Black Ink and Parchment

We spend so much of October talking about ghosts, telling stories about things that move through empty hallways, footsteps heard above us when no one is home, shadows crossing windows, and voices coming from rooms that have been locked for decades.

We like to be frightened by things we can blame on the supernatural Because at least with a ghost, we know what we are supposed to be afraid of.

We can close the door. Turn on the light. Leave the old house. Tell ourselves it was only the wind moving through the trees. But some of the things that truly haunt us are still alive: sitting across from us at Thanksgiving dinner, having our phone numbers, and knowing we live. As much as I love a good ghost story, I think there are things far more frightening. Some of our worst fears are waiting for us in the present.

Here are 15 lines from my poetry that remind us that there are things far scarier than any ghost….

1. I knew your face long before I learned it was a mask.
2. I gave you the map to my wounds, and you used it so you knew exactly where to cut.
3. The cruelest ghost is the one still sleeping beside you.
4. They leave an empty chair at the Thanksgiving table and teach you not to look at it.
5. I have never felt more alone than beneath a chandelier full of laughter.
6. Sometimes I wonder if another version of me is standing somewhere
   in the dark, living the life I was too afraid to choose.
7. Watching the years become ghosts before you’re ready to bury them.
8. I watched you become someone I would have crossed the street to avoid.
9. I looked into the mirror and wondered when the stranger had moved in.
10. She knew my name. I didn’t know hers.
11. I forgot what my freedom sounded like.
12. The loneliest grave is the one no one remembers existed.
13.  Apologies arrive after I’ve forgiven them.
14.  Death stealing someone before I told them I loved them.
15.  Surrounded by memories that overcrowd an empty room.