Laughing Ghosts (day 164)

“You thought you knew thunder,”

these ghosts laugh in my face.

 

“We’ll show you how much you thought you knew.

 

We’ll show you the burning ache in your throat

when you spend too many quiet nights in a lonely house.

 

We’ll show you all the girls with

easier smiles

braver wits

lighter baggage than you.

 

We’ll show you all the people

you didn’t look in the eye

when they would hand you an open book.

 

We’ll show you how choking can kill

when you swallow the next few days

trying to grasp everything she never told you

with no one to hold on to.

 

We’ll show you

flashbacks

flashbacks

flashbacks

every time you see a hint of his face.

 

We’ll show you

long cold nights

where you can have everything you need

and still somehow fall asleep with a hole in your chest.

 

We’ll show you the crime scene made entirely of you,

every sin you have tasted as it fell from your throat or flowed from your hands,

the backs of everyone you thought you knew

as they sprint to escape your self-destruction.

 

Every time you thought you couldn’t be angrier,

you could twist a blade

deeper in his chest than your name ever made it

and turn your back without a second thought,

we’ll hand you the knife.

 

We’ll show you a clap

that shakes your soul

so you think it’s the end.”

 

“You thought you knew thunder,”

laughing ghosts with lunatic eyes

shriek from beneath my bedside table.

“Well, we’ll show you a hurricane.”

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Written 1/7/17

Lunatic eyes

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