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Haunted

I am being haunted
by my ghost.
It must be my ghost,
it knows too much
to arise from someone else’s body.
It remembers my past.
Remembers my dreams,
the ones I forgot so quickly on wakening
and the ones I left behind later,
only to revisit in future dreaming.

It knows too much.
It remembers the past
I prefer to forget,
the mishaps,
the missed opportunities,
the opportunities grasped too soon,
too impetuously,
the people left behind, happily or not,
the feelings I felt.
It remembers it all
and stalks my present with its memories.

It must be my ghost.
It knows too much
to arise from someone else’s body.
No one came that close.
Not for so long,
a lifetime.
I made sure of that.
But how can it be my ghost?
I’m still living.
Still alive.
And ghosts belong to the dead,
to those with no future.
But it must belong to me,
this ghost of my present
living in my past.

First published in ParABnormal Magazine, Hiraeth Books, June 2020

~~

The Haunted Saucepan

“You’ll be in the soup
if you go out in this,”
she said,
“It’s a real pea-souper.”
I carried on stirring,
I wasn’t thinking of going out anyway.

I have to keep stirring
or I’ll be in the soup,
that’s what my saucepan says.
And I listen to her
as I peer through the fog
inside.
I know
what a sticky mess she can make
if I don’t obey her.

So I keep on stirring,
hoping that soon
she’ll let me eat.

I keep on stirring,
hoping that sometime
she’ll let me eat.

First published in Brave and Reckless, Monster She Wrote, October 2021

~~

Spiriting Away

All that is solid
melts away
in death
consumed by fire
or worms
transformed
decaying
into so much dust.

So only memories remain.

And the spirits,
of course,
the ghosts
of what we were
of what became us
and what we became.

First published in Poets Online, Ghosts, May 2025

~~

Ghost Memories

My memory is playing ghosts
covering me in a white sheet
with just peepholes
for the light
to shine
through
in little
flashes
sometimes.

I wonder if I can believe them
these flashes.
I wonder if I can believe in ghosts
those in hiding
waiting
to leap
out
into my future.

First published in Spell Jar Press, Teacakes and Tarot, May 2025