we, of course, took the family photos
that were put out with the trash.
in the end, we had pieces of the puzzle,
but no matter how
we put them together,
gaps remained--
oddly shaped emptiness
mapped by what surrounded them,
like countries we couldn't name.

what lingered after them was not life,
but the most trivial list
of mundane facts.

--jeffrey eugenides,
virgin suicides


jaded are nightmares
that come to life.

sometimes, old ghosts
come back to haunt.
what a better place
than within one's head?...