I find myself whispering to the ghosts each night,

The phantom figures, wandering uninvited in my head.

I try to placate these visions from the past

By asking quietly, “Why do you haunt me?”

And with rotting flesh, they stand still, not bothering to flee.

I whisper to the ghosts every day

From round each corner of forgotten stomping grounds.

They wave and cheer as they beg me to join them

But something in the way they sit and stare

Is enough to keep me out of their gruesome lair.

I whisper to the ghosts, it seems all the time,

Though I cannot bear to be near them.

I struggle with demons of long lost situations

Which they remind me of constantly,

Until that day when the ghosts will kill me.

I whisper to my spectres, I scream at my ghosts

“Let me live in the present, not your forgotten history.”

But they continue to shame me

Reminding me of dear departed family.

For they are not ghosts! Just real and vivid memories.

Ian D. Hall

From Greyhound Tales.