If you don’t believe in ghosts
then you miss out on what
the wind is telling you
and the creaks in the floorboards
are footless, the radiator coughs
can plot their way back
to no spirit’s throat.

Without ghosts, the dead
are just bodies, gravel in their
eye sockets, worms between
their toes, flesh rotting and
flaked from their bones.

That’s a cruel fate to wish upon
your victims.
So please, when the clothes
flutter in the closet for no
reason, embrace them.
When you think
those can’t be voices,
stop thinking and hear.

And when it’s dark
and you feel as if
there’s someone in the room with you,
then shudder like crazy.
The haunting will thank you for it.

 

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No Point If You Don't Believe by John Grey
originally published in the Spring 2012 print edition