This Is A Ghost Story

I often dream about the dead. These are the hauntings I know best, the ones that take place in dreams.

The dead man follows me, pale and powdery, mustachioed and aged. I don't know him, or at least, I don't remember. I am not afraid of anything composed of mist, ethereal and unbodied. I approach him. He is saying things. Ugly things. I recall how they make me feel in the dream--angry, embarrassed--but I can't remember what he says. I try to disperse him with my breath, blowing at the misty apparition as hard as I can. The white, powdery coating is gone, and the ghost is corporeal. His face is dark and rich as garden soil. I am horrified when I realize he is something solid. His head is obsidian, perched upon a rickety set of ivory bones. I don't want him to move. Unless I can immobilize him, I am certain he will pursue me forever. I take his leg bones, pull them up behind his back, and draw his legs through the ribcage. He is a bone pretzel. I am frightened by by my own capacity for violence. Until now, I have always seen myself as a woman incapable of intentionally causing bodily harm. This has changed. I am a different person when threatened, animalistic and cruel. There is another woman in my dream. Perhaps an alternate version of myself? She carries a small box, containing the essence of a female ghost. It is the anima, part of the old man's soul. The boxed sprite calls out to the twisted bones. She escapes from the box, and the corporeal ghost is young again, with long hair and a muscled torso and bright, dark eyes. He looks at me and it reminds me of that moment in Rear Window, when Raymond Burr sees Jimmy Stewart watching him from across the courtyard. Chilling.

I always wake up before the worst happens.

I cannot stop thinking about this dream. According to my Dream Dictionary:

Ghosts signify "unused or wrongly applied intellectual activities." You are chasing a phantom. "Often an expression of guilty feelings, pangs of conscience."

I am especially intrigued by the image of the female essence in a box. Surely, Freud would turn this into something overtly sexual. Oh, Freud!

Speaking of Freud, I have a big chunk of time off next week, which I intend to use for getting the latest issue of blossombones together. We should go live sometime around July 1st. Stay tuned.

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Also: REQUITED!

My latest series of poems has much to do with spooky things, monsters of both the human and supernatural variety. Four new poems are up in the latest issue of Requited, which is a fabulous journal. Be sure to visit them and check out the gorgeous words of Kristen Orser, Arlene Ang, James Tadd Adcox and more.