Sweet Ghost

 
Enter the womb and swim to the surface
Traditional methods say there is only one way out of here

In murky light
In shadows heavy but warm
You are the center
  
They say there is nowhere to move but forward
Though, you can’t move forward
You can but move…  
  
Only wanderings
Forward to one is backward to any other
  
Subtle shifts in periphery
 
It’s only atmospheric fluctuation
Shadow puppets cast in bleary lights from other worlds

                  Hints and histories
  
Memories played out for the dim sake of preservation
  
                  Quiet
  
Muffled surround-sound whispers from other worlds
  
      “Engulfed” is the word
  
      “Submerged”
  
You are the axis
Life spins around you
  
The gravitational inability to decide holds you in place
  
Arches
Gates made to resemble the worlds they guard  
Encircle you
  
You count them as you rotate
You count seven  
Next time around you count five
  
      Then twelve
          Then four
     Then eight
  
The number fluctuates as opportunities slip in-and-out of existence
Doors disappear, reappear, and disappear  
Only ever behind your back
      Only when you can’t witness the magic
  
One gate for a moment holds your focus
      Silver and rubies meticulously
                  Effortlessly
      Crafted by the hands of gods
Incomprehensible precision
Diamonds inlaid in rubies inlaid in sapphires
  
Through this gate is a long cold corridor
  
      Bright  
      Ornate
      Ancient
  
A trail of locked doors and odd artifacts
  
You turn away and it disappears, though, you don’t look back
  
A movement like clothes on a line dances in the corner of your eye
  
      Turn and focus… or try
      Step closer
      Lean in
  
Layers of sheer fabrics
Hung like the skins of ghosts
Waver
Revealing small glimpses and transparencies
Trails of mirrors, glass, and plastics
  
Invisible oddities
  
Shades in smoke and steam
Making faces at you from obscure positions
  
            Distant
            Ephemeral
  
  
Pulsations quicken in your ribs
Thumps and thuds of life’s pump
A breathe taken as slow as a fan turns in winter
  
Just for contrast
Just for opposition
The push to fix the pull
  
Then arises
Another gate  
Another option
  
Two trees twisted up into a peak
Thick and ancient grey
Fortified with vines
Binding and constricting like snakes
  
Parts rotting
Parts living
Hollows that could be dead or living
  
Through this gate is an ancient mud-bellied boat
Decked just below the threshold
  
A meandering way to row in muck and mire
  
Turning again
Scanning like a surveillance camera… instinct
  
      A simple door
  
      A cracked window
  
      A pit in the ground
  
A tunnel
Dark and endless
A small candle perched at its mouth
  
You imagine crawling on hands and knees
      Hot wax dripping down your white knuckles
      Green flame flickering low on a nub
  

When you spin in the center of a carousel
Opposing direction doubles the relative speed
  
  
All stops as a moment of clarity overtakes you
  
            The floor is a mirror
            And the only thing it reflects
            Is you
  
Looking up at yourself
As if from deep below the surface
From your toes
Up the leg
Skin, knee, thigh
  
Your navel is a perfect dimple on your smooth belly
  
Your eyes stare down over your cheek bones
  
      Wide
      Aware  
  
You are clean
Unwrinkled
Young
  
No excesses of fat, no scars, no asymmetries
Not the slightest chip in your fingernails  
  
Your nose is straight
  
Your body flexible… comfortable
  
            
            Pale and soft
            Unblemished, unstained
            Unstretched, unworn
            Unburnt, unbruised  
  
            You are untouched
  
With every exhale you crave the in-
With every inhale the ex-
  
      Every out the in
      Every in the out
  
Wouldn’t is be better if you stayed?
You never end if you never start
  
  
No
You've found your way
You've found your gate
      You are certain
  
      Dedicated and absolutely obsessed

      
      “Alive” is the word…


                “Born”

  
All that exists is gilded in foil and mint-chocolate-chip
Pillars of peppermint and crystallized sugar
  
A gingerbread sign spelled out in icing and gumdrops
  
                
  
With one bare foot
Slender, soft, and elegant
Pink in the toes  
An unroughed heel
  
      Slowly
            Carefully
  
      Your foot crosses
  
A glimpse left to rocky crevices
  
A glimpse right to muddy expanses
  
                  You are reinforced
                  You are certain… dedicated
  
Your foot lands softly
On cobblestone marshmallow
  
      A soft quiet sensation
  
Hedges of cotton candy guide your path
Willow trees of licorice are your shade
With leaves of potato chips
And gummy bears for grass
  
Every piece of fruit grows already coated
In chocolate… caramel… vanilla
  
The soil is a vast expanse of ice-cream flavors
In a rainbow of colors that never melt
Even when it’s fucking hot
  
