Little. Pretty. End. [a poem]

Little Pretty End

I never used to believe in superstitious bullshit

like monsters, isolated with anger.

like fairies, all simplicity and grace.

like ghosts, those shadows of our fears.

I never used to be          

lots

of

things.

           

I was gasping with potential once,

back when my hair

was summer blonde

and eyes distinctly blue.

Now my eyes are cheap mood rings turning your fingers green,

and my hair is murky dish water.

At this age, no one has time for those

not explicitly sublime,

and in the end

you’re only swimming against yourself

alone.

I am

            det

    ach

  ed.

In the way

       clouds are

far and transparent.

                        As they are on the nights

                                    when stars look like bowling pins

                        aligned and teetering,

                                    as risky and fragile as a first kiss.

Before you recognized life as a script

not written by you.

I look from the mountain top

down into the valley, and from

this height I can tell you,

with perfect clarity, all the

workings

and meanings

and mechanisms rooted there.

But I cannot tell you

what the apples taste like,

or the temperature of the water

on the first day of summer.

                                                All I know is: those people below

                                                seem to think safe means they’re

                                                never going to die.

But pieces of us die all the time. My first ghost was playful,

like a shock of half-melted ice cubes

teasing down the space between my spine

and the edge of my mind.

I was too young to recognize her - that

small

separation

of myself.

She cried

               far too often

               for a perfect young lady like me

               to put up with, or comfort.

And so I hushed her

tears; smothered her

with strength; no more teddy bears,

band-aids, or night lights in the hall. 

Little Ghost

                                    had no mother to protect her. I took her heart

                                    and put it in a jar covered in Nutrition Facts stickers;

a thousand irreversible calories, teaching her

 the threat of XRay eyes used for seeing what was actually inside.

People wear them on their souls, sometimes.

We both understood love

                                    was harder

to find when you don’t believe in men

in the sky,

   mall,

         magazines,

                      or otherwise

So when the second ghost

                        festered in  my intestines

                        demanding me to be some

body, I thought she’d gotten lost or maybe just bored.

Lucky,

                        I had taught Little Ghost well,

                        she helped put Pretty Ghost in her place.

                        Pressed her down,

a grape into wine,

so we would never

have to taste

the dripping of disappointment.

Sensuality gone to rot;

overlooked at the market on a boiling-blue Sunday.

Little Ghost turned tough and vulgar

as she drank up all that pretty, pretty wine

when no one could judge her – in the dark –

where nothing mattered (but it did matter)

and she began to dream

of slugging down fat blue pills

like trout swimming upstream;

            she imagined they would pour down her throat

with the mechanism of nature and

she would be free to float on her back

through a long black river

of timeless

quiet and peace.

Wallpaper yellowed and began to peel away,

stickers fell off old school notebooks.

The ghosts were coming unglued from tissues and bones.

No amount of strength or smarts

seemed able

to save us, save me

from destroying what I had failed to become.

Third ghost, End Ghost, sensible and wise,

found me on my back, staring at the ceiling,

face half in shadow of a liquid crystal display,

when I should have been

sleeping

or studying

or being held and holding.

End Ghost

ordered a meeting

around the table of my eye;   

Little Ghost

                        sat unchanging, with her shoulders

                        overgrown from her tiny body;

                        her bones pulling, too early, and stretching the canvas of skin.

While Pretty Ghost was a tall, lean bottle;

                                                                                    all the bubbling red wine emptied

                                                                                    long before it could mature.

Three ghosts and me

                        all wanting to be happy,

                        as though it were a piece of colored glass kept in the pocket of a child’s sundress.

                                    I am unsuited to care for such delicate things.

End Ghost was the shape

of my mind

                                    my body.

                                    my heart.

                                                            The future past

                                                            where you are not alive, but

                                                            merely a memory on repeat.

                        A life lived,

and gone, and

lived again.

                                                                                    I was told to be someone,

                                                                                    but all I came to be was a collection

                                                                                    of ghosts; of what others thought was real.

So I escaped into the mountains

 where no more ghosts could find me and

                                     Little, Pretty, End and I

 lie free and naked under shades of grassy solitude

                                                            watching the dividing stream

                                                            slipping between us and the valley;

                                                            between me and the woman I was supposed to have been.