Ghosts

A Prose Poem

He soaked in the twilight view and had a fleeting thought, the streets he had walked as a boy would never change. Under the full moon, under the hazy clouds which beautifully dressed it, he worried. He had been coughing a lot the past few weeks, his mind was fraught with tension and fears. He could not control his mind and as a result, his body would suffer under the madness.

He should not be out here at this hour, what would they think, those people he had lied too. He took in another draw of his illicit smoke and fought the urge to unload his guts all over the road. That endless road which appeared to stretch on for miles and miles. It had always seemed that way, at least he knew where it would take him if he would walk it.  He decided to return to the place, he had been out long enough and it was cold. The cold air augmented by the moonlight, the moon floating in solitude, it all felt refreshing to him and it eased his mind slightly to be reminded of his place in the universe.

The place was dark when he got inside, the streetlights giving birth to familiar shadows in the hallway. He noticed something at the corner of his eye… It was on the stairwell. He imagined he was peering into another form of reality, a different dimension, a dimension of memories. What he saw did not scare him, nor did it relax him, he expected to see them. Ghosts.
The old man with the rotting teeth who sat on the armchair, the cold blooded murderer at the back door, the dead woman in the white dress ready to scream and the lost soul of a creature he had once loved. It hurt him to see it wander in the shadows alone. He needed to cough, he needed to release the madness from his body.
He ascended the staircase and felt ready. The show performed by silhouettes from his past confirmed this for him.
Like the solitary moon in the cold night sky, he could illuminate the clouds that surrounded him. One day, he would know the truth. One day.