Skull Maps

Come, my love, sit. The show is about to begin. The curtains are my eyelids, stitched with veins. Tonight's performance is inside your head, and I have purchased the only ticket. Don't be shy. I love your little ghost-battalion. I love the way they march behind your eyes, their bootfalls leaving dream-bruises on the morning. The screaming men who pop like corn in the desert-heat of your sleep? I find their little shrieks a most enchanting overture. Oneself whispers they are your memory-shrapnel, splinters of boys you tried to piece back together. Let them haunt. Let them rage. I am not a priestess of pretty lies; I will not burn sage to make them leave. No, I want to meet them. I will set tiny places for them at our table, pour thimbles of bone-tea for their parched little spirits. I will ask them their names and listen to their stories. The world wants you quiet, wants you whole, wants your head-theatre shuttered and boarded up. Fools. Your ghosts are proof you have lived. They are the souvenirs from a Forever Fair I was not invited to. Let me be the keeper of your haunted museum. I will polish the cannon-fire echoes until they shine, I will tend to the porcelain parasites of panic until they are calm. Your beautiful, terrible war is the grandest stage, my darling, and I am your most devoted audience.