The Ghost in the Machine

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

I am a shadow stretched too thin,

a silhouette of smoke and static,

a flicker on the edge of your vision

that vanishes when you turn to look.

I live in the spaces between—

between the tick and the tock,

between the breath and the sigh,

between the question and the answer

that never comes.

My hands are maps of forgotten places,

each scar a road I didn’t take,

each callus a monument

to the weight of holding on.

I’ve carried so much for so long

that my spine has become a question mark,

curved under the weight

of all the things I couldn’t say.

The night is my cconfessionalr my secrets to the moon,

but she keeps them locked

in her silver vault,

her light a cold comfort

that never quite reaches

the corners of my soul.

I am a ghost in the machine,

a glitch in the system,

a line of code that doesn’t compute.

They try to debug me,

to fix me,

to make me fit

into their neat little boxes.

But I am not a problem to be solved.

I am a paradox,

a contradiction,

a riddle wrapped in enigma

and dipped in ink.

My heart is a haunted house,

each room filled with the echoes

of laughter and screams,

of love and loss,

of all the things

that make us human.

I wander its halls at night,

a specter in my own life,

searching for the door

that leads to the light.

But the light is a lie.

It’s a flicker,

a mirage,

a promise that always fades

before I can reach it.

So I stay in the shadows,

where the darkness is honest,

where the pain is real,

where I can be myself

without apology.

I am a shadow,

but I am not afraid.

I am the ghost in the machine,

but I am not broken.

I am the flicker on the edge of your vision,

but I am not gone.

I am here.

I am here.

I am here.

Like a shadow, I am here.