Apparition known to me

 I've seen you through your life and death
ever appearing from flames of the night
what could we speculate of friendship
restless souls we are

you out here in the low mists before dawn
wading into them as rested aristocrat into hot bath
or overheated savage into tropical ocean
out here in the chaos grinning

I don't know their game
they don't know mine
from the depths I truly am
see you still alive friend

even though you've been dead a few years cook
I'm grateful that our time meant enough
so you'd come to observe this lil parlor trick
a corner of the world becoming my skin

something to wrap yourself in
a new faith arising
harsh and hot an ember in the eye
one that gives vision to my own million blind

With the help of a loyal ghost or two
kicking around not clear of the earth
still my word or image rummaging through their trash
humble enough to own the world chuckled the toothless

the man you used to share drugs with
when you pulled away from me
and this shining ambition
this grand world

I see you out there candles opaqued
beliefs scrapped and scribbled on
the path like a tongue
my thousand flavors

see through my eyes
see through this will
these decades
are mine

I've given everything
hunger vibrates like venom in glands
surrounded by one hell of a great ghost
who gives me permission

to eat my cake and have it