Haunt Me
AJ Jolish
I hope you don’t mind that I submitted the poem I wrote about your death to a literary magazine.
I hope you don’t mind that I’ll do it again, because I’m doing it again, and I wouldn’t even listen
to you now because why would I care what some high school kid thinks. I hope you know that if
you’re trying to haunt me you’re doing a bad job. You knew how good I was at ignoring, at ignorance, at
the time, but you also should have expected that when I want things I write them, so I pry your memory
from your cold dead hands and make it my death, my your death, my one-sided long-distance pen
palace. This is the truth: I don’t know how you died, but if I wanted to know, I probably would have
found out by now. I assume you’re leaving me clues-- claw marks on the windowsill, birds trailing me
as I watch past, mugs upturning themselves in locked cabinets. But I’ve got too much on my plate to deal
with every ghost I’ve ever written about, so
I’m going to assume you like my poems.
I hope you don’t mind that I’ll do it again, because I’m doing it again, and I wouldn’t even listen
to you now because why would I care what some high school kid thinks. I hope you know that if
you’re trying to haunt me you’re doing a bad job. You knew how good I was at ignoring, at ignorance, at
the time, but you also should have expected that when I want things I write them, so I pry your memory
from your cold dead hands and make it my death, my your death, my one-sided long-distance pen
palace. This is the truth: I don’t know how you died, but if I wanted to know, I probably would have
found out by now. I assume you’re leaving me clues-- claw marks on the windowsill, birds trailing me
as I watch past, mugs upturning themselves in locked cabinets. But I’ve got too much on my plate to deal
with every ghost I’ve ever written about, so
I’m going to assume you like my poems.
|
AJ (SC '25) is a first-year English major at Scripps, an enthusiastic crocheter, and a tentative poetess.
|