Soul Ties

I have broken myself

on the altars of strangers,

their shadows still cling to me,

bodies I could lie beneath

but never stand beside.

They haunt the corners of my mind,

press their fingers into my skin,

marks I can’t scrub clean,

names that pulse in the dark.

Whispers tangle like vines,

roots buried deep,

and I,

a crumbling foundation beneath them.

I was searching for something whole,

but found only fragments,

souls half-forgotten,

yet they still pull at me—

each touch a scar,

each kiss a tether.

They coil around my throat,

lovers whose names I've forgotten,

but their weight remains.

I can feel them

beneath my skin,

aching, restless,

the spaces they left behind

filled with silence that screams.

I am haunted by love

that was never love,

just shadows shifting,

just ghosts

that I let in.

I have tied myself

to too many souls,

and now I can’t tell

which pieces are mine.

They linger,

like smoke in an empty room,

like hands that never let go,

choking me with every breath

I take alone.