In the Sixth Issue of Pettycoat Relaxer:

Ghost Like


When older, we stop daring shadows
to move towards our beds, validate our fears.

We find the living more frightening,
only clearer when we turn on lights.

They catch us when we fall from nightmares,
where even a broken sword gives us a fighting chance.

Your breath still blows demands,
even without the use of registered mail.

I dare you. Point me to a shrink, a priest, any mystic
to justify revenge after you’ve won.

I long for my case a census of those
who wished to duct tape their mortal coil.

There must have been those denied,
told their gripes even worked to waste their deaths.

So what if even then God dumps you in my home
to make you truly know life without him?

Come on in. You’re in my campfire stories as it is,
and I’ve never used visual effects before.


Not a recent poem, but a recent revision. It never got around to even feeling finished until now (and even now it only feels finished). My attitude from almost three years ago was even bleaker than usual. Today, I can't even fathom writing a stanza like the second-to-last. Was I really thinking like that about being without God?

It was a challenge to try and revise the poem and maintain the attitudes and opinions of two years ago that I hardly relate to today. I would have normally scrapped an old unfinished poem with contradictions like this a long time ago.

It's not my best work, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It gives me motivation to fix the rough drafts in my computer (if I can get it running again). Almost like antique restoration.