Ghost Stories
Dusty pages, torn manuscripts,
A brewing rainstorm,
As the taller flowers reach
Towards the window
Where you can see their yellow petals
Flopping about in the wind.
The smell of decay and dust
Mask the lingering remains
Of dreams on their last leg,
Squandered and useless,
Caught in the cobwebs.
Prey. Just like the flies.
Cold hearth, piled shelves,
Iron grating, candle nubs,
A deep crimson carpeting
Sprawling and stretching,
Meeting seamlessly
With dark, polished wood.
An old untuned piano
Festering in the corner
Where they sang and laughed,
Where they pretended and played,
Where their children watched,
Where their love had begun to rot.
Just like the piano.
Woven threads, woven threats,
A thoroughfare for half-formed ideas
Crisscrossing in the musty air,
Passing ghosts and wraiths,
And memories, too.
But no one remains
To remember.
O greatest insult,
O you white square, hung upon
Windows caked with grime,
How cheap were your intentions,
How hollow your schemes,
And how hopeful;
No one will settle here.
No one could. No one has.
So then why have they come?
Why now do they linger?
Surely then...
They must be rotten, too.
