Ghosts

I remember you
Moving my toys
Before I could walk
Making me scream for my mother
Before I had the words to tell
I remember you easing up from beside my mother’s bed
Your eyes huge, wet, reflective globes
I remember you on the wall
I remember you in the corner of my room, whispering wet whispers
I remember you beneath my bed
Above my bed, oh God
I remember you hovering there

I saw you
In the closet door
Standing
Dripping wet
Expectant

I saw you in the window of the abandoned house
Hospital
Jail

I saw you in the water
I saw you in the trees
I saw you in the shower
I saw you in that space between awake and asleep

I see you
There, behind my friend
You there behind my friend
Behind my friend
You
You
You and you and you and you and you
I see you there
Behind my father
Behind my son
Feel you there
Behind my back
Brushing up against my arm

I see you with the strangers walking by me in the mall
I see you seeing me seeing you
I hear you smell you taste you feel you

I have your heart attack
I suffer your stroke
I drown with you burn with you starve with you
Feel how you died

You
Behind the sick man in the elevator
All around him
Your fingers in his belly
Black and hateful fingers

They want to be like me
My students with their gifts
They yearn for what I see
And it makes me feel like crying

I see you everywhere

I see you and I’m quiet
I process it within
I see you and I’m terrified
You, holding my son…you, beneath him
So breathtakingly beautiful
And so indescribably horrifying

You, I see you, too
You who have never been human
You who are beyond beautiful
And you, too, who are dark

I see you there

I see you and I can’t make it stop

Make it stop make it stop

Don’t ever stop.