text: I came to the house A few days before I died. That’s how it works. Most people-- Should I be explaining this to you? I don't think I should But I'm dead So the consequences Of doing something I shouldn't seem...negligible? Then again I'm not dead At the moment Although I'm headed that way. With most people The soul leaves the body A few days Before the body Is no longer... ...Accessible to it. Transition periods Are important Even when you’re talking About life and death. So... You get a few days To get your bearings in order And find the place Where you’re going To spend the rest of eternity. Provided you’re not interested In being a roaming ghost Which, some are, But your sense of direction As a tetherless spirit Is something akin To being blind and free of limbs So most ghosts prefer To just find one place And stick to it. That’s what I did anyway. Found a house Near where my old house was. Nice attic. Dark, musty, But a good amount of moonlight Coming in from one of those Porthole windows You see attics having In the movies. You’re not allowed To stay and haunt your own house Unless you have some unfinished business there. But even then You need to state your case Before the Body of Possession And despite the anecdotal evidence I can assure you They’re not likely to let you haunt Unless you’ve really been wronged. I'm going to die of a heart attack With absolutely no grievances whatsoever And that means I need to move to another location. Never a good idea To spend your afterlife Where you spent your life. Just blurs the line Between the living and the dead, And it benefits us all To have that line Be nice and clear . I always wanted To live in an attic anyway. I used to spend all my time as a kid In the one we had at my childhood home And my mother would get mad And say ‘ You have a perfectly nice bedroom ’ And I did. But I liked being Away from everyone And everything Surrounded by boxes Full of old clothes And the dressmaker’s dummy My mother got At the flea market. There’s no dressmaker’s dummy In this attic But there are boxes. Lots of them And one of them... Can I tell you about this? Should I? I'm not even sure I should be telling you About my death Until I'm dead But I've been accused Of getting ahead of myself And when I went in front of The Body of Departure That was a criticism That they had of me. That I always went To the next thing And the next And didn't live in the moment Which is a heartbreaking thing To say to a soul Once it's done living. But the boxes... One of them Has a shirt at the bottom With blood all over it. Not sure where the blood came from. Could be something innocent. As a ghost, you don’t... You don’t know anymore Than what the living know But... I have a feeling... My soul swirls around The attic And goes downstairs And finds the owner of the house Eating cereal And reading the newspaper And he doesn't seem like The kind of man Who would bloody up a shirt Like that But the shirt is also Much too small for him In other words It's unlikely that it's his bloody shirt. Later on that night He cooks shrimp And invites a woman over And she eats the shrimp And she seems to enjoy it And the two of them make love And as they do I feel a fly land on the bloody shirt In the attic Because it was hanging over the side Of the box Which is not a good way to hide it Unless you're not worried About hiding it Because you don't think Anyone will find it. The fly distracts me And by the time I get back downstairs The man is already Helping the woman Into her coat And telling her how sorry he is That she can't spend the night, But he does that thing tomorrow, And she says Of course she understands. I'm not accustomed To watching men Interact with women Because all I had growing up Was my mother In a house my father left us When he left for people who weren't us And a series of boyfriends Who I did not care for Or like. I am accustomed To mysteries. Mysteries, but not men But mysteries about men? Well... You see, when I was a child I found a knife At the back of our hall closet While I was looking for My old soccer cleats. The knife was wrapped up In an old handkerchief And it was rusty But it was a particular kind of rust And when I brought it to my mother She told me to put it back where I found it And never ask about it again. My mother would sit At the kitchen table Not eating cereal Or prepping shrimp But she would hug me tight And tell me That I was the heart Of her hearts And the only time She ever looked at me With the glint of chill That so many parents Find themselves using On their children Was when I showed her That knife. This time I'm not going to have Anyone to ask. How many people do you think Have bloody shirts or bloody knives Stored in places Nobody can see? Maybe more than we think. But I look at the shirt And I put what used to be my hand through it And when what used to be my hand Comes back It’s bright red in the moonlight That comes through The porthole window And I feel myself split apart And come back together But I don’t move And I don’t focus on it too much Because I’m still A day away from dying At that point. And I don’t want To mess That up. I don't want to Get Ahead of Myself.