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Bio

 

Jeremy Giles (he/him) is queer multiracial author based in Asheville, North Carolina and a Creative Writing MFA candidate at California Institute of the Arts. His poetry has recently been published in “Stone of Madness,” “Eunoia Review,” and the “Beyond Words Literary Magazine.” He has been published journalistically at “The Smithsonian Magazine” and “Catalyst Planet.”

 

Trigger Warning

I return to Asheville an old man
staying in the Grove Inn
seeing the young artists
befriending the 23 year old ghost
that is me here from long before
now, falling the way to Bent Creek
my ghost whispering in my ear
“this was easy once, remember”

I visit the friends I left behind
find a few wrinkles a few graves
a few houses broken from floods
there was another one last year
my ghost says it would’ve killed me
he is trying to make me feel better

Odd’s cafe closed, Izzy’s has not
my ghost drags me in, I tell the server
“I was here 40 years ago”
she laughs, says “welcome back”

I turn and ask my ghost “Should I have stayed?”
he laughs too, the way I used to

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