GHOSTS

I believe we haunt ourselves
with the people we love;
dead ideas and memories
becoming ghosts inside of us—

The furrowed sandbars
hidden under the surface
of every day life.
The dead speak to us;

they still know how to sing—-
it takes shape in the moonlight.
It lives in the shadows 
of our lost dreams.
 
My ears hurt to listen—
those damn ghosts 
interfering again with my life.
In midnight meetings,

I feel misled,
misunderstood,
missed. Like the undead,
I feel unseen in the haunting.

We are all ghosts,
I suppose, carrying
inside us, all the people
who came before.

If I could let go,
I certainly would.
Right? I mean,
wouldn’t you?

The sadness of everything
leaves a heavy footprint
on my soul; a glimpse of truth
better left unspoken.

—Carla Jeanne