“One need not be a chamber to be haunted…”
                                     -Emily Dickinson

people don’t need to be ghosts to haunt you.
a single melody pours from the car’s crackling speaker
and you linger longer at a red light
with windows down to help harmony free-float;
it pushes your pulse

                                                   

(pacing, racing)

you cannot escape the empty essence in the passenger’s seat,
until a barrage of blaring horns remind you that
ethereal presence isn’t ubiquitous  
   

you ease off the break,

                                                                                roll…
                                                                                                                  forward.          

sometimes the spirit is a memory’s shadow
stitched to your soul, it never comes undone–
no matter how many times you pull at the last thread

                                                                           unraveling doesn’t suit you.      

people don’t need to be ghosts to haunt you.
supposed supernatural signals camouflage themselves in a firefly’s flash
tucked between two trees, draped in the edges of sunset’s silk shadow–    

you will be deceived   
                   
                 
                               once…

                                                        (maybe) twice…    

but never three times

                                                                            because

people don’t need to be ghosts to haunt you:

when it hurts.
when it doesn’t.
when you attempt to reassure yourself:                                                               

   

                                                               
                                                                  “...people can’t haunt you…”        

until they do.