you could never love me back.

Pale shapes advancing from the midnight air,

Beckoning with misty fingers round my bed,

Bending your faded faces o'er my head,

I have no fear of ye! I seem to share

Your dim vitality -- mine's well-night fled.

I feel the human outlines melt away;

These thin, gray hands that lie on the damp sheet

Are almost vapory enough to meet

Yours in the grasp of fellowship. My hair

Seems turning into cloud. The quickening clay

That walls me in is cracking, and I strive

Towards ye through the breach. Am I alive?

Or are ye dead? All's vague -- a wide, gray sea.

Hark! the cock crows! Now, spirits, welcome me!

"The Ghosts" by Fitz-James O'Brien

Photographs by Michela Heim

I am trying to rid myself of ghosts.

Christmas time is working against me..