(no subject)

[trinsy]

Haunted

The dead don’t haunt.

They lie beneath the ground, quiet,
Encased in their wooden beds,
Or else are caught in the wind,
Scattered ash and bone,
Slowly breaking down,
Slowly forgotten,
Until even their descendants
Forget they existed.

The dead don’t haunt.

The dead stay still,
Changing only in imaginations
Of those they abandoned,
Faults or virtues melting
Away in the faulty memories
Of the living.
The dead stay dead.

The dead don’t haunt.

The living do.

The living can change
And never change.
The living can return
Just when you’ve become
Used to their absence,
Disrupt your emotions
And tear open the old wounds
Before they abandon you again.
The living don’t let memories
Slip or idealize.
They prolong grief,
Block the forward journey,
Pop up when you take a step
And force you back.

The living haunt.

The dead have no ghosts.
The living are ghosts.
Unpredictable haunting specters,
Hovering in the background
Or flying forward,
Forcing you back
Into insanity, until death
Finally claims and captures them
Enclosing them in tombs
To haunt no more.
Death is final.

The dead don’t haunt.

The dead can’t haunt.
Only the living haunt
And are haunted,
Haunt others and
Haunt themselves.
They imagine they see the dead
In an object or another’s face,
And they dwell on it,
Turning the illusion over
And over in their mind
Until they are driven mad,
While the dead they imagine
Are haunting them molder
Beneath their feet, still and silent.

The dead don’t haunt.