Paranormal Pandemia // Charlie Petch

As part of our guest edited month exploring publishing and the emotionality of sharing writing, Charlie Petch shares this poem.

My ex husband's ghost moved back home. He's in the basement he once turned into a lair, a bunker, a depressionistic calamity. Please, I was not the one to come up with this I just have to live with it all and it's much easier to write about your ex when you don't watch Paranormal Activity III and you didn't spend a lot of time being afraid of him in real life. Sometimes I run up the stairs when he's all anger and chase again and sometimes it's just nice not to feel so alone, because what if he's my guardian angel now and whenever I write about him I reanimate his anger? But the mediums (I never ask), say he loves me and is with me always. I feel so bad that I anticipate him throwing me down the stairs, because I let these poems about him get published and how do you even talk about that without becoming a trauma slideshow griefhound?

Charlie C. Petch is an award winning playwright, spoken word artist, haiku deathmaster, host and musical saw player. In 2021 they are launching a poetry book “Why I Was Late” with Brick Books, a libretto “Medusa’s Children” with Opera Q, and their multimedia play “Daughter of Geppetto” with Wind In The Leaves. Petch was the 2017 Poet of Honour for Spoken Word Canada, winner of the Golden Beret lifetime achievement in spoken word with The League of Canadian Poets, is a Youth Mentor with TDSB Creates, and is the founder of Hot Damn it’s a Queer Slam.