Estelle,

there is a haunted house on the cliff
where your feet were last planted.

erected to house the demons
stitched to your toes
that teased you to the edge
and then pulled back.

your sutures
came undone
and your skin
hurled toward the heavens to reveal
for months
you laid the foundation for this house,
tilted to the left,
no door,
too much
of a roof.

demons left dirty shoe prints on
your blueprints
rolled up in sleeves of
back-of-the-closet blouses
where skeletons slipped into your seams
to speedily unravel
an unravelling mind...
you were falling out of yourself
and you knew it.

so the construction began.

a monument to your uncoiled thought threads,
you attempted to save your last leaves of
madness
in an attic-brain with no electric nerves
to
power lightbulb thoughts of
"don't let the edge get you."

but it did.

"rest in distress," I want to say.
you commanded your fate far beyond
the edge of the cliff and all we have are
your
footprints
and no door to the smoked flesh-wooden
house
to gather clues to your downfall.

we want to piece together your last
violent
moments, paranoid glances, and visions
of haunting.
but that's gruesome,
and your more-than-pleasant nature
is the only thing worth grieving.

yet i feel find myself seething
under skins hardened by california suns
you were supposed to first-time meet me
under
four days after your feet left Australian sand.
jerk,
we never met.

so sky-type me messages
from wherever you are,
because i find myself dream-standing on
water
under the cliff
looking up
at crooked planks resting rigid around
tricky spirits relishing pickled hopes.

the stench of your potential haunts most,
and made your mind take flight.
left empty for conquered craze
to warp your windows
into ugly mirrors,
a self-reflected self-destruction
that bears no moral

just that haunted houses
are meant never
to be occupied again.