Death of a Nihilist [poetry]

37. child 13

there's a ghost on the other side of the room

and it stands staring at you.

you can feel its gaze

prickling your scalp

like a stoat's sharp teeth

pressing against the fluttering pulse

along your bony jugulars.

the ghost begs for food

while you beg for forgiveness.

both of you kept praying to the same god,

holding the same knife

like it's a cross,

an object of devotion.

you knew its name once

but what use now,

to call for someone long dead and gone

chopped into pieces?

you don't speak to the ghost.

rarely look it in the eyes anymore.

not that there are any

to look into;

the maggots and ants eat the soft flesh first,

and you did, too.

it's easier to pop the eyeballs out of the sockets

easier than sucking the marrows clean.

yet, at night, the ghost crawls in next to you.

its jagged nails dig into your skinny arms,

intangible fingers clasp onto tangible fingers.

there's no space

on this one too-small bunk bed,

or this one too-tiny itchy blanket.

but it curls up anyway.

the hemp pulls awkwardly up

past its protruding collarbones,

covering its face.

its body tucks against yours

like it wants to skin the flesh

of your chest open,

and hides inside the hollow spot

where your heart still stubbornly beats onward

for a life no longer worth living.

you can't touch the mass

of scarred bones and tissues

crisscross the ghost's crooked neck.

but you tried.

ghosts don't remember,

but you do.

how your hands shook and hesitated,

how its body jerked and spasmed,

fighting back.

and you remember thinking

if only it has inherited

your wife's doltish smile and kindness,

instead your blind resilience and faith;

if only it knows

the god you told it to pray to

was the same one who handed you the knife.

on the throes of death,

guilt and hunger

is separated only by a thin line,

lost somewhere between the tangy taste

lingers on the rough sandpaper

tongue you've leftover

and the sticky, warm blood pool

seeping into creaky wooden floorboards

underneath your bare feet.

the vibration of high-pitched wails

and incoherent gurgles

the cleaver was too blunt to cut through

remains,

clinging to the ghost's presence

as it clings back to you

like you're still its lifeline.

ghosts don't remember,

but you do.

the child you raised,

only to slaughter.