i don’t call them shadows anymore. shadows are harmless. these things are something else— the negative of a photograph, burned onto the wall long after the subject walked away.

they aren’t lurking. they’re waiting. that’s worse. lurking is what cats do. waiting is what gods do.

last night i saw one lean against my dresser, head bent like it was reading my diary. its fingers made of moth wings, the dust falling in slow applause. it didn’t look at me— as if i was the one trespassing in my own room.

another one crouches in the ceiling corner. i try not to look at it too long. not because i’m scared— (but yes, because i’m scared) but because when i do it tilts its head the exact way i tilt mine.

what am i supposed to do with that?

sometimes i think they’re versions of me that kept rotting instead of growing. sometimes i think they’re people who prayed so hard their bodies collapsed into silhouettes. sometimes i think they’re just the space between one heartbeat and the next, and i’ve gotten too good at noticing.

i don’t tell anyone. not because they wouldn’t believe me, but because belief would ruin it. make it science. make it diagnosis. i prefer to keep it raw: a secret choir, all throat and no face, teaching me how to vanish without leaving.

and maybe that’s the point: the figures aren’t haunting me— i’m haunting them. this room, this life, this body— not mine. never was. i’m the shadow in their story, the figure they’re convinced they see.