Dirty Words

The ghosts are becoming countless.
I could name them, but that wouldn’t do any good. I try
to hide from them, but they always find me; under piles of blankets
on my bed when I’m turning in for the night, through the music
playing on the radio when I drive
my car around town,
in the eyes of an ex-lover who looks at me as if he
wants to rip my teeth out with
pliers.

The ghosts sit with me in every silent moment. They whisper
to me and giggle. They know that the escape
isn’t working out as planned. One of them gouges at my eyes. It wants blindness
to suck me deep inside myself so that I have
no way to try to hide.

When I sit, to write these sick stories, I am so engrossed with
fear that the words refuse to fall from the ink of the pen. They climb through, to the
top of the pen and right back into my hand. Dirty, filthy little words climb up my arms and through
each little nook in my soul and back to the dark, screaming corners of my
mind.

Each letter stopping by my conscience to scream obscenities before settling in comfortably.