Ghost

Originally posted 3/17/2005.

Ghost, you call me. 
Not The Ghost, 
but Ghost, 

making that my proper name, 
not (of course) my Christian name, 
but the older kind:
the one that means something 
and tells something about you 
that remains true.
There’s nothing new 
about me being Ghost
except that now that I’m dead,
they call me that directly.

Back when I was just a guy,
long before I leaped off that bridge,
I used to daydream about flying
and walking through walls.
I wished for the power 
of invisibility, to blow unseen
so coldly and suddenly
into a space
that everyone in that room
would turn and look for me
and shudder when I wasn’t there.
I never had impact,
I didn’t want risk, 
so my fantasy became impact
without risk: that would be the life,
I thought. There’s a good joke:
I have the life I wanted
now that I don’t have a life.

I used to cringe
when they told scary stories at camp.
Later I laughed at horror films,
pretending bravery.
Once you’re here, you find
it’s nothing like those things.
It’s all so – routine.
You show up at regular times,
whistle a little in a dark hallway,
provide a moment of clarity to someone
who’s used to being safe and warm.
You become a lesson
no one believes they need
until it’s learned.

There are small joys here.
This is a beautiful world,
once you can no longer feel it.
It takes your breath away
to see the way it moves.
I spend years just standing
in front of the strangest things:
not sunsets or rainbows
but garbage trucks and fires
and drive-by victims.
Disposal has become
an art form to me
now that I’ve been disposed of.

I am Ghost, have always been Ghost,
and Ghost is what you call me now.
I’ll take it
the way I have always taken it:
with a bowed head.
Before, I would come when called
because I had no place to be
other than the place I was called to.
Nothing’s really changed:
I blow through, am unseen,
maybe I’ll be remembered
in your children’s dreams.
Maybe we’ll see each other
one night on the landing, where
you might call me Ghost,

or you might call me imaginary.

Either will do. 
I answer to both.