She haunts me sometimes, memories at the back of my mind like a ghost. An offensive joke brings me back, or a burning candle.

The pretty candles smelled like a cheap perfume or maybe an expensive one that had gone off, like the unused perfume my Zombie grandmother collected until it rotted in a sense. Musky sadness. Every bottle smelled the same. They smelled better than her gray flesh.

Her words mocked my ugliness and those were the kindest things she bestowed on me, yet I had to forgive and let go of the memories and I feel sorry for the woman lost inside her, maybe we could have been friends at another time.

So many times she tried to burn me for magic I didn't possess. But even in the darkness, there is a light for me, and aromas of the earth, and a piece from God.