Come, all children, and take a seat As I tell you a tale of tricks and treats. For do you know the tale of Mr. Jack? Well, better keep those socks on your feet.
’Twas an extraordinary night, on the eve Where souls can cross with ease, Between here and the spectral plane To witness the goings-on of you and me.
Then, from yonder! Within the woods, A ghoul, most peculiar, there stood. Roaming around, without a care, Looking as if he had barely reached adulthood.
“Ah, another year, another bore. Whatever is there to come for? These breathing passersby care not one bit As they wander, listlessly, on the ground floor.”
“They cackle with glee, and sing with mirth, While my body lies beneath this earth! Well, no more! No more, I say! Chaos and confusion, I… shall… give… thee… birth.”
And with that, our poltergeist flew from the trees, Racing through his mind, many mysteries Mr. Jack was gleeful to plague those humans, All in order to disrupt their reveries.
From shrubberies, doors, and around high dormers, Look at Mr. Jack! He was a born performer. He’d howl, levitate, and steal any and all treats, From all types: witches, robots, and even black cats on the corner.
A spider here, a fake door there, a crooked entranceway– Clear the cul-de-sac, off the streets, the town was in disarray! He tipped chairs and filched hats from anyone he saw, While his mischievous acts put horror and havoc on display.
As the night waned and the innocents had all gone home, Our ghostly menace found himself left all alone. Sure, it was fun to tease humans on this one dark night, But now, he was left feeling colder than his tombstone.
“Maybe, just maybe, I went a little too far with such measures…” He mused sadly, recounting his misdeeds amidst ghoulish leisures. The laughter, cheer, and excitement, once making the air so electric, Had been sucked away, leaving the town devoid of any pleasures.
Quietly to himself, he made an invigorating promise. His new plan, it wasn’t going to be as thoughtless. He hurried back across the divide just as the sun rose, amber, And the living roamed once more, feet firmly on the surface.
As days turned to weeks, to months, and finally to a year, Our once-spooked town was traveling forth without fear. Lingering thoughts of mishaps past and horrors forgotten Weren’t going to spoil the night around these parts, no dear!
And from across the plane floats Mr. Jack, with new determination To make things right, better—and a little cleverer. With renewed motivation, He decided to tone things down—last year, it got out of hand! But this year, this year! He’s ready to begin new machinations.
He spied treats and candy everywhere he went, And there his attention was now being spent. “What’s Halloween without a little trickery? I won’t go overboard this year, but I’m not that innocent.”
(Image courtesy of Susan Flores via Pexels)
Mr. Jack smiled to himself as he played his part Hiding, disguising, mystifying; now this was art! Sure, there were no screams of fear or wails of anguish, But he did feel some joy in his undead heart
When he noticed others surrounding his victims, Laughing and cajoling at the unexpected outcome Of a bewildered child, who was counting his delights, Only to find the broccoli head his candy had become.
“Next year, I wonder if I should expand my operations?” Mr. Jack debated, heavily immersed in his internal conversation. “Why should I only keep to this one town three years in a row? Next Halloween is going to need even more preparation!”
The sand beneath my feet whirls away, sweeping me off in a sway. On the floor, I lay, as my grief is in bits, gradually fraying.
I stifle a chill as the breezes go hay, the sun grows cold and gray, on a thick cloudy day in May with no hope and no sun rays.
Loneliness pries my soul and I pray not to be the stranger coated with flay. Yet, the pain feels like minted spray, like the one whose beloved went astray.
But I’ll strive to keep my countenance gay; keep cowardice far from my pathway and give second chances a little foreplay because there is a pain in every gained pay.
the wind did not howl but the door frame is loose vibrated and swayed like the unhinged rusting tin roof and her anxious heart like the approach of the wind the visitors seemed to arrive to test the breach in the weakness what was giving way in her situation their shadows eerily long threadbare the last of her hopes their steps determined and firm calling her out, voices loud out in light to accost treasure ships of riffraff ghosts any other day not when she is down with decay her nerves are far from calm the visitors as the wind each raindrop ceaseless till it stops want to prevail leave her unveiled that her pillar was gone that she knew not how strong uprooted he was cut down in the sweetest hour then she heard am yet to be gone not until you let me fall yes I reverberate in each step from here now you take
I’ve thought about The way the wind would whip my hair Away from my face just seconds before I find my end there On the rocks below Before your very presence brought A kind of happiness I wasn’t aware existed The kind I thought was mythical, you know?
