Ghosts.

If you've ever been haunted, you know what I'm talking about.

Of the shadows dancing in the corner of your eye. The voices that are never there, but keep whispering. Objects keep being lost, things out of order, out of their assigned space.

Ghosts look like the memories you've forgotten, but that your mind keeps reminding you of. A slight shiver on the back of your neck, and a silent prayer that it'll go away soon. You focus on work, focus on music, focus on that puzzle that's missing a couple of pieces. The shiver remains.

Go to bed, try to get some rest. Try to close your eyes with the whispers echoing on the empty walls. Blankets feel safe, lights are warm. And yet, there's that corner that is always cold, always in shadows. No matter how much you rearrange the room or paint the walls, it's always there. Echoing. Waiting. Feeding on a single drop of decanted fear going down your spine.

You feel them when memories repeat, when you're home alone. When you feel like a little kid going down to the kitchen in the middle of the night. How vulnerable and tiny it can feel. Your flashlight starts flickering and the shadows get bigger. And you got nowhere to run. The hallway extends infinitely, and you shrink. You whimper and you cry and there's no way out. The ghosts are near, and you wish it was just dead people under old raggedy blankets, or souls trying to find their way. But these ghosts are much more real. They're made of flesh and bone and everything that's wrong.

You curl up and wait for them to pass. And eventually they do.

Ghosts like that are burglars, taking your hope and your light and your shine.

They're hungry and mean. Bad bad bad.

Daylight comes in and things are back into place. Except your own mind.

Everything is a little out of place. A little bit blurry. You're not even sure you're even real.

Maybe what they do is make you a bit of a ghost yourself. Until you wander and cover your face with a sheet, and hope it'll be better tomorrow. You isolate and haunt your own home, your own life. You see others through a veil, you can't be part of the living.

'Till you vanish, alone, all dust.