To Drink Coffee With a Ghost

  books by amanda lovelace

  the

  women are some kind of magic

  series:

  the princess saves herself in this one (#1)

  the witch doesn’t burn in this one (#2)

  the mermaid’s voice returns in this one (#3)

  slay those dragons: a journal for writing your own story

  ***

  the

  things that h(a)unt

  duology:

  to make monsters out of girls (#1)

  to drink coffee with a ghost (#2)

  this is dedicated

  to the one

  who loves ketchup

  as much as

  i do.

  trigger warning

  child abuse,

  eating disorders,

  sexual assault,

  self-harm,

  violence,

  cheating,

  death,

  gore,

  blood,

  trauma,

  grief,

  & possibly

  more.

  remember to practice

  self-care before,

  during, & after

  reading.

  contents

  ghost-mother

  ghost-daughter

  sun-showers

  when she thinks

  i have forgotten her,

  every phone

  rings off the hook—

  every television screen

  turns to static—

  every faucet

  twists on & off—

  every clock

  strikes three a.m.—

  every book

  flies off the shelves—

  every cabinet

  swings wide open—

  every stool

  turns upside down—

  every door

  locks & unlocks itself—

  every lightbulb

  explodes into pieces.

  i haven’t

  forgotten;

  there are

  just some things

  i choose

  not to remember.

  - welcome home.

  whenever i think of you, i envision our little white kitchen table. inside the drywall, i imagine years of collected stories & laughter burrowed like chestnuts from stowaway squirrels. my secrets are hidden among them, too—the ones you expertly ignored so you could still look at me & see the perfect daughter who never existed. none of these memories would be complete without our coffee. so i sit down at our little white kitchen table. i pour not one but two cups. i wait & wait & wait even though i know you won’t show up to hear what i have to say.

  - communication was never our strong suit.

  lately, it seems like everywhere i look, i only find daughters haunted by something their mothers did to them. we tell each other that we would raise our daughters differently. we do this while wondering if our mothers made the same promises to themselves.

  - ghost-mother.

  you walked

  underneath streetlamps

  & they flickered

  until they died.

  you wore

  watches on your wrist

  & time forever

  paused.

  you drove

  brand-new cars

  & they stalled on

  the freeway.

  you held

  my bundled-up body

  & i looked up at you like

  you were the sun.

  - power is power even if it takes.

  “you were an accident,”

  she said.

  -it always sounded like “the thing that ruined everything.”

  you wanted me to adore you most of all, so you handed me prettily wrapped lies in the hopes that i would hesitate before trusting anyone besides you.

  - not even myself.

  while i was growing bigger & bigger inside your stomach, you still decided to smoke your cigarettes each & every day. “it was normal back then,” you explained to me once. “no one knew how dangerous it was. no one knew it could kill.”

  -even if you knew, it wouldn’t have changed anything.

  i wonder if anyone would be surprised to find out that i came out of you searching for the scent of smoke, which really just ended up being the smell of you.

  - something toxic.

  the little girl was so desperate to feel loved, to feel like she existed at all, that she took anything she could get, even if it was nothing but a bunch of make-believe.

  - don’t accept scraps.

  i watched

  a

  strange man

  punch

  a hole

  through

  our family.

  i watched

  you

  hold his hand

  & do nothing

  as he pushed

  your children

  through it.

  - aren’t mothers supposed to protect?

  you

  had me

  rehearse

  the tales

  that would

  protect

  you.

  - white lies.

  &

  you were

  shocked

  when i started

  telling tales

  to protect

  myself.

  - red lies.

  relationships fail. people break up. families completely collapse in on themselves, folding up at the spine like a bedtime story finished much too soon. but what those bedtime stories fail to do is prepare us for any of it.

  - some lessons we must learn for ourselves.

  she was

  like a

  mother

  when

  she

  should have

  just been

  my

  sister.

  - thank you for your sacrifice.

  she

  was busy

  hiding

  her bruises

  while

  i was busy

  hiding

  my tears.

  - we were all each other had.

  your

  mother

  taught you

  to hate your

  body,

  - family heirloom.

  so

  you

  taught me

  to hate my

  body.

  - family heirloom II.

  it wasn’t long

  before i realized

  i could never be

  who you always

  wanted me

  to be.

  - i tried desperately to be her anyway.

  what

  you

  told me

  after

  you saw

  the

  thin lines

  on

  my wrist.

  - “depression doesn’t exist.”

  i used to turn to you. with scraped knees. with paper-cut fingers. with battle wounds from playground wars. then things changed & i didn’t feel like i could do that anymore, so i turned to people who knew exactly what i was going through.

  help, i cut myself so deep i t
hink i may have to go to the emergency room.

  help, i haven’t eaten in two days & i’m afraid i’ll die if i don’t & also if i do.

  help, he touched me & i still feel his fingers.

  when you found out, you locked me up. buried the key someplace you forgot about. you gave my pain a name & it sounded like rebellion, not depression. no one ever bothered to tell you about the sad type of daughter & you did everything possible not to see her.

  - blindfold.

  you did not have a medicine spoon filled with poison. you had no gun. no knife. no ax. no belt. no ready hand. however, the weapon you did wield proved to be equally as dangerous.

  - your words.

  if i didn’t

  lose weight,

  you said

  i was

  disgusting.

  - there was never any winning with you.

  if i lost

  too much weight,

  you said

  i was

  disgusting.

  - there was never any winning with you II.

  your best friend.

  your fear.

