Sometimes, if
you stare long enough at these old houses, you can see the ghosts.
They’re there, you know.
You don’t see them usually.
Most of the time you walk by too fast, the street is too bright,
your eyes are too busy...
But sometimes, once in a while, everything falls into place
just right
And you can glimpse through the curtain of years and dust
And you can see them
Ghosts.
Don’t be scared of them. They were once like you.
One day, not so many years from now, someone will look at
the abandoned hollows of your homes and be nervous, fearing
that they will see you staring out at them.
How would you feel then ? When you are they ?
They are lonely. So lonely.
See.
They sit there, in chairs long rotted away, on floors warped
with neglected time.
See.
They stand in dark hallways shedding memories, like paint
peeling off crumbling walls.
See.
They look out at the street – narrow as death but wide
as time – and wonder who you are
And where you are going so hurriedly
And they see you looking at their houses
Not seeing them
Not believing their lives
Your eyes pass over them, hard, denying - as if they never
were
As if they hallucinated for 50, 60, 70 years then woke up
into permanent grey nothing
As if they cannot be now because they hardly were then
As if you are more real than they, because you are here now
And they want to look you in the eye and ask you –
Where were you then ?
Were you the ghosts they could not see, would not see, never
saw
- come back now to put them in their place ?
And if you are...
And if you are....
Will it be their turn next, to come back, when you stand in
empty houses,
To look at you – and see nothing.
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