There were days nothing could pierce The dark and heavy clouds With agony fierce in my chest And over my head I’d wish I was dead. I’d wish I never existed.
But then you came, the proverbial ray Of sunshine that could Make my day bright in a way It had never been before You didn’t cure my depression but You made me care in a way I wasn’t even sure I was capable of.
And with a reason to give a shit A reason anyone could benefit from My existence on this planet In this galaxy In the middle of nothing surrounded by more And vaster nothing in it.
I will never forgive you. It was easier before I knew Before when my crises were existential Not born out of the pull Of your gravity, your sparkle But born of a life so lacking in light It felt as if I was born in darkness And would remain hidden in fright And rage at a world so destroyed So bustling and annoyed That I couldn’t find my breath
But then there was you You with your face and voice and It was then I knew you’d ruin me I knew the score, waiting for the other shoe To drop as I learned I would never be your choice But still. Still, I pined and whirred around you Suddenly manic, a micro planet Stuck in the pull of your gravity’s force I know you didn’t mean for it to be this way It’s just how you are. It’s just what you do.
And so here I am a satellite, or perhaps space debris I’m certainly not a rocket I’m only me Falling, falling, falling. Into your orbit.
I wish that I was traumatized like people in movies are traumatized
I wish that other people could escape into my sad story to hide from their own
I wish that I was sardonic, I wish it made me funny
I wish that I was haunted not by entire years of life but by one single soundbite, a few flickering frames of film, something small enough to lock away and forget
I wish that the memories were in third person, distant, not seen through my eyes and made inescapable by perspective
I wish that it was precise, I wish I could remember each word well enough to repeat inside my head until it turns into a prayer
I wish that I woke from nightmares and sat bolt-upright, panting in bed with glycerine sweat on my brow, disheveled but somehow sexy as well
I wish that the nadir of my downward spiral was me crying and punching my own reflection in a bathroom mirror
I wish that emotional music played over the rock-bottom scenes, two thirds of the way through the movie to kid the audience that it’s all going to end right now
I wish that even as I cut into myself and the corn-syrup blood spurts from little tubes hidden under silicone skin, as artificial tears roll down my cheeks over ersatz bruises, my face would be stony and still like a statue of a saint
I wish that I would be rushed to hospital in a haze of red and blue lights and that my rescue would be medically accurate and miraculous
I wish that people around me would care
I wish that at my lowest point a manic pixie dream girl would take my hand and teach me to love life again, as if the issue isn’t what life has done to me but my attitude towards it
I wish that years of trauma could be negated by minutes of happiness
I wish that the parts of me that are trauma-formed were simply layers that obscure who I really am, that they could be shed like a snake sheds skin it no longer needs
I wish that they weren’t inseparable from me
I wish that those around me would be endlessly patient and understanding as I make my slow but steady progress, because they can see the good in me that is there for the benefit of the audience
I wish that I would have only a single setback in my recovery, and that my misery and fear would be resolved with a pep talk and a hug
I wish that I would take some minor but symbolic baby-step at the end of the movie that shows it’s all going to turn out okay
I wish that it would go the way the audience wants it to go
I wish that the ending of my movie would be happier than the start
my mind always thinks it’s a competition, between me and my intuition, repeating over and over lies I can’t deny, but on them, I rely. I’ve never even been given the second chance, always kicked out in the first glance, the loops and hoops of my empty mind not loved, making me believe I couldn’t have the doubt of the word. on every and each dream I have, I compete with myself who will be the most to be paranoid, and share, and hate the repetitions and inhibitions to be, and hate the real to see. the storm comes from the beginning of my stomach, and my hands shake in the name of a bruised scratch. I can’t deal with this emotion, I don’t want any commotion, and from the bottom of my lungs I scream, how I hate to be me, how I hate others to see, what I was meant to be.
