Doodle-Ghosts (draft)

Oh
doodle-ghosts,
made up imps,
personal polterjerks,
stop haunting me.
Now.

When I created you to explain
broken locks, jammed signals,
all the damaged et ceteras
of living, I was mostly joking.

I doodled you on a pad, 
left it where it could be found,
said it was a self portrait,
and she thought
I was pretty funny.

Doodle-ghosts,
I’m sorry I blamed you for 
anything at all.  For my tardiness,
my forgetfulness.  For my 
clumsiness and small rages
and lingering traces of war-thirst
I tried to drown now and again…
tried to make a joke out of them,
blame them on you…

too many years of that and
as she said as she left,
it wasn’t you,
it certainly wasn’t her,
it was me.  

Now I’m alone,
and the house is knocking
like a furnace.  I gave you life
and I know you’re behind the noise,
doodle-ghosts, though
if it burns tonight
I will blame only myself
for being
driven crazy
by you.