Easily Spooked
I am a scary ghost. I am a horror movie that you couldn’t handle, locking your lean fingers in front of your eyes. You were never going to be able to handle it. I’m a liability—a hindrance, a nuisance, an encumbrance. A burden.
I walk strobe-lit hallways in a flowing white nightgown and unkempt hair, whispering unintelligible nothings. Impossible to comprehend, but my timbre is enough to chill the length of the spine. I can scare from any distance.
I never meant to frighten you. I tried everything not to. But I overwhelmed you; my loud personality was a racket of dissonant tones that had you either gritting your teeth or pointedly aware of the hair on your neck standing straight up.
You couldn’t handle the eeriness and you didn’t embrace the fear, even just a little bit, enough to take a step into the dark. Your supply of curiosity had dried up. I’m still grieving that you didn’t investigate the sounds coming from the basement.
If you had, you would have discovered a book of words written just for you, some entries longer than others. Most of it had flowed so naturally. You would have flicked on the light switch and realized that the faint sounds you heard from the main level above were records of love songs, stored in vinyl magic on the turntable. If you had listened closely, you would have learned that the unintelligible nothings were melodies—I was singing along to each song, maybe loud enough for you to hear but maybe not. Wrap me up, unfold me.
Most of all, you would have found me. You would have seen every part of me, as I really am—not as a ghoul, but as someone with every bit of life it takes to offer up a heart to someone else. I was so ready to unravel the mystery for you. I wanted you to turn on the light. I wanted you to be in my space, to feel all the space I had to offer you. (It was endless.)
You never set foot in the basement.
* * *
The book of words continues, my writings embittered.
Now, I am a transitory essence, moving in and out of rooms to avoid you. Now, you do not even see me, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever felt more invisible than I do now. (Perhaps I really am a ghost? A memory you want to forget.) My movement between rooms would have caught the corner of anyone else’s eye. Anyone else would have been tempted to look and most likely succumbed to the urge. You never do.
I can feel your inevitable shudder, easily spooked by my haunts. Your hands are still in front of your eyes. I can’t remember a time when they weren’t fastened there.
