This October, when the air turns colder and the veil feels thinner, I can feel the ghosts stirring — not the kind that haunt forgotten houses, but the ones that haunt me.
They move quietly beneath my skin,
in the hollow between heartbeats,
in the rooms of my body where old pain still lingers like dust.
I am the house,
and she — the younger me — is the ghost.
The child who learned silence before safety,
who mistook invisibility for protection.
She still walks these halls, barefoot and trembling,
tracing her fingers along cracked walls of memory,
searching for someone to see her.
For years I tried to keep the doors closed.
I painted over the stains, lit candles, pretended the air didn’t hum with sorrow.
I thought if I kept moving forward, the past would stay buried.
But ghosts are clever — they find their way through the smallest fractures.
They live in the tone of my voice,
in the way my shoulders tighten when someone raises theirs,
in the tremor that visits my hands when I remember too much.
The haunting isn’t always loud — sometimes it’s a whisper.
A flicker of shame,
a shadow that passes when I catch my reflection.
A reminder of the girl I left behind but never really freed.
Lately, I’ve begun the slow, sacred work of exorcism —
not the violent casting-out I once imagined,
but the gentler ritual of acknowledgment.
I light the flame and let it burn.
I call her forward,
meet her gaze,
and say, I remember you. You are allowed to rest.
And in that moment, I feel her grief — not as a curse, but as a communion.
The crow in me — dark-winged and watchful — caws softly in recognition.
She has carried the bones of my sorrow long enough,
and she knows it’s time to lay them down.
The flame that once devoured now purifies.
It burns through the shame,
through the layers of silence and survival,
leaving only truth —
raw, glowing, alive.
Healing is not the absence of ghosts.
It’s the slow learning to walk beside them,
to listen when they speak,
to honor the ashes and the embers both.
I am not haunted because I am broken.
I am haunted because I am remembering.
And with each breath, each small act of love for myself,
I am reclaiming the house,
room by room,
light by trembling light.
The crow perches on my shoulder now,
not as an omen,
but as a witness.
The flame flickers at my fingertips — not to destroy,
but to guide me home.
Crow and Flame 