In a rush I put my contacts in backwards
And stumble faster, blurry eyed into the restaurant
Handing them the wrong beer a guest asks if I can see okay
But it looks like a beer to me
And all the ghosts of memory who walked these steps before seem to agree
I break a glass next
And with a blanket floor of shattered
I think in pieces this is something bigger than the rest
If a single glass, a small whole
Is an enormous mess when it's broken up
How many pieces must we be made of?
Later in the back it's small chat over black cats
Coworker says they think that ghosts aren't all that
I say
A lot of people seem to think that ghosts live inside us
but I think that we live inside ghosts
Craig what
Now I'm being sent home
Clear headed but still double visioned
On managerial insistence, I walk out the same door again
Outside at night you never know where you'll go
Because you can't really see
And over half of your steps are still based in memory
I always pass the bus station right between the park
And think about privilege under the stars
Like projectors, like the universe’s eyes, like the objects of imagination and verse written skies
Outstanding enough for any fantasy on their own
Yet we feel the need to paint only pictures we know
When you think about it, a million other suns living alone
Is a lot more interesting than a pretty pen or a show
But tonight is special
A man is standing on the corner yelling
HALLUCINATORS
When they get close I go like this!
HALLUCINATORS!
Y’all are HALLUCINATORS!
He said it like he wasn’t the one hallucinating, but like those "things" were hallucinating him
Like he couldn't believe that his ghosts were stopping to see his face on a whim
And in a finite moment, when they are the ones that last forever
Like they were in fact imagining him in time's tether
He had realized through a peep hole perspective so thin
Call it grim
That with his crystallized point of personality and pleasure
He chose to take that moment of pure perception
A true feat
To shame whatever fear of ghosts, or fear in ghosts
Possessed them to stop and be temporary for that moment
Complete
Then I really melted
A thousand stupid thoughts synthesized in machine brain to make a clear phrase
The ghosts that we live inside are memories
They are the recordings of our conversations
The lasting impacts
Connecting stations
Even the habits of the versions that went before
They are everlasting and we are temporary
They are style and we are fast fashion
They are symbol and we are bleeding edge
We are not the same things
At least, not usually
I keep imagining that bench in the park with little ghosts chatting over and over
When I see a place like that
A meeting spot for echoes, tree shadows for cover
I see a lost conversation with myself
Like whisper marks on a clock
Keeping time for the timekeeper
A sign of where you're at
To keep from getting tossed in the black
So the ghost of yourself doesn't forget and get lost in your view
Whether it's to avoid becoming the hallucination
Or letting the hallucination become you
I'm not sure
But the me I am now will soon get lost in the crowd
And I don't know if the crowd or me is truth