Ghosts

A crisp line painted across my brain, following through the pools of pain that soak my memory. I have seen ghosts. They are vacant from houses and gravesites, they sit instead curled in my inner ear whispering. Muttering to me tales of the dark in guttural tongues I’ve never heard of the darkness I already know One licks it’s teeth and stares out through my eyes drenching the windows with inky gray grit, and spitting tobacco into all my good moods. They paint portraits across my mind, Swirling reds and blacks over which I try to bleed purple But the blood is only ever red isn’t it. My red or theirs. On the worst of days I cannot tell, so I spill more of my own, just to be safe.