new moon in Virgo

an american exorcism

there’s an old white house at the top of a hill 

but the hill is a cemetery 

and the house is haunted 

it was built centuries ago 

on a bed of 

blood, cotton, and tears

faded and running

into a palette of diluted purples

streaking the hill with the illusion of movement 

I used to live in an old white house

with a lawn 

and a dog 

and my ghosts 

whispered stories of uprising and reclamation  

while I pinched my lips with silence

someone called the fence security

and it stuck

silence is a shared language 

the ghosts didn’t bite their tongues 

but I can taste your apprehension in my mouth

I dressed them up for you

I wanted my scars 

to be respectable 

to be beautiful

to matter  

I wanted to belong here, as if here actually exists 

crossing the threshold

creaky with years of built-up tension 

lights flicker, but mostly it’s dark

and in the darkness, lies proliferate

emerging seeping wet from the warm and cloudy pools of nostalgia 

wars crime disguised as patriotism  

statues of terror dried out and crumbling to dust 

we are all just the stories that we tell about ourselves 

they’re the only ones I told,

the ghosts,

when he invaded with a bold unchecked lust

sucking the sugar cane dry 

he took everything he deemed valuable 

slick with rum

I knew then that nothing would ever grow here

not in the same way 

they whispered: torch the rest

and the fire kept me warm for a while

silence, our shared language

eating the space between us

I concern myself with their health, their joy, their freedom, 

all that they’ve stuffed into that big old empty house 

and all of the pain they’ve called strength

and I fear self-determination means I have to own 

a history that is so broken 

I won’t try forever, to keep myself alive on morsels 

dissolving in my mouth as I close my lips

I won’t mourn forever, not for what has tried to kill me 

I won’t play dead, not alone in this graveyard 

there’s an old White House at the top of a hill 

the hill is a pile of bones 

the house burned down years ago 

but only the ghosts got out 

so it makes sense that the rest insist that it is still there