have you ever been a ghost?

there is a me that dies every night.

right around last call.

right now it’s late enough that the night sky is swallowing up the tops of apartment buildings. right now it’s sleepy enough that the cacophony of the city is hushed down to the clack of street cars and the echoing screams of junkies.

right now there’s the snake hiss of butane and the grinding sparks and, right now, my cigarette catches. the night air cold and damp like early april, and right now, everyone inside is paying their tabs.

the warm glow of their laughter is spilling out through the windows in four stretching squares on the stained sidewalks.

Inhale the crackling hot.

Have you ever been a ghost?

right now it is three steps, down off the stoop of the pub. but there is a me that’s still up there. still inside and warm, still all life-of-the-party. still smiling, all alive-and-red.

maybe it’s the booze, but it feels like parts of me were left on those steps.

My smile.
          My voice.
                    My name.

from all the way down here you can see the real city.

people still carve their names into trees. the proof is right beside my shoulder, right in the glowing edges of my nicotine storm. a heart with two sets of initials scraped inside it. GC and CL.

best of luck.

right now, my watch says it’s seven after the hour, and the tree bows.

right now it’s late enough that the night sky starts to swallow you. and it’s sleepy enough that the real you can emerge.

the one up there, inside and alive, the fake one, well, he’s dead until we have to do this again.

my cigarette butt joins about a dozen others, here at the base of the tree. all that forbidden fruit. and then it’s the long walk home. like leaving eden. like me and adam and eve wandering for however long it takes for morning to scrape over the horizon.

streetlights cast their tangerine circles on the pavement and my body barely leaves a shadow passing through them. and those swallowed up buildings, the ones with the big display windows, they hardly show my reflection.

have you ever been a ghost?

taxis yellow down the mostly barren roads, and at the corner of here and there, some guy is all hunched shoulders, all yearning, like me.

“you got a light?” he asks me, turning his jagged face and bright eyes.

and you can hear the hiss again, and the sparks, and after an inhale, he sighs, and he asks “you got any food?”

“nothing.”

he smells like the vinegar on the inside of an old watch strap, and he asks, “you got the time?”

“seven after.”

time flies.

he inhales again, and he bows his head low, and he says, “when Jesus died,” and smoke comes out of his mouth. and he starts crossing the street, down here and me? well, my road is down there.

right now most of the diners in the city are closed, but this one, the Golden Diner, is open and the cooks here, sometimes they let me smoke inside and drink with them after hours. we eat and we play cards.

telescoping my hands onto the window shows the kitchen light is on, but no one is cooking or cleaning. there’s no one to tap tap tap to, no one to shake a pack of Belmonts to, no one to pretend with.

stepping back, shaking my head, seeing my reflection, all that’s there is coyote.

wild and starving and lost.

wind howls down back alleys and tumbleweeds old chinese take-away containers. the world spins beneath me. my sighs try their best to climb to the heavens, but it’s so damn dark the night swallows them all.

outside this city garden are some grates in the sidewalk. they let out the hot sweaty subway air, and at this late hour, homeless people sleep on them. wrapped in their blankets, trying to keep warm.

there’s empty bottles of liquor and mouthwash, there’s bags of greasy value meals, and right here, right now, there’s a dog bowl and stray kibble.

and they sleep in all this night, and they do not care who sees them.

haunting down these vacant streets, my thumb rolling the ignition of my lights in my pocket.

hunting under bridges and stalking through parks, what I see is a stolen sign, stapled to a tree. lost bike.

me too.

stolen and lost.

right now it’s so dark and it’s so sleepy and so quiet you feel like you can tell the truth, just a whisper inside, and even your conscience won’t be able to hear it.

with my eyes closed, with another tobacco inhale, some secret part of me whispers about everything stolen, everything lost.

at this intersection the subway lines and electric lines are a spider’s web and they throw their prison shadow all over me. and that secret part of me whispers again, and my face gets pale and my hands tremble.

and what you have to do is still those hands, so you drink and you drink and you drink until you’re drowning in the dark of a forever night. you smoke and you smoke trying to breathe. you wander so long you might just step off the edge of the earth.

I am a Bandit of the Good Life.

right now it’s a few more thousand steps for this ghost, this coyote, this bandit to come to his hideout: an old seminary with a courtyard and these bursting gardens and this tree as old as the world.

and right now it’s late enough that the dark swallows up the stone wall i need to jump to get in.

there’s the butane and there are sparks and one deep inhale.

another sigh, wishing it could pray all the way up, up, up.

it never does, not in all this night.

the air is cool here, like the blooming daisies, and the grass is so alive my body barely presses it down. there’s a covered stone walkway that splits the courtyard in half and in it are these carved arches without windows.

the wind passes through but it does not howl.

right now, it’s seven after the hour again. and it is graveyard quiet.

leaning against the tree, the bark imprinting itself into my back, exhaling all this insence, all i want to do is let my breath out, too. my eyes follow the smoke upward, follow it up the ornate height of the church tower.

past gargoyles and wild beasts, all the way up to a stained glass window.

It’s Christ on the cross and with the two thieves beside him.

Dismas and Gestas.

Gestas is the theif, so the tradition goes, who mocked Christ. the theif who never repented. the one who stole til the very end. the one lost forever. and where his face is, or is supposed to be, it’s just mine. reflected.

my eyes move to look at Dismas, his head all bowed. sorrowful and broken. hanging there between heaven and earth. and where his face is, or is supposed to be, is mine. reflected.

haunted and hungry and so lost.

Lord, remember me.

me under this tree.
me in this garden.
me in Gethsemane.

and the wind sings through the cool of the night, a melody i can’t quite make out. because it’s only friday. and it’s been friday for a very long time.

there’s a me that dies every night.

right around seven past.

Every Day Saints is a torchlight searching for hidden miracles; the beautifully human stories and ideas that exist all around us.