You must
know
when ghosts
jingle loose change in their pockets,
and it
sounds like Heaven’s bells,
it’s really
just an old thought in a dirty shirt
doused in Dolce
& Gabbana to mask the death wretch.
And yet, it
sends you
right back
there
in those
moments of what
you don’t
want to be.
You leave things
behind,
but ghosts,
they return
in a
stranger’s hands,
mannerisms,
mouth, hair.
It seems you
get pulled back
so easy.
A bad day,
not enough sleep,
and you are there—
holding
hands with the haunts
playing ‘Ring
Around the Rosie’
or singing
don’t need ‘Nothin’ But a Good Time’
by Poison,
and it is,
but it’s catchy,
and you
start to want them back—
laughing, like
the tune meant anything good.
You’ve
outgrown them,
yes,
like those jeans
you wore
—back when.
But they’re
familiar
and that is comforting
when you
don’t know what comes next.
Until
you realize they
really are too small
to fit your
Grown Up
Responsible Life.
The one
where it’s not just you anymore
and you know
it.
Of course
you do,
you’ve
earned it,
every
day
by mud sucking
and light
swigging
day.
You can
point to every scar,
stretch
mark,
every smoky
kohl black eyeliner pillow smear.
You’ve
fought in too many wars,
sacrificed
too much to get here.
Scraped and
scrapped
and dug the
hell out of your pride when
you had to.
You’re that
much bigger now
for all that
journeying.
But Oh to try
them on again,
for just a
few minutes—
gazing at
yourself in the mirrored
hall of
yesteryear
pretending
you’d still look good
in it.
Copyright ©
2013 Jennifer Wagner
I'm linking up to the dVerse Poets Pub for OpenLinkNight...the doors opened yesterday but they haven't closed yet so I am sliding on in to join the party!
