To Anne,
I want you to know that I see you
Even though others do not, and never did.
I want you to know that I think about you
Leaving that tattered newspaper house.
We are crumpling you up inside. Sorry for that.
I am here in the ways I can be.
We have not seen each other for years,
But before that it was never longer than an increment.
I used to watch you in the windows, in the court,
And in the yard at dusk. Glowing.
I know you didn’t want anyone to see you,
But I was there because I was walking towards you.
I didn’t make it.
One of us would always disappear.
I understand that to live by night is
Because we sometimes can’t bear the day.
And yet I watched myself, and those
I stood with as we tried to just earn a living.
I think: Together we can change this.
We can make it out of here.
This is years ago and some still say we are
Who we are, not yet who we really were.
Truth is treated like an opposing army
Needing to earn its battle.
If there was time-travel, I like to imagine
We could have helped each other live happier,
But you had Henry and the toxins of
Culture, and I was stuck in a bottle.
Always,
Your Ghost
Andrew studied writing and film in college while working at a library. He also helped develop scripts and wrote reviews for the college radio station. He has since been published in the short story collection, Iron Doves [under a pseudonym], as well as in Dark Entries Journal and Wrought Journal. He is grateful for a steady diet of horror movies growing up, and books like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Goosebumps, Frog and Toad, and those mischievous Roald Dahl tales. Oddball friends, along with those wonderful family genetics, aided him in cultivating his weirdness—though it has taken much time and training to “acquire his casket,” as the resident ghouls say. Or don’t say. It may never be known . . . Moving along: He writes, and works at a library in Iowa. You can find more of his work on Instagram @midwesterngent3.
Published 2/10/22
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