Phillip Elliott writes

Ghosts Are Cliché and So Were We                                               

 

First we were haunted by Time. She stood in every corner 

pointing at her wrist, face torn with sorrow, hunched and

reluctant — a mortician too long in the job.

3days was never enough / 3days was everything.

I was plagued by mind shadows, you, pursued by 

etchings on those old Scottish walls; I should have

been singing hymns when you chose me to run to. 

And local punk band, Ghost Trap, and how we danced,

couldn’t make out the words except for ‘loneliness’ on

that song, Mascara, and all the times yours bled into

trails of ash, and how I should have wiped them clean,

started afresh — ah, what good is regret.

Haunted too we were by the change in seasons and how 

it signalled your going away. ‘Summer never ends,’ a man

shouted at us, and how hard we struggled to believe him.

                                    You wore a perfume called Ghost; I

                                    remember the smell: lavender&hope.

Now I’m haunted by you, by us, by every-fucking-thing 

you touched, and you touched my soul, dipped yourself

right into my chest, took with you the planet and all the

dizzy spin of it. Time, though, she’s still here, tapping that 

skinny ancient wrist, eyes like holes, tears in her fist, but my

frustration is reversed, no more praying for her to slow down. 

‘Count faster,’ I scream, ‘all that’s left for you to take is the wait.’ 

She never answers, just stares in terror, mouth bleeding off her face. 

                                     But the real ghost is our innocence. I tore it

                                     out of our chests and painted the past with it.

 

 

 

 

 Woman Shadowed by Ghost of Other -- Marco Zubar