1. The Ghost of Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath is tired of things, but we have trapped her inside our minds, and we want more. She did her part, and she performed, but we are greedy, and we clap and cheer and stamp our feet for an encore, because she left too soon. Sylvia Plath is tired of fig trees, and performing, and running after life. We were her parents, and her teachers, and her lovers, and her husband, and we said, “Wow, that’s good, but you can do better,” and she tried hard to please us all, until the effort exhausted her and she wanted out.
Sylvia Plath is tired of things, and she wants to die. But she’s already dead, and she should be free and carefree, flying over rooftops and walking on clouds, but something keeps dragging her down; the industry is greedy, the industry loves pain, because pain sells. We say, it took you years, and we welcome her to the lab with open arms and hungry eyes, we have romanticized and mythologized her, because she’s dead, and the dead won’t change, can’t let us down.
Sylvia Plath is tired of us and smiles like we can’t frighten her, not anymore. She knows we will rebrand her, that we will plaster her face on posters in neon colors to make her look modern, that we will never admit that we did anything bad, because we think we give her space, and time, and the chance to build a new legacy, a second chance at the spotlight, we offer her cottagecore filters, and feminist merch, and she’d be ungrateful to not grab our gift.
We clap and cheer and applaud the silence, the suspense is killing us, Neon Lazarus has risen, an angel in the glass booth floating above our heads, like a promise of resurrection. But she lets out a scream, a loud, deafening sound, Sylvia Plath spits out her pain, and we freeze for a second, we hesitate, and exchange awkward glances. Then we feast. We devour it, the pure, unedited shriek we came for all along, because that’s all the poetry we wanted. We rise too, we’re resurrected, and we clap and clap and clap for this cruel and tender and iconic encore we’ll loop forever.
2. The Ghost of Ian Curtis
Ian Curtis is dead tired of being sick and poor and dead and wants to come back and enjoy love and fame and all those things he didn’t enjoy because he left too soon. Ian Curtis is tired of epilepsy and depression and lost love. He wants to come back and he wants money; he doesn’t want to be rich but be rich enough for love to be enough.
Ian Curtis is dead tired of being dead at such an early age. But he’s dead and meds won’t bring him back and won’t cure his epilepsy and depression either, he should be free from disease now he’s dead, he should be floating, like ghosts, but something keeps dragging him down, and it isn’t gravity, for gravity doesn’t apply to ghosts, it’s sadness and it’s pain that keep pulling him down and grounding him, we tell him, love is enough, and we welcome him, we have pathologized and plathologized him because he’s dead, and death comes with benefits, no power bills or mundane tasks.
Ian Curtis is dead tired of us and he doesn’t want to perform, he wants his money and he wants some love that won’t tear him apart, but he’s in the room with us and we demand an encore, his wild dance moves, and we want to mask his darkness in neon lights, to brighten up his dark melodies, we want to dress him in black and white blinking lights, at least, before we allow him to perform., and he’d be ungrateful to not accept our gift.
We clap and cheer and applaud the noise, the suspense is killing us, a gothic thin figure with neon loneliness eyes is staring at us from the stage, but then he collapses and is in grand-mal mode, he’s lost control and we wonder if we should help him, but we then think that the dead don’t die, and we clap and clap and clap, to the rhythm of the seizure, to the blinking lights, dead souls keep calling us and we answer, we feed on his dance and his breaking ghost body like there’s no tomorrow, and his agony is our trance.
3. The Ghost of Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain is in the room and wants to sing. His eyes cold and empty, but watery, like he’s on the brink of collapse, and we stare at him in anticipation, we clap and cheer and expect a lot from him, because he left too soon. Kurt Cobain is tired of lithium and being sad and acting sad. We were his audience and his band and his friends, and we said, “You are our hero,” and he tried hard not to be, until the effort tired him and he wanted out.
Kurt Cobain is in the room and we ask him to play a couple of songs, and Kurt is happy he’s among us, but also he isn’t, he wants to sing, but wants to sing happy songs, because he’s tired of being labeled as sad, he’s here to feel joy and transmit joy, he offers chocolate cake in a heart-shaped box, and he wants to eat our cancer, but we won’t let him.
Kurt Cobain is in the room and we want to dress him up and wear him shiny neon clothes that fit his new persona, but he’s checking the clothes like he doesn’t approve, and we explain he needs rebranding, that he can’t hang around in those old jeans and t-shirts, but Kurt shakes his head, refuses to be a sellout, and we’re confused and say we don’t use this term anymore, we say that branding is now a virtue, a goal, and his ghost shimmers away, like ghosts do when they feel shattered.
He puts on the red neon dress we gave him and he turns our way, the suspense is killing us, we expect a cover of Dumb but he surprises us, he’ll sing Iggy’s Mass Production, and won’t dance or play guitar or smoke on stage, but he’ll scream, coarse voice, blank stare, he’ll scream, almost like him, and almost like him, and almost like her, then he’ll stop singing before the music dies, he’ll stare right through us into the void, and he’ll thrust his tongue out of his mouth, like he’s mocking us and our world, like he has no regrets he left all this behind, and the fig tree blooms in glitchy filters, the heart-shaped box fills with merch, the grand-mal lights strobe in perfect sync, and we rise in flannel shirts and worn-out cardigans, and we play cool again.