The Murmurs

Author Notes: This poem plays with the mind, unraveling layers of guilt and fear. The relentless pressure from the voices of the past forces the reader to confront their own buried regrets.

In the house where shadows roam,

I find myself, but not alone.

The walls, they breathe, they pulse, they speak,

They tell me truths I dare not seek.

--

Each step I take, the floorboards cry,

In echoes soft, like someone’s sigh.

A voice, it calls, from underneath,

A whisper made of spite and teeth.

--

“Come closer now, you know the way,

You've been here once, on your last day.”

My pulse betrays, my feet obey,

Into the dark where secrets stay.

--

The door swings wide, a mouth agape,

No turning back, no room for escape.

Within the black, the faces leer,

Each one a face I held most dear.

--

They smile wide, their lips decay,

And beckon me with hands of clay.

“You buried us, you know it's true,

But now it’s time to bury you.”

--

I see their eyes, so cold, so black,

I feel their fingers on my back.

A chill that slithers down my spine,

These ghosts were never truly mine.

--

Yet here they wait, in darkened halls,

Their voices dripping from the walls.

They show me things I can't unsee,

The darker side of what could be.

--

A mirror cracks, reflects my sin,

The person staring back, within.

Its eyes are mine, but filled with dread,

A piece of me already dead.

--

“Breathe deep,” they say, “you’ve nowhere left,

You carved these lies with every breath.”

The walls grow tighter, closer still,

They know my thoughts, they know my will.

--

I close my eyes to flee the sound,

But still they rise from underground.

A chorus now, of shrieks and moans,

The house becomes my brittle bones.

--

I try to run, I try to scream,

But it’s no use, this isn’t a dream.

The whispers grow, they choke, they cling—

In madness deep, I feel them sing:

“Lie with us, and be no more,

For what you fear waits past the door.”

I turn the key, I twist the lock—

And fall forever, into the dark.