Headspace
Your ghost walks these halls
Breathes ice onto my mirror
Comments on my choice of whole wheat toast
Cradles me like a casket
Haunts me like a song
Your ghost dances these floors
Leaves words written on my walls
Laughs when I can’t find the keys
Hums like a premonition
Hovers like a head-cold
Your ghost holds these dusty bones
With creaking steps
And silent echoes
What I Remember
It’s not something I remember all the way,
Or I remember easily,
I know there was an old wooden cross,
Planted in the sand,
And the trees crowded around it
Until the sun set,
And shown through the trembling leaves,
And casting the shadow along
The benches where we sat.
I know after our stuffy, nine-hour long car drive
That I ran across the coloring sand
In my boxy, mint green dress.
And I tugged it up just enough so the hem
Didn’t get wet,
But the waves would leave bubbles between my toes.
I know I made a candle by dipping a long string into pots,
Of colored wax.
I was so excited by the rings of color at the end,
The orange, purple and pink,
That I kept dipping until,
The base was as big as my fist.
This didn’t make the craft lady happy,
Who scolded me more than once.
But I knew I was right,
Because my candle didn’t fall apart,
Like she said it would.
I know I wanted it so badly;
An eraser purple necklace from the gift shop,
My mom caved in and got it for me.
I know that it broke,
Two days later.
I know we played mancala
Outside of a cabin full of dead animals,
Bones and branches.
It was carved into the table
And we used rocks and acorns
As pieces.
I know there was a famous ice cream store
We passed before we came to camp.
It was called Blue Moon,
With a crescent
Flashing neon onto the cars as they passed.
I remember giddily peering through the clear plastic
Onto the tubs of fanciful flavors
I could choose from.
With all the bravery and excitement I could muster,
I picked Blue Moon.
I know we sat outside,
On the sticky, faux-stone benches
Under an umbrella impossible to open.
I know we entered a sand castle contest,
And it was my job to gather driftwood and feathers
To make our Garden of Eden look real.
I know we sang silly prayers in the big,
Stained café before we got the chance to
Eat until we were full, and sip hot cocoa,
In the middle of summer.
I know one day while I was swimming,
I pooped in my swimsuit,
And without a towel
I waddled the sandy sidewalks
And creaking bridges
To our cabin where Dad was snoring on the couch.
I remember telling him I made a mess
But nothing afterward.
I remember Grandma
Giving my favorite Kitty
In her cabin after we played with puzzles.
Later, I’ll never know how much,
My aunts, Mom and sisters were playing Bingo
With me in the café.
I won, and out of the crate of prizes,
I picked another Kitty
Just like the one Grandma gave me,
Jojo won,
And got a Kitty with orange and yellow
Stripes.
But after the game ended,
My sister Hannah didn’t win,
And with one sister with two cats,
And one with none,
My mother made me decide
Which one to give up.
Both were black and gray
And both were practically the same,
Except, one was far cuter than the other.
A moral dilemma burgeoned in my
Seven-Year-old mind -
Do I give her the cute one?
Or the ugly one?
I’d appreciate
Kitty, the cute one more –
I let Hannah have the ugly one.
I know I used the individual
Coffee creamers as milkshakes
For my Kitty.
They kept them in a basket next to the
Coffee machine in the café.
Where kids found silly smiles
In drinking hot cocoa in the middle of summer.
I don’t know why
We can’t go back.
The way Mom and Dad explained it
Had to go with the owner molesting someone?
Or gambling the land away?
I choose to remember the pretty things;
The daddy-long-legs, the inchworms, the woodpecker
Under the bridge.
The red, rusty spigot we fruitlessly tried to spray
Off the sand sticking to our feet.
The hot metal canoe I sat in
As my parents paddled to the picnic.
The chance to sit under that tall cross and
Write while the pastor rambled on about on.
I don’t remember anything else,
Maybe someday.
One Last Time
Had I asked too much?
Had I clung to the love, I never thought I
Deserved...
Does he feel the emptiness in the center of his
Heart, the kick in the gut,
The wandering reminder of what we had
I cannot look, I cannot blink, I cannot laugh
I cannot sleep
Without the haunting form circling around me
Holding me tight.
I dream of moonlight, silver fishes
And speaking to you
I imagine gnomes, fairies
And loving you one last time.