Ghost Anatomy (2021)
A comic about becoming a ghost,
and what that entails.
(text version on bottom of page)
Short form digital comic
21 x 29.7 cm(1)
I used to have this recurring dream
it starts somewhere good
I’m usually with family or friends
but it would be too unlike my dreams
for things to stay good
the mold, rot, cracks in the white tile
I seem to be the only one who notices
they never hear me
not my hesitant questioning (are you seeing this?)
not my fervent warnings (we need to leave)
not my calls for attention (please!)
not my screams as the place begins to
drown
or
burn
whatever
fall apart
but they always see me
(2)
when I wake up I’m struck by
how unlike a ghost I am
or at least appear to be
never leaving room to be analyzed
always so painfully visible
(3)
I wish to be something felt
never one side of the coin
but somehow the flipping,
shifting thing of it
I make an oath to become it
this is my pilgrimage to ghosthood
(4)
how to become a ghost:
1. die
2. return
but I don’t want to die
there is no promise of return in death
it does not interest me
I think about the logistics of this
I’ve never been one to half-ass it
but what is a ghost outside of that quality?
‘dead’
we’re so quick to decide on meanings
for things that have no say
(5)
but I know that ghosts escape meaning
they live in the subtext,
dodge the dots and crosses
they allow room for contradiction
they move within the overlapping folds of time
real time: the looping, skipping, fluid thing
a ghost will not understand when you speak of linearity
instead it skips like a bad record
(6)
it is here but still it is so comfortably light
it makes no impression and yet
it creates comfort
a ghost will make you notice the room it is in
such that you know it
such that you love it
(7)
I know what I have to do
I wear this spectrality like a shroud
I am never again to be one thing
but never radical in my metamorphosis
I ornament my presence with souvenirs
from my prior incarnations
but they have no weight on me
I no longer enter rooms
I present myself to them as their kin
I embroider myself into the architecture
I don’t tear down buildings as I walk
I rearrange your furniture while you sleep
when I speak, I leave you with a sense of urgency
but one that poses no threat
(8)
I make sure that I am noticed
as one would notice a friend in a crowd
not as a being of flesh and blood but
a familiar air in a sea of strange
I make sure that I am remembered
as the night sky is remembered
the thing you know so intimately and yet
(9)
I cut myself out of my ill-fitting particularity
now you tell me I remind you of a friend
but one that you can't seem to name
and you-
I know you so much better now
in my omnipresence I see you from all sides
and this uncomfortable body is no longer
standing between me and everything