All of this expands in all directions
From your marshmallow cobble-stone trail
  
            And the snow?
            It’s all powdered sugar  
            And not at all cold… not at all wet
  
                  Soft
  
                  Fluffy
  
Each flake falls safely
Each flake slows before landing
Gradually
Coming to rest on your naked shoulder
With extra precaution… over-sensitivity
  
            You smile at the insipid beauty
            Of that moment
  
Twelve steps ahead
A milk chocolate river flows down a bed of gummy rocks
  
On the bridge you kneel
Admiring your reflection
Pulsating with the melted rhythmic flow
Your nipples dance in the shifting, warm-liquid peaks
  
            Beautiful contortions
  
You dip a finger and the contrast is stunning
Dripping perfect, warm-liquid candy
  
You could kill for this
  
You could kill for this to last forever
  
  
You close your lips
Around your knuckle… tongue slowly explores
You pull your finger out
Wet and warm… clean and shiny  
  
Repeat; watch the chocolate waves
Break downstream  
  
            White-chocolate-white-wash
            
            Pure… so unreal
  
At the bridge rail… twiggy branches  
You break off a stem
What feels like bark… flakes off
Baked dough and salt crumbs
  
Trees baked like pretzels?
No, pretzels baked like trees.
  

You still haven’t realized this is entirely yours

  
You bounce in place, eyes rolled up in blissful satisfaction
  
You blush
Embarrassed by your own childish excitement
  
Speedy steps
You run ahead
Impatient… enthralled
  
Your eyes out consume your stomach
Pupils torn in all directions at once
All in a blur of warm colors
  
            Red and white stripes
            Swirls of blue and green
            Fluff
            Bubbles
            Squishy things
  
You spin  
        And spin
                And spin
  
You still don’t know that all this is yours
  
  
There is more to have than you could ever possibly take
  
      
Handfuls of lollipops, dropped
For handfuls of candy canes, dropped
For handfuls of sugar cubes, dropped
  
For a candied apple in each hand
  
      One green… one red
  
You've found the winner in the fight for attention
The ultimate distraction… the “sweet spot”

      You still haven’t realized
  
      Red or green?
  
      That this is all yours
  
      Candy or caramel?
  
… and can’t you have it any way you want it?
  
You take a bite of each, without swallowing
In between. Red then green and not so much
As a breath
One bite to the next
  
Eyes closed
Head tilted to the warm sun
You chew
Red apple, green apple
Candy and caramel
All together and spilling out
Cheeks bulged with excess
  
You swallow three times and spit out the glut remainder  
Green chunky saliva  
Running down your leg
  
Your heel, when you step
Sticks to a marshmallow you drooled on
 
One half comes with your foot
A sticky white string
The innards of a fluffy creature
Strung out between two parts
  
Now there’s a sticky little pad on
The bottom of your foot
Imagine the sound
Of cotton balls pulled apart
In time with every other step
  

  
The unevenness  
  
One foot flawed and one flaunting its perfection
  
You lift your leg
Hold it high
Balance on one foot
You scrape off the candy
Sticky white gunk cakes up
Under your nails
  
      Fingertips pruned up from sugar and goo
  
An unseen drop of chocolate, somewhere
On your hand, smudges across the bottom
Of your foot… hides down in the thin cracks

The cracks of your skin
  
You lose balance
An elbow sinks right through the marshmallow surface
Breaking through a sticky candy membrane
  
Bent armed
You plunge up to your shoulder and wrist
Writhe for a moment
Then roll over
  
Your arm drips dark green… A gush of fluid
Follows through the hole you left
Like the insides spit up in sloshes from a punctured waterbed  
  
You clean yourself
With your tongue
Like an animal
  
There are sticky bits you can feel but can’t find
  
            Those microscopic bits
            Those little itchy bits
      Biting and clawing invisible holes  
  
Powdered sugar snow falls… like a magnet, your
Saliva-candy, saliva-wet, body attracts
The white sugar-clump gnats
  
The excess sweetness burns your tongue
  
It all tastes the same now
  
      Your hands feel the worst
      Then your lips
      Your tongue
      Your mouth
      Your face
  
Coated and caked  
Powder like white makeup  
Mixed into a frothy paste
Chocolate like lipstick stains
  
Sugar and salt are the bacteria crawling
On your skin… transferred, to and from
Everything you've touched  
  
      Frosting… lathered    
      In your knee-bends
  
Strings of syrups strung like spider webs from  
All the little hairs sprouting on your aging body
  
On your head
                Your legs
                         Your armpits
Your creases, cracks, and folds
  
