The Mummy

Caught by its tail, the ghost of a breath
Pained and struggling to rise from the chest
Panic strides the tide and crests
Harking the first of many deaths

You’ll find no answers behind lock or keys
The creature has no wants or needs
A storm is raging, it splits the sea
Revealing monsters that stalked beneath

Royal blood through the afflicted’s veins
Ferries poisoned air to a strangled brain
Puts death for now to thought or shame
Resurrects them once it’s played its game

Hurting and hurts, it spreads its sickness
Pays no heed to the gawking witness
Communicates in hieroglyphics
Knowing not to beg forgiveness

Try to exhale and feel its claws
Dead and yet unable to pause
Stumbling forward wrapped in gauze
Some ancient thing with greedy jaws

It attacks. It fights. It’s unrelenting.
Then settles once it leaves you empty

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Phantom Pains

Laid stony upon a contorted sheet, as the social thrum begins to fade
A gathering now dissolved, solitude begins to scathe
Take careful notes to analyze the now-passed day…
A silvery specter fills the room with stagnant haze

Run through the hours in your mind;
Repeat and see what you will find:
When the party has been left behind—
Only you are left to shine.

You perform your feats of extroversion
(Carefully disguised aversion)
To each and every fucking person
So you can leave a lasting version

Of the thing you’d like them to see
You can look back and say, “That’s me!
They can see what I can’t see!”
Tearful lies through chattered teeth

Brazen moments that loathe recall
Casting shadows on the bedroom walls;
No slumber amidst your rabbit’s fall
Down the hole with failing paws

Laid bare before the guestly ghost—
Hindered not by wall or moat
(This thing who loves you the most),
Stood towering for the victory toast

Like a lover’s flower, a dainty rose
You cannot keep yourself afloat
Two alone, the specter’s boast:
“I’m the only one who really knows.”

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