I Came Back Haunted II (2014 Night 2)

Photo from my personal files 

 

Night 2

Certain words capture my imagination. Shade, for example, is a word that has the two sides of a coin thing happening. Sitting in the shade–to use it that way–seems to me much more like a lazy and dull connotation.

To say the shade of the long deceased mistress of Manor So and So? Well, the hairs on my neck start to rouse themselves. 

Not much. More than a twitch. Less than a yawn. 

To think of the word shade like this? Is like opening the portals to an entirely new dimension. Is it real? Is it false? Does it matter? It truly does not matter to these tiny receptors. Leading to the erogenous zones of fear–Jack White style. Dressed up and in old clothes and mothball perfume. 

That's the way mothballs are another scary thing: bright smelly eyes staring at you from the depths of the cedar chest. Nestled in the pockets of aunt Nelly's old velvet jacket that would not fit anyone who isn't wearing a corset cinched to hell and back. 

Sexy though, isn't it? To bring the waist inwardly. To tighten the chords around and around and under and through? Cross and through? It is something very near the darkness of death. A certain morbid beastie that tickles in places and places. 

Brain to pussy? Do you read me? Are you there? Copy? Over. 

Yet? Go too far and it all becomes something much different. It becomes a real threat, an illness manifesting. Starvation. Body fat loss. Bones coming through in a frightful way. It is no longer a joke. 

No more of this. Stop. 

Isn't this where the desire for healing another human being begins? At the end of desire and the thresholds of death? More we desire. 

Death. We want no part. 

And so? A shade falls upon my soul, upon my deep and darkened home for us to stay in. 

The basement under the stairs. The corner of the room. The cover of the pine tree branches. 

Starring through black windows with those terrible mothball eyes, starring down down into nothing but–but? But what? 

We don't really know all the names of all the things lurking in the shades of black. Do we fully understand the light? Do we see all there is to see? A prism sees rainbows everywhere. Our eyes do not. Our eyes definitely do not. 

Yet, the rainbow is still there. It could depend on the eye. 

The eye should becomes more sophisticated. It should be more than it is. I say this without tongue-in-cheek because I know I cannot make an eye. I cannot create the right conditions to see that rainbow, nor can I decipher what is in the shade. 

Dark things... It must be the dark things or the spiritual shadow of all that had gone on and on before us.

My mind goes back to the thought of that velvet coat. Red. Cinched at the waist (waste), coming into the light. Candle light. Small waist. The big white eyes coming closer and closer. Nearer and nearer and nearer to the warmth of the fire. 

Have I watched too many vampire movies? Have I lost myself to imagination a minute too long? Or did I just see what I thought I saw? Did I see it there? In the black window starring out of the dead eyes of a mansion? 

It is so easy to romanticize this. It is not so easy to feel what I felt when I went to Pennsylvania. 

The land is dripping in blood. The rocks ache to be removed from their position hundreds of years old. 

I don't want to touch the land–the land is touching me. 

My girl, my girl, don't lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night
In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun don't ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through

Lead Belly