good one. Don't prickle us with pain and visions of cold yellow flesh but visit us gently when we are alone. Sit in our souls silently and remind us that we are all there ever was.
Copyright 2020 Sonny Clarke