inside of me was a blacker space. i moved into a haunted house but it felt the same as the inside of me had always been; cold, rancid.
they showed up on a tuesday. hey bud, are you okay? in the sugar. did i write this to myself in a fugue state again. i scooped the words into the sink and bleached the counters and then went back to bed.
we’ve been trying, on wednesday, you won’t do anything. at night i hear screams. often they’re mine and sometimes they’re not but that’s not news and it’s fine. i get these urges that crawl inside of me that won’t stop bleating, little shouts of what i should be doing.
sometimes i spiral back out. on thursday i feel too confident, slam myself into the climb, try to make friends with strangers, turn in papers before i edit them, unbuckle my seatbelt. on friday i sleep with a stranger at their place, puke in their bathroom, carry myself back to a haunted house.
months pass. what are we doing wrong? at first in latin. i think these are notes i wrote myself the way i have been doing since the eighth grade: wake up, be better, what is wrong with you. i scribble them absently. i go back to sleep. my days pass like roller coasters - i binge in pasta dinners after forgetting to eat for days. i don’t shower for weeks. i get angry for no reason, get greedy and try to force my life back into me.
i ignore them when they show up. in my faith it is not right to commune with spirits i see them over the bowl of soup i microwaved. gluttony has got wide pupils and a tiny stomach. my mother used to say “you eat with your eyes”.
i made you eat it writes to me in my alphabet soup.
lust meets me when i’m coming home again. he looks the same as i expected, oily, twitchy, trench-coated. you got laid lights up on the graffiti of a passing bus. i throw up in the bushes. when i close my eyes i see the words like a red exit sign in front of me.
one by one they come to me, step out of the house for me. i know each because i was raised in the vault of a church; i know what the lord is sending to come for me. was not jesus tested in the desert. i stare at greed in the reflection of someone else’s tv. when i wake up we’ve taken their speakers. i finally yell back at my boss and wrath grins at me while i pack up my cubicle and leave. pride won’t let me find a new job, nothing is good enough for me. envy when i open my computer to see faces, smiling. that could be me. that could be me.
i tie a knot when sloth shows up. my favorite of the seven. i’ve been kissing her since i was young. she pushes me back into bed. keeps me from getting further than the span of a footstep. her voice is the prettiest to me. we have been trying, she writes in the bedsheets. we have given you everything shows up in the mist of the morning. why won’t you be happy.
there are seven cardinal sins and seven virtues to vanquish them. in another life i am full of these, of kindness and charity and humility. in that world maybe i don’t have bursts of negative energy where i break all that is around me.
i am not supposed to commune with spirits. but she follows me with those heavy talons locked in my chest. why aren’t you happy. why aren’t you happy. we gave you all of it.
my body has been haunted for a long time. the things i did to remove spirits were all sins. i look at the bottom of my life and i think: aren’t they right? isn’t this what you wanted?
i go to church. my ears ring. at night i hear her sobbing, or maybe we both are, because we are both failures, and yet addicted to trying. is she restless like me, i wonder, always driven but too tired to do anything, instead lying in a swamp where lightning bugs eat at me.
the seven of them find me over tea. i touch my crucifix gently. why aren’t you happy? on the widows, on the walls, in the leaves of my tea.
maybe it’s wrath that finally wins me. i throw the cup. i stand up. i stare at them in all their glory. how can i tell them that this isn’t how it works, that you don’t get better because you get the girl, you don’t get better because you’re overly confident, you don’t get better just because things go right - you don’t get better because of the things you get in life.
they gave me what they wanted. what others think i want. they gave me every pleasure of the body, every desire of the heart.
you don’t exorcise a haunted home by letting demons run wild and you don’t exorcise a mind by keeping them in kind.
the next day i go house hunting. it’s time i leave them behind.
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