Because I love my ghosts.
I’ve never felt their touch.
I’ve never heard their voices.
Just felt their gentle tugs at the back of my hand,
Steering my wrists through the thick sludge
Deep into the muck and the swill.
Elbow deep.
Neck deep.
They drag me through and I follow,
Because I love the mystery.
I love the pain and the misery.
I live for the journey;
I die for the adventure.
And I’ve found them.
They dragged me through and I dragged them back out,
Exposed them.
Their flaws,
Their guilt,
Their fears,
Their darkest desires.
I tortured them,
Because I could.
And you love it.
They dragged me through and I cut them open.
I tore them apart.
Their hearts,
Their minds,
Their will.
I vivisect and reassemble,
Because I am an artist.
And you marvel.
They are my friends,
And I love them.
They lull me to sleep,
They hear my desperate cries,
They comfort me.
They are my friends, and I am a dark force.
I dance with their spirits.
I give them body.
Stitch their names,
Carve their eyes,
Mold their features.
I string ideas through their ears,
Chip away deep grooves of doubt,
Bake them in a hard shell of hostility and distrust.
And then I break it. I break it all away.
I’ve never met them.
I know them all too well.
They know me better.
They knew my flaws,
My guilt.
Because I made it manifest through them.
I poisoned their lives.
I rent deep and seeded.
And I took root in souls not so feeble as mine.
I sprinkled the ground with shards of glass,
I embedded into their skin.
They knew I was dangerous.
They knew before I did.
They knew what a sick twisted monster I was,
But they stayed,
Because their minds were just as diseased,
And they didn’t mind the murderer,
Because the murderer was still company.
I’ve never felt the rush, the fire,
The cold terror, the dread, the nausea,
The sickening thrill.
I’ve never felt the warm slickness
Of another’s essence wet on my fingers.
But I could describe it word for word.
Because I killed them and laid their bodies in the sun,
Because they are my masterpiece.
And you analyze them.
And I criticize them.
And then I kill them again,
Because I didn’t do it right the first time.
And I kill them again.
A dozen times.
A hundred times.
Different ways.
I resurrect them
Just to get it right.
I make them stronger, whether they want to be or not.
I study for them,
I learn for them.
I stuff my mind full with facts that I will never use
Except to teach them.
I am their personal scholar,
Their tutor.
And they don’t know what they despise me for.
They don’t even know that they despise me.
But they do.
They’ve never met me.
They don’t know my touch.
They don’t know my voice.
But they know me;
They are me.
And I created them.
And I despised them.
And I exposed them.
And I criticized them.
And I made them stronger.
And I killed them.
Because I love my ghosts.
