To ghost is to release your self
like tar from lungs
out into the universe like a cloud
unraveling from the night sky.
To put on the jacket of the
invisible man, flipping up the collar to shield yourself from the whistling of
the wind through
His two front teeth… Stepping out
into the street
and feeling the grit
of gravel beneath your feet,
keeping your eyes
at least two feet in front of you
so that you don’t
miss the tiny landscapes and
roadside attractions
between your toes: a shriveled
worm, a half dollar coin, a ring
from a vending machine, broken
glass that looks licked smoothed
by the desert and at least 5 dried
flowers dropped from the diary
of a young girl who walked along
this path not 15 minutes before you.
To
ghost is to guess how far away the ground is and then to leap,
Keeping
in mind that if you die, no one will remember your
Smile
or the sweetness of your shampoo that lingers like
The
smell of rain. Feel the disdain
When
you land with a resounding shock—the reverberations
Rattle
your molars into the back of your mouth,
Swallowing
them despite yourself, like when you learned
To
stomach the smell of flesh, the feel of it on your tongue
The
fleeing of life from another being
Hoping
their soul made it somewhere after its body was processed
Compressed
into shapes that we might find appetizing
Dodging our instincts to dominate
our inner beast
Deepening the divide between our
spirits and our minds.
To
be ghosted is to stand behind her, listening to the way
Her
fingernails sang over the grooves of vinyl,
Tiny
mountain ranges like the silhouette of her spine.
It
was divine to run my tongue along the topography of
Her body, I remember
Her cool salty taste like the sea in
December and the gravel cutting
into my palms like
The
night we locked ourselves out of her brother’s apartment so I
Stripped
my shirt off, slipping it around my hand before
Punching
it through the glass window, feeling the crunch of
My
knuckles on impact. Red ribbons of pain cinching around
My
wrists like zipties cutting off the circulation, the sensation of
My
body thrust into the cop car and I could hear her sobs, wracking
As
I plead for someone to help her, hold her and simultaneously searching
For something to thrust into my eye
socket,
To
hear the white noise, feel the static, dissipate this sensation
Anticipating
the return of musical memory, humming the melody into my
Skeleton,
vibrating my bones so I can remember
Her
breath in tune to the music, her hips
Swaying
somewhere between bass and vocals in a rhythm you can
See
but not hear, having the words form in my mouth
And
letting them fall flat, watching her move with the sway of
An
African belly dancer, cigarette smoke hanging around her limbs
Like
the fog caressing the peaks
Of
a mourning mountain.
