when I am given messages, the ghosts speak in their native tongue at times. sometimes it is more a scrape of their finger along my shoulder and then a quiet rush but sometimes they give me entire passages in their foreign tongue.  it is hard delivering messages to my Puerto Rican friend, usually I say what it sounded like or there is a secret nick name etc. and they can figure it out. i think they did this playfully to urge me to learn mas palabras

I interject here to remind the audience they don’t have to believe you.

the first name I call is Szelanya: may a very soft wind carry me home.

enyhe szel hozhat nekem. Szel means wind. I am the process of evaporation, thereby never landing anywhere. my ancestors want to remind me how far I used to walk and sing. they said I used to hum for everyone and then offer to do cards. some sort of trick for coins.

most people spend their whole life not waking up. I was born searching for something far away, reaching.

“Szel”

I decide abruptly that learning three languages at once is just as easy one. I enjoy puzzles and games. I might need them all anyway

mot is “word” in French so i figure quickly by means of translation and looking at sentence structure that szot is word in Hungarian. That is I translate the sentence first then break down the syntax line by line, in Spanish, French and Hungarian.  On accident I leave off the t once and I learn that

Szo is weave.

It is much easier to learn a language this way then rote memorization or flash cards because I choose to translate large passages either given to me or that I have written in each language. I have a hard time hearing the language when speaking but am excellent at reading comprehension and sentence structure. I write the same sentences over and over: French, Spanish, Hungarian and English to learn the grammar and the words, understanding how each  language differs in placement.

J’aime le mot intensite.

I interject here to remind the audience I visited grave sites in both Paris and Spain to find my long lost sister.

J’aime le mot intensite.

and then I practice inflection.

J’aime le mot necromancie

“arachne”

Szelanya
Istenanya
Tuz Anya
Viz Anya
Ildiko

Szeretem a boszorkány
szót minden nyelven,
de erősebbnek
tartom anyanyelvén.

először el kell vállalnia a múltját.

I know she has returned when I spend the day
fasting.
I was agitated and stronger.
I knew she had returned.

I am not afraid.
I was mad.

The first thing I tell her is
“we have so much fucking
work to do to undo your mess.”

it doesn’t matter if they believe you.
I cannot stop seeing her
in her white gown next to the well.
that vapid look.
me approaching like
a slow gale.

it is haunting how she looks at me.
with so much hope
and quite undead.

I knew she had returned when I wanted to sleep all day.
I drank two french press’
full of coffee to avoid her.
I knew this would happen
in isolation.
I knew she had been waiting for
quarantine.
there were three things:

i cannot name one of them

isolation

belief

I have never been afraid of her.
I have been mad at her.

apropos nothing,
a friend once took me outside
to ask who the little girl was.
they had felt her at the restaurant.
a friend on the phone another time
said a presence walked into my house,
a little girl.
then there’s the two
psychics in a row.
then there’s me
guessing her name over and
over.
then there’s the other mystics
in passing, not even naming
the ghost simply saying
“people who are surrounded by ghosts
are lucky.”

Me?I have
no earthly idea
what has been going on.

if it wasn’t the same gender
every time,
youth every time,
I wouldn’t keep bringing
her up.

the first psychic to ask about the little girl
also read me another fortune.
she asked if i had ever been pregnant.
she asked if my mom had.
she asked if there was a portal between
the three of us.
the little girl and
my mother share piercing green eyes.
she says we all look alike.
you’re asking me what’s real?
i have no earthly idea what
is going on.

they don’t have to believe you.

the psychic warns of other things
that have not come to me yet.
but it’s the same card.
i am careful with what i say.
suddenly i am extremely scrupulous.

the next psychic brings it up again.
she says i wont talk to you.
she says i wont talk to you
and I say without understanding even
at all what we are talking about.
“that’s not true, he won’t
talk to me.”

they don’t have to believe you.

they always ask about the little girl.
if they didn’t,
I wouldn’t keep bringing it up.

if there’s truth to myth,
power comes from cryptogram.
i choose to remain mildly
inscrutable on my hunt
for fairness.

if it’s true her
bones deserve to rest,
I will write her book
with grace and patience.
this child.
catarina, with the green eyes
buried somewhere deep
in Europe.
never to be seen again.

when I tried to tell each of the three men
that I was writing the story of a ghost,
I knew they wouldn’t understand.
I sent them each a flower.

“datura”

this next section is called
immersion therapy,
or the dream about Alligator
River.

or factually, metaphors grow
legs and walk right out.

I watch myself with grace and patience
and begin to pull her out.