“Skeleton Key” by Nick Pipitone.

Posted on by Lucy 
I want to trace my family tree:

a suicide in the ‘70s,
a ghost-aunt hangs limply
from her husband’s belt,
eyes swollen, blood-shot,
a haunting whispered
at the dinner-table,
the wounds we carry
but press down

obscene phantoms
hiss in my ears, softly,
while I lay comatose under
bed-sheets, dejected again,
psychic pain of ancestors
at my blackened brain-stem

I want to trace my family tree:

open barred doors
with a rusted skeleton key
enter opaque rooms, 
turn on bare light bulbs,
expose repulsive truths
hidden from me

I want to trace my family tree:

I’m fixated, but horrified,
of what I might see.

For further work, visit Fiction and Ideas.

Published by Lucy

"Poetess of darkness"–dVerse community; cat hoarder, guitarist, keyboardist, psych major.

9 thoughts on ““Skeleton Key” by Nick Pipitone.”

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