In the room you painted white-I used to lie awake there, the whole place shaking with the snores of my husband.

I saw you standing in an empty room wishing walls could speak. Science will support your belief that a surface isn't only a surface. But the secrets layered in there-really, you don't want to know.

I saw you reading one of my old books where I'd underlined the words "pale noon". (I don't know why)

My heart is still beating in another's body. And my wedding ring-my daughter swallowed it and flushed it down your toilet.

Now you own the table I found on the street. I would sit there for hours like a fly stuck to tacky paper.

You could lay a wreath for me and my sister on the corner where you catch the bus. We left no trace of ever having lived. We just wanted to stay out all night, my sister and me, walking the streets shiny with rain.

In that closet where you hang your things, a child used to hide in there from her mother, her father.

Before when you were laughing, you forgot for a moment.
I'm glad I can't laugh anymore.

Before your mind wandered for a moment and made a haze in the room, you sitting there exhaling the fumes of yesterdays that were good, yesterdays that were bad. I can choose not to breath your desire for tomorrow. I have that over you.

You who maintain that some animals sob sorrowfully, that the dead have dreams, try to tell the story of my downfall & my slumber...I no longer know how to speak.

I was glad when my rapist died. There he is just where your foot is tapping. Tap, tap, tick, tock. Just what are you waiting for?

All my bodies, all my lives. We go for a little way and we go for a long way. We go continually and when we look back-we haven't gone a step.

The last thing I heard was my little dog barking. You were right. I loved that dog more than you.

When you look back over your shoulder, are you thinking of me?

Don't forget, this is what you wanted. You wanted me gone.

Do you really think I care that you squandered all that money we made, your mother and me?

Someone looks out through eyes that used to be mine. Such a tiring journey, looking for a chamber for the self.

Video clips: naked - 229K; scream - 521K
Sound clips: top - 257K; second - 254K; third - 349K; fourth - 249K; fifth - 312K; bottom ghost- 143K

Ghosts depart     Fantastic Prayers