  - they can be one in the same.

  everything i love, i love because you taught me to. when you decided i was finally old enough, you gave me my first deck of tarot cards for my birthday. you told me, these aren’t magick. not by themselves. they’re magick because your hands are the ones holding them.

  - my high priestess.

  most of the time, the person who hurts you is the person who makes your face light up more than the moon at full brightness. they can even be the person who takes you out for your favorite dessert after you’ve had an awful day. or the person who teaches you the names of crystals. or the person who shows you which offerings to make faeries to get them on your side.

  - it’s not your fault that you trusted them.

  you gave me

  this great

  escape—

  shelves

  & shelves

  of adventures—

  but i used them

  to escape

  you.

  - books upon books upon books.

  i walk

  the thin line

  between

  nostalgia

  & trauma,

  never fully

  knowing

  the difference.

  - maybe there is none.

  if poetry showed me how to bleed without the demand of blood, then why do i keep picking open all my old wounds just to get some red on the page?

  - my ledger.

  I.a noun.

  II.one word.

  III.five letters.

  IV.two syllables.

  V.a shot to the lung.

  - cancer.

  i watched you

  throw up from chemo.

  deteriorate from radiation.

  lose every hair.

  grow bedsores.

  become unrecognizable.

  confuse me for others.

  clutch your dusty rosary.

  receive last rites.

  (twice).

  - going . . . going . . . gone.

  you suffered for so long no one believed it would ever end.

  - nobody deserves that kind of pain.

  there is a kind of cold you’re overcome with when you see your first dead body & it has nothing to do with the temperature outside. you keep that cold with you for the rest of your life. it reminds you to live your life more cautiously. to cherish every autumn sunrise & every smile from a loved one. you never know what you’ll be allowed to bring with you into the unknown.

  - what if it’s nothing?

  what do we do

  with all the things

  we need to say

  to someone

  we’ll never see

  again?

  - maybe that’s why i write.

  the july before you left, it rained every fucking day. everything in your precious garden drowned.

  - how can life be over so quickly?

  one minute, you were here; the next, you had already gone. now i’m terrified to leave a room without saying goodbye to everyone inside of it first.

  - what if they disappear like you did?

  i wake up

  because

  i think

  i hear you

  calling

  my name.

  i know it

  can’t be real

  because

  you died

  without

  remembering it.

  - it was just wishful thinking.

  you cannot

  have a funeral

  for your mother

  without also

  having a funeral

  for yourself.

  - it’s time to begin the procession.

  i wish

  i had known

  i was never

  going to

  see you again

  because i would have

  spent more time

  clinging to the good

  we did have

  instead of

  clinging to the bad

  i couldn’t

  change.

  - what eats me alive.

  for months,

  i dream that

  you aren’t

  really

  dead—

  that

  they made

  some sort

  of horrible

  mistake

  by

  declaring

  you dead &

  turning you

  to ash

  &

  you get to

  come back

  home

  now.

  - it feels more like a nightmare.

  she learned

  that dead moms

  were not just

  a thing that

  happened to

  characters

  in her favorite

  fairy tales.

  it happened to

  girls like her, too,

  but the

  difference was

  there was no

  omniscient narrator

  to teach her how

  to navigate it.

  - the cracked compass.

  “what will she do without a mommy?”

  the little girl asked.

  - i still don’t know.

  celebrities died. pets died. even distant relatives died. back then, grief seemed so easy, effortless. so meaningful, even hopeful. nowadays, grief is so fucking messy. grief is an off-white coffee mug with fading green rings around the top in the far- left corner of the kitchen cabinet, spider webs filling it to the brim, & no, i can’t just throw it away even though you’ve been gone for years because how would you ever forgive me for that?

  - sometimes there is no meaning.

  i wonder what you would say if you saw me now. you were the one who passed on, but i’m the one who forgot what it was to live. i barely sleep & all the flesh is falling off my bones & my books—all my beloved books—are coated in inches of dust, unread. here i am, somehow managing to be more haunted house than girl.

  - ghost-daughter.

  “i only ever wanted to keep you safe,”

  you screamed.

  “then why didn’t you?”

  i cried.

  - lucid.

  remember

  back when

  we always

  stayed up

  way too late

  watching

&nbs
p; our favorite

  ghost shows

  on tv?

  -now you’re the ghost story & i can’t bring myself to watch those shows anymore.

  without you,

  it’s lonely.

  - it doesn’t have to make sense.

  without you,

  it’s liberating.

  - it doesn’t have to make sense II.

  i’m afraid i’ll be just like you.

  i’m afraid i’ll be nothing like you.

  - my empress in reverse.

  i used to tell people you were the lorelai to my rory. the ultimate package: not just mother & daughter, but the best of friends. as i grow older, i wonder how many times rory went to bed feeling empty, wishing for a mother, & just that—a mother. for that someone who would tell her what she needed to do when life was just too much to handle without ever expecting anything from her in return.

  - chasing emily.

  even

  the old

  coffee-ring

  stains

  on the tables

  at cafés

  remind me

  of you.

  - you’re everywhere & nowhere all at once.

  i tell everyone i can’t bake & what i mean to say is that i won’t bake. before you got really, really sick, you tried to teach me everything you possibly could. even though you were confident that you would beat it, i think you knew you were quickly running out of time & we had to squeeze a lifetime of lessons into a year. now, i can’t taste burnt chocolate chip cookies without thinking of you.