Poem: I Was Not a Ghost.

CW: toxic friendships, mild gore, religious imagery

 

This is one of those poems that took a lot of re-drafting and editing, however the first scribbled notes (which is how i tend to date poems) were done about 13th January, 2021.

I Was Not a Ghost.:

My howl echoed up to the moon, and you closed

your window against the noise. The week before,

you see, I had run through the rain to heed your

own cry, and on the way home that night the wolf

found me, took me in a single bound and sunk

its teeth. Perhaps you thought merely that my

song belonged to another monster of the night,

but the pitchfork of your text drove me back well

enough: We all have our own problems to deal

with, you can't always demand other people's

emotional energy. Caught in a bear trap on my

way to solve your problem, I cried and cried to

the night, but your dissertation was due so you

turned up your music to drown me out. Alone

again, I gnawed off my own leg to be free.

You claimed the door was open, not trying to

understand that I could not step inside without

invitation, that you had made me unwelcome

with a cross of sharp words above the door. I

was hungry for the one you had with you every

night, drawn by the scent of blood, tried to explain

that you cannot welcome both the bloodsucker

and the priest across your threshold. You made it

clear whose company you preferred, then accused

me of not making an effort, ignoring the five

times in a row you cancelled plans I made. After

promising to love every flaw, you carried stakes

like jewellery, turned them against me every

conversation hidden beneath a falsehood of

insincere texts and blessings that burned my skin.

Knocked from the pedestal you put me on, I

fell into the hellfire below. Feathers became

spines, until my body was its own weapon, until

I could not hold a conversation without trying

to bargain for a soul. Stepping onto the ground

sanctified by your holier-than-thou conviction

to every argument you started ignited my cells,

made a wildfire of my wings that blistered

everyone I cared about. Pacing in the tiny walls

of my flat, I chose to burn down my own church

rather than risk making you taste the hellfire you

cast me into. And after I crawled back to the

surface with the stumps of burned wings cradled

in my arms, you dare to tell me you would have

offered me forgiveness if only I had apologised.

I was a poltergeist, rattling the walls, knocking

books from the shelves, making the record player

jump trying to shake a single apology into being.

I was a zombie, rotting in grief, maggots oozing

from my gums, stumbling after you down the

road desperate to feel warm skin one more time.

I was an abomination, the nuclear fallout of your

temper mutating me into something I did not want

to be, rampaging to another city just to find peace.

I did not go quietly, I did not fade away. I was not

a ghost, I went screaming, tearing myself away

from yet another person who made a monster of

me. Call me what I am. Demon, burning, vampire,

wanting, wolf-man, gnawing off my own leg to be

free, my howl still echoing, unheard, into the night.