ghosts

sometimes I grow tired of the puppet ghosts
I keep glued to the tips of my fingers, bored of
the way they groan and nip tiny forests of scars
into my swollen cuticles. 
there’s the one on my pinky, the one that tells me
I am not pretty and that I drink too much coffee
before 2pm. the one on my ring finger (which ironically
lacks any dazzling jewel thereof) laughs and agrees, says
I can try to act intelligent and spit words onto paper
all I want, but that I will never be understood, never 
sound like a Hemmingway or Yeats.

(the puppet biting my middle finger, well,
you know what you can suck on)

I try and flex my hands, will the puppets to dismantle 
themselves from my dry, aching skin but—
the one on my pointer shakes his bottleneck head, 
blinking his eyes sadly before retreating with an apology
fraught with “it can’t be helped” and “leave while you can” .
and trust me, I’ve tried
but there’s something a bit addicting about the pain of 
something you’ve grown so accustomed to, like a leech 
on the frontal lobe of your brain, feeding you your most 
precious memories. of the medusa-shaped tree I climbed 
and fell off when I was ten, and the apples I picked with my 
mother that summer I met you and…when I met you, 
I thought maybe the sky was envious of your eyes, and the sea—
absolutely raging with resentment.

you held my hand in the middle of December, despite the cool of 
ghosts that bloomed like roses’ thorns on the tips of my fingers.

(the puppet ghost on my thumb brushes the side of your neck and—)

they melt with the warmth of your human pulse.

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