In My Room the Women Come and Go

If only they would limit their discussions to art.


Instead, they lament, voices plaintive and thick, slurred with alcohol and death.

Go away, mournful ghosts. I do not want to know the weight of your sad hearts, the texture of your scars.


Why pour your misery into me with such intimate whispering? You have no secrets. You splashed everything out in bright blood blossoms all over your pages for everyone to read, the neglect of parents, the betrayals of husbands and lovers, the abuse and abandonment of your children. You have no secrets left. Your words and memories should be enough to carry all your guilt. Your ghosts should not even exist. And still.



Even when I sleep, your voices drill into my head, mewing complaints forcing me awake. I spend my time in your cigarette garden, whiskey watered guilt-flowers stinking up the landscape.



God, given me back the bachelor butchers: the General, the Surgeon, the bleak and sour-faced soul-reeking priest.

I'm more comfortable with demons bent on destroying me than these mad, mournful ghost-ladies clawing for pity, tearing my heart into strips, swallowing the pieces.