ghosts_of_old_friends raze i keep finding them. not just anywhere. in places i know they shouldn't be. sitting on park benches when they haven't seen the inside of a park since they swore off weed and cigarettes. walking down my street looking dispirited with earbuds in when they don't live in this province anymore. haunting my dreams when my dreams should know better than to let them in the house sleep builds around my bones for seven or eight hours every night. and then one of them shows up in my inbox, and i read the seven small sentences they saw fit to stitch together and wonder if i have anything at all to answer with, or if i'm a ghost too. 220609 ... epitome of incomprehensibility In today's weird_confessions; see mezzo_forte. 220609 ... ovenbird You’ve invited me to your funeral. It’s going to be a low key affair at the church you’ve attended for years. The problem is that you don’t seem to be dead. You greet me when I arrive and ushers help me find my seat. Your husband is wearing khaki pants and a Hawaiian shirt. There are some complications with the seating arrangement and I end up right at the front, wedged between strangers. The pew I’ve been shown to has a divot in the seat so deep that I’m not sure I’ll ever escape it. I try to access feelings of grief, but it’s hard to mourn the passing of someone who is standing at the back of the room holding a bouquet of flowers, looking for all the world like a bride rather than a corpse. I guess we died to each other a long time ago. Friendships don’t always survive the onslaught of time. We shift, we change, we lose the ability to understand each other. We have a history stretching back to early childhood which tethers our hearts in transcendent ways. We still talk on the phone sometimes. But it’s been ages since I felt like you really knew me. After the funeral service a lunch is served in the church basement. Rancid cold cuts are laid out on melamine platters, freezer burned hamburger buns are stacked on the table. I put soggy bread in a toaster hoping it will crisp up and then make an unappetizing ham sandwich. I pull a mint green Tupperware container from the air and fill it with leftover apple crisp, which has the consistency of runny oatmeal. Things die all the time without being consigned to the cold, wet earth: our past selves, relationships that have served their purpose, the long light of summer, the ability to smile without leaving cracks at the corners of your mouth. One thing dies and another thing crawls from the caul and rails against the injustice of being brought into this world. The church bells ring and you wave at the assembled guests. Death is a veil that trails behind you. No one fights to catch the flowers you toss over your shoulder as you walk into the lurid light of noon. You thank me for coming as you disappear into a life that doesn’t have me in it. I’m left wondering which of us is dead after all. Sometimes it’s surprisingly hard to tell if the things you once held dear still have a pulse. I press fingers to my carotid artery, and cry. 250912 what's it to you? who go blather from