Once Upon a Time There Were Only Living Ghosts (To an Adolescent on a Sleepover)

Sitting cross-legged on a grass hillock
High up on a mountain mesa meadow,

The ghosts of long-ago autumn weather
Wander around in living memories.

There’s nothing to memories but living.
They all rise, crest, reform inside your skull,

Every last memory of yours, alive,
Waves of memory being all you are,

At least that you can remember.
So it’s all living memories, all waves,

But all the waves are also haunting you,
We say, inhabiting your skulls like ghosts.

Ghosts as waves as ghosts and all memories.
There. There’s your bedtime fairytale. Night night.