Accompanied By Ghosts

My room is illuminated by the small glow of a candle I found downstairs. I usually like the darkness, but tonight I can’t sit with it anymore. I can see the candle light casting my shadow along the canopy of my bed, and it makes me feel less alone somehow. It has been days, maybe weeks—time means nothing within these walls. I once counted the hours by listening to the chirping of birds, but now I only measure them in the slow unraveling of my thoughts.

I remember the first night like this when the silence became unbearable. Music swelled, but only in my mind. My hand reached out, grasping at nothing, yet in the reflection of the window, I could almost see them—the ghosts of laughter, of swirling gowns and gleaming smiles. Phantoms of a life I once knew.

I wore my favorite suit, while home in my studio apartment, pretending for just one night that I was not alone. I glided across the cramped space, my steps louder than anyone else’s, wandering through the empty room. I danced with the memory of those I had lost. But the silence devoured me.

I am haunted by the absence of feeling. I am nothing more than a skeleton of myself.

I have lived in the company of ghosts for too long.

And I wonder if I am one of them now.