This Old Ghost

There’s something wrong with me,

but it’s not something you can see.

I’ve got no scar or suspect rash,

no lump or bump or missing limb,

no sudden slump or system

crash.

It’s this old ghost I’ve got, you see.

It only shows its face to me.

It plants these questions in my head

and sends them spinning round my chest.

It never settles down to sleep;

it never lets me get some rest.

And when I try to wriggle free,

this wicked ghost, it clings to me.

It whispers stories of my doom,

this effervescent thing, it looms

and fleshes out my brittle bones

while I’m out swimming in the sea.

But just as I’m about to flee,

far out into the gloom I see

a thousand faces blinking back,

all floating on the open sea.

They’re smiling as I watch them glow,

a dreamy moonlit lantern show,

all drifting through the same deep black –

I wave at them and they wave back –

one thousand hands against the sky,

one thousand souls who’ve gone awry,

all swimming through the same cold sea,

and they’ve all got old ghosts like me.