Three Female Ghosts of Thailand

[Sparkydashforth]

‘Krasue’
A woman’s head with viscera hanging down from her neck.

‘Where will you be tonight when the moon is shut?
Woman hater, where will you be
when the womb of your soul is shut tight?’
Krasue will chant these lines over your sleeping body.
You will be inseminated at that moment,
but that incubus will be without sex,
its arms and legs will be writhing snakes.
Krasue will keep you pregnant
until your male belly burst.
Then she will come out of you,
and the moon will open and shine again,
but not for you.

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‘Mae Nak’
A female ghost who died at childbirth and can extend her arms.

Mae Nak loves you.
She wants to carry you in her limbs
to the birthing couch. There she will
extend her arms to the dawn.
Mae Nak loves you,
but you are a ghost to her,
she sees only an endless umbilical cord.
She believes you dangle at the end of it.
She believes that one morning
she will hear you mewing like a kitten
at her door.
Until then she extends her arms
like a starfish at a watery reflection
of the morning star.

~~~~~~~~

'Nang Mai'
‘Lady of the Woods’, ghost-fairy related to trees.

Texture and grain are her domain,
but she will appear
if you are near her spider woven eyes.
She harms none,
but she can break the ties to yourself,
break the lies you tell yourself.
She can make you see the mask,
then she will send you home
weeping.

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