Hallowed: Hallowed

Halloween was when my mother's flowering, cancerous vines

began to grow, little tumerous pumpkins in her heart and lungs.

 

Her costume was her balding head, chemo and medicine and

distended bellies. I don't recall what I wore. I didn't go outside.

 

How fitting, death so celebrated by masquerades, and when

she died the following year- how she haunted me, as her body

 

was similarly haunted by the choking ghosts of her illness. Let

me tell you about fear. Her ghost, like paper lanterns and fire.