Swearing Off Ghosts

I caught my voice in the cracked mirror,

a brittle shard, sharp and jarring.

Not my words, but theirs:

tone laced with old bitterness,

hard edges I swore I'd dodge.

Midnight fight—shadows filled the room,

their ghosts wearing my skin.

I swore beneath cracked light

I'd not become the map

of every anger

that carved its lines in me.

Still, the reflection stares back,

a warning unspoken,

something I try to break

but the echoes gather,

tongues I never learned to silence,

and I wonder if I'm already half-ghost.