Ghosts with Cynophobia

Ghosting (2022)

I am a ghost
I have many bodies
Spread around
In the places that I felt rested
Or sad or tired or scared about
That I felt strongly, places that moved me
Because they had ghosts.
I left behind a body, not because I wanted to
Not necessarily, though sometimes I did,
But it’s accidental, I’m not trying to, really
I’m just there and sometimes they’re there too
And they stay when I’m gone

Footprints, I wear many shoes
And step through the snow and the blood and the dirt
Of different sizes, so they’ll never catch me
In my sinister manner, I climb the steps
Over patios and tiles and bricks,
Anything that can receive my mark, really
That’s all there is to it, if I can sink my teeth in
I’ll bite, but sometimes
I’m rushing through a place and I don’t
Consider whether stilettos or pumps are more practical
And I bleed
For injury or violence, who’s to say
Which way the pendulum sways? I bleed
And leave my mark that way.
I don’t leave them cause I wanted to, always
Wiping my feet off on the doormat. Wiping my feet off.
But there’s always evidence. It doesn’t matter what you want.
Or say. Confess if you like, they won’t care.
That the blood’s on your hands, because it’s also on the soles
Of your feet. And it doesn’t matter. Bodies are temporary.
And yet, the evidence, damning.
There’s always something that says “I stayed”
Something that says “I ran. I mourned.”
“I screamed, I cried, bled, hoped and prayed.”

“I peeked through the transparent shards of light
Bearing down on the stained glass windows
Of Jesus Christ and his mother the virgin Mary,
Mother of God, casting the shadow of immaculate
Red and gold and blue onto the red-carpeted floors,
And dying the air across a line spectrum of the secret
One hundred and nineteenth element.
I saw red eyes on the other side of the pews.”

The police were confused by my letter
Inspired by Heather Chandler,
I forged my writing with my own two hands
And my brain and my nails and my teeth to hold the paper
I trailed ink and left my mark that way
I trailed blood and left a body, yet
I am a ghost. I’ll leave another.
Death’s not when the last one dropped, I waited a week
To be embalmed and lowered into the grave.
That was the last one. The Earth was the last place
That moved me, or rather, I was moved to
You see? It’s like last time.
I hadn’t a choice, did I?
It’s not on purpose, always.

Just when you think you’ve found the crack in the code
The final piece of evidence to close my case
A note. A shoebox. Tied up nicely, all bundled up and tidy,
A beautiful blue box, cardboard,
And inside its purple. And your shoes are white and red.
Uh-huh, I said, white and red.
That counts as evidence, don’t it? You’re fed up aren’t you
Of finding shoes. I’ve owned so many.
And where they’ve been’s important too
Up to the cathedral?
Did they walk up to the cathedral on Sundays?
Shoes that say, “I went”
Notes that say, “I stopped and rejoiced.”
“I quieted my tongue, I laughed, sutured the wounds,
Gave up and fell to sacrilege and heresy.”

The world had gone quiet in the dark night of September
And nothing spoke for fear it would disturb the gentle moonlight
Hidden behind a swathe of clouds
Like a baby, swaddled in kind greys, making soft little noise
Into the nighttime. No one could hear it
But the moon’s mouth formed around the words
Desperate in the wake of its infantile eclipse.
Thirty-first is yesterday, today was first, “primero!”

I remember it from Spanish class, I remember it for being prime
Like maths has different rules
That forced one to stand alone or- something else.
I thought lots of things at the time. Primero!
And what a fine one.

“The red eyes stalked up to me, across the pews
I stood in the moonlight as it crystallised across my irises and
The night kissed my cheekbones
Like a mother a daughter
The moving head of the creature struck an odd pattern over the blackness
Did it walk up to the cathedral?
Bearing a rat-face, wet hit my cheeks and a great big maw
In my face, thick and transparent, breath like decay
Maggots making their way through the thin tissue of my lungs
And into my blood stream.
They wouldn’t have bodies to find, this time.
No body, but a face, and I was so glad.
I was so glad in the face of not having to be a ghost anymore.
I was glad, fiercely, not to be burdensome.
It took my shoes off and put them in a box delivered by mail
Asked me for a forgery. I gave it a forgery.
I took both my hands and gently guided it’s head over me,
Mouth open above my own skull, so we were kind of face to face
But it wouldn’t have to look at me
Unless it wanted to. I asked it to leave a mark.
It bit.”