You are nauseated, head-ached, and heavy
  
      
      “Poisoned” is the word
  
            
            You still haven’t realized
            This is entirely yours
  
                  Gag
  
      Now that your stomach is full
      Now that you couldn't stuff any more in if you tried
  
                  Gag
  
Everything bright burns
Everything soft sickens
Everything sweet sours
  
                  Gag
  
            It’s all just a dizzy spell
  
There’s nothing to look at
That doesn't remind you of all the rainbow color
Things in your belly mixing
Mushing together into slimy browns
Bubbly greys and blacks
  
Candied apples fisting your stomach like a butter-churn
  
You can feel the sugar, like two warm thumbs
Pushing your eyeballs just enough
To make you woozy
  
Grains up under your lids
Scrambled
Inescapable rainbow colors
Scratching apart your vision
  
Even behind closed eyes you can’t hide
From the glaring excess of the candied world you chose
The color seeps in
Through the cracks
  
Suffocated
Like wet plastic pulled slowly over your face
Tighter
For all the numbness, you wish you could feel
In all the comfort, you've lost your senses
  
You rested your eyes too long… now you’re blind
You rested your ears too long… now you’re deaf
You slept too long… now you’ll never wake
  
You are scabbed in a candy shell
An armor that won’t let you get hurt
That won’t let you move
  
      Safe and stuck
      Bound and benumbed
  
Desperate
You take a candy cane
Snap it in half

The flat edge is a razor
To shave off the incrustation
  
You’re fighting hard candy
But soft skin is underneath

You’re careful… meticulous at first
But progress is too slow for you
So you bear down
Candy curls up like wood shavings
You press harder, scrape faster, now  
Your arm is free but you keep going
Digging into yourself, drawing bloody pictures
In your skin to wash away  
The frost and powder with clean bitter red
  
      Hold your cuts to your mouth
      Taste the sanguine pump
      Through your open wounds
      Rid yourself of the sweet taste that’s been rotting on your tongue
  
      
You’re starting to realize
      This is all yours
  
  
You take your wrist from your mouth
All the blood you didn't swallow
Pours down your chin
A hemic waterfall
Flowing in a river between your nipples
Pooling in your belly button
  
      You draw
  
      In your skin
  
White like the statue of a blood-pumping fountain
You bleed out
  
      Lathered and washed
      In crimson-raw soaps
      Stand with arms spread in triumph
      And bleed
  
      Sputter
      And bleed out
  
The blood puddles
Your reflection looks down at you
From a scarred body  
Perfectly still
  
Then you wither
Knees buckle and knock together
With all you've got left  
You’re standing
Awkward but upright
  
Your belly convulses
Deep inside you
Heaving high like waves fighting your stomach’s overextended membrane
Waves of soda and peppermints… blood and bile
  
You gasp and pant and dry heave… once… twice
Thrice
You vomit
A rainbow of colors
Barely digested
Erupts from your throat and spills over your lips
Down the trail you blazed in blood
  
      A red-honeyed avalanche
      
      A saccharine mudslide
  
You vomit again
A clod of ice-cream that’s still cold
Floats down your blood-candied river
It falls from your belly
Splashes your reflection right in the face
  
  
You fall to your hands and knees
Broken in this mess you've made
  
Face to bloody face with yourself
  
            And you realize
            This is all yours
  
            This life
            This failure
            This waste of time

            Sick for all you've consumed
  
Your bare feet  
Weak and waxen  
Sprawling
Caked in confection
Marshmallows stuck like blisters
Blisters stuck like marshmallows
  
            Sore pockets burst
  
You can’t tell what is cream and what is puss
  

Your hair grown long and silver
Dangles in the puddle of filthy colors
  
Imagine a rainbow clawed from the sky
Beaten, bloodied, mangled
Burnt, bitten, blistered
  
Its guts
Its meats
Its brains and fluids
All spilled out
Like a broken mirror
With you right in the middle of it
  
            Sitting there all alone
            You can’t lie to your reflection
            
            You are alone
            
            Pointless
  
            Ruined
  
            Guilty
  
And so it goes,
You were born  
You ate and ate and ate
And before you could digest
You vomited
That was your life
All of it
  
      
Can you say you lived?
  
  
All you know is you can’t die
If you were never alive… and you won’t know you ever lived  
Until you’re dead
  
Lips wrapped around your bloody skin
You suck the last bit of life
Out of your wrist
  
And spit it at your reflection
  
The last thing you see
Is your bloody teeth
Bared back at you
In hopeless self-hatred
  
  





(Special thanks and credit to Joseph Bounds for the painting. See more at http://www.josephbounds.com )