(A Halloween poem, with apologies to E.A. Poe and B. Seger)
Once upon a midnight sleepy, I sensed the presence of something creepy,
A wraith appeared at my bedroom door, waking me from my noisy snore.
It was all Hallows Eve. Not All Saints Day, but the night before.
“You are no saint!” said this haint, “you committed sins in your days of yore.”
“What wrong did I commit?” I asked with shame as I struggled to recall her name,
“Your sins were many,” she was quick to proclaim,
“But the worst of them is not to remember,
How our embrace that last night of October lasted till the wee hours of November,
“I was but a young girl, not yet twenty. A life ahead, I had plenty.”
“I was but a boy, only seventeen.” I now remembered the scene.
“I don’t think we did the deed,” I said in my defense,
She replied, “you stopped well short of that offense.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked, eagerly wishing for the morrow,
and an end to this apparition, her complaint, and her sorrow,
“We both wanted to lose those awkward teenage blues,”
She said, “We were searching for the mystery without any clues,
I added, “But there was no mention of love. We didn’t care.
And as I recall, you were quite willing to share,”
She glared at me with her witchy eyes.
I’d committed a grave sin I was beginning to surmise.
To listen in my dream state, I could not refuse,
So, I prepared to apologize as she continued to accuse,
“I used you, you used me, so why did you stop, when neither of us cared?”
This question surprised me, so I stammered my reply, “I was unprepared.”
“The specter of fatherhood, the shame on my family,
the judgment from my church, caused a return of my sanity.
The sin of commission stopped my emission,
And seized by inhibition, I retreated from our reclining position.”
She seemed unmoved by my confession. I sought an end to this painful session.
Her name still slipped my mind, but I didn’t seek to find. To her, the years had not been kind.
My fear was fading of this ghost from long ago, but there was more I needed to know,
“It’s time to be blunt, why are you seeking to confront?
Of this Halloween night from years gone by,
You seek not an apology but a reason why?”
Her glare increased as she exclaimed, “To me you never explained!
“You didn’t call or write. You abandoned me without a fight.
I’ve wondered these many years what I did wrong on that night.
“You ghosted me, and that’s the slight,
The “what if” has stayed with me and left me in a fright,
About what might have been, even as I’ve faded into this good night.
Now I’m a ghost, back to ignite,
In you a spark of regret and make my mind right.”
She seemed almost insane over this youthful stain,
It was a bit much that she still carried this pain,
So, seeking to end my abuse, I prepared a lame excuse.
“To talk of my feelings has never been my strong suit,
My sin against you is not in dispute. This spooky visit is the fruit,
Of my failure to communicate. Is my apology moot?”
The Oracle in my bedroom was mute. Of her dismissal I became more resolute.
“Find your balm on that distant shore. Take thy form away from my door!”
She began to fade, but not without throwing me some final shade:
Quoth the Maven, “Sin no more! Sin no more!”