Ghost

I am becoming see-through,

a watercolor left too long in rain,

bleeding at the edges where I used to be

solid, certain, mine.

My voice echoes back from walls

that don't recognize the sound—

when did my words become

whispers of whispers,

shadows cast by shadows?

I reach for the mirror

and find my hand passes through

the person I thought I was.

She's still there, somewhere,

beneath layers of maybe

and what-if

and who-am-I-supposed-to-be-now.

The struggle is quiet violence:

clawing at mist,

trying to hold water,

screaming into cotton silence

I am here, I am here, I am—

But ghosts don't bleed

when they bite their tongues,

don't leave footprints

when they run toward themselves,

don't cast reflections

when they beg the light

to remember their face.

Still, I practice being real:

I speak my name to empty rooms,

press my palms against cold glass

until they fog with proof

that something warm

still lives inside this fading.

Some mornings I am more ghost than girl,

some evenings more memory than flesh—

but in the spaces between

haunting and being haunted,

I find the weight of my own breath,

the stubborn beat of blood

that refuses to be erased.

I am learning to be both:

the one who disappeared

and the one who stays,

the echo

and the voice that made it.