This Is How I Remember It

This Is How I Remember It

I was only two

in Grandad’s house,

the air smelled of polish and dust,

a place that held more than furniture.

I remember a shadow

standing where no one stood,

a face that wasn’t alive anymore

but looked straight at me.

They said I was too young,

too small to know,

but I knew

my skin knew

my bones knew.

Years went by

and they kept coming,

the whispers,

the footsteps when the house was empty,

the faces peering through

the thin curtain of air.

At first it scared me,

crying in the night,

asking why no one else could see.

But after a while,

fear turned into listening,

listening turned into drawing.

I learned to catch the faces

before they faded,

sketching the cheekbones,

the eyes,

the small crooked smiles of the dead.

I became the doorway,

the in-between,

half here, half there.

A medium, they call it.

I call it my life.

And still,

when I close my eyes,

I’m back in Grandad’s house,

two years old,

looking at the first ghost,

not knowing yet

that this would be my forever.

This is how I remember it.

Not always clear,

not always kind,

but mine.

I get warned

and know when someone is going to pass.

I chat to my great great granny

I never met Sarah.

Sometimes the air goes thick

and I feel the tension

before a passing.

Sometimes I have to turn myself off.

But no matter what

I never could forget the spirits,

and they certainly won’t let me.

This is what being a medium’s all about.