The tenth letter of the Edged In Black! series has arrived, asking the question of “ Who is the ghost in your story? ”…
Text:
To / A stranger who aches the same as I do.
When you have had a period of ill mental health, you are haunted by the ghost of it, threatened by its possible return.
Each brief flare of fear or euphoria holds a spectral glow, every shadow creeping into sun-drenched vision leers and weeps grey tendrils that you beg and pray not to creep towards you.
It hangs in the folds of curtains, choking dust, threatening re-infection.
The spirit of my illness is a heavy, sagging coat dangling from a hook. In the day it appears pitiful. At night it looms, swelling and heaving; you try to blink away the encroaching itch of old wool, worry sparkling in your limbs.
These teetering moments promise of a stumbling return to despair. It leaves the night, clings to the corner of your laptop, leaks onto your emails.
It leeches your hope as you sit shivering on a park bench, praying that the leaves stay beautiful, begging them not to fall.
It languishes in the base of your skull, hissing sweet nothings if your mind dips into the warm puddle of momentary defeat.
I have fought, tried to wrestle it from me, turn my gaze, retract my fingertips when it approached, wretched and keening. It seemed to swell in response.
I've learned to prise open my squeezed shut eyes, face the shifting shadows in the gloom, feel the whispering spidery fingers that weave through my ears and mesh with my skull.
My panic, my fear, my trembling hands, my ghost circling in the bare bulbs of waiting rooms. I've learned to draw it in against my chest, fill it with my heartbeats.
The grey clouds billow above my bed and I let them swirl, smile up with teeth worn from clenching.
At any time my ghost may rally, unfurl from my lap and consume me whole. Or it may lie limp and lifeless, tossed tea towel on linoleum, until I am gone.
I live with its breath on my neck; I open the curtains and sneeze at the dust and laugh at the noise.
I carry my ghost with me, always. Slowly its weight is becoming my own.
Best wishes,
A stranger watching the waves, looking for currents.
