We went searching for ghosts in all the wrong places.

The graveyard in the woods, just off the highway,
the pitch-dark night illuminated
by our dollar store flashlights —
my lens painted in red sharpie
because I read somewhere that it was better for peripheral vision,
eyes adjust faster to the surrounding dark.

We sped reckless down lampless backroads in the dead of night
daring something to jump scare us,
flicked the headlights off a block before we parked
thinking we were anything but obvious:
giggling teenagers
swinging flashlights
a red glow winking among the white.

Forty-five minutes down I-57
we finally found fear
in the moisture rising like fog
that swallowed our lights underground;
in the floors littered with old papers,
calendar pages,
purchase orders,
dated not long after we were born;
the abandoned gurney
with soft restraints attached.
I told you this is where they pioneered electroshock therapy,
hoping it might scare you like it did me,
knowing, despite watching you shudder in the dark,
that it didn’t. 

I couldn’t tell you then that my body was already haunted.

That I was tongue-tied, terrified of a voice whispering “what if?”

Afraid that if I told anyone she was in here with me,
was me,
it might let her, and the secret, out.