haunt me like a recurring dream where each time the party is more sumptuous and in the end I’m dead. The white ghost taps his cane in a trancelike tune of wanting and need. It’s a song I can’t escape, its saccharin melody inside my head where desires hide, crouching on my tongue. Each time he comes, he brings a present to them wrapped as a sweet precursor to the bitterness germinating in my gut. He sleeps with the red devil that bitch of bistro banter and scurrilous wit. She seduces like a literary succubus leaving one dull and hungry. I’ve found it doesn’t matter how much I pay, her services are the same and the same could be said for her lover. They’re both classless contrivances from the state of mind. I’m addicted to the swoon of her selfishness, as I sleep unrestful in a stuporous tomb. The white ghost feeds me a lecherous rhyme where I think he’s saying, “Isn’t the living great,” but actually he’s saying, “I’m fucking your goddamn face!” They both drown me in languorous laughter every time I fall for this and I fall every time.
~Michael Staples
