The Ghosts in Other People’s Voices

Some voices stay long after they’ve left the room.

They cling—not like perfume, not like memory, but like smoke in the throat. Invisible. Unshakable. The kind that turns soft when you’re alone and vicious when you're trying to sleep.

I heard someone say my name yesterday. Not really, not meant for me. Just a stranger in a crowd calling out to someone else who happened to have the same syllables stitched into their skin. And yet—my whole body paused. Like a bone remembering where it once broke.

It’s terrifying how voices live inside us. Not the words—they blur over time. But the tone. The way a person says “stay” like they mean “leave.” The way someone says “I’m fine” through gritted teeth you once kissed. These aren’t things you forget. They become background static, humming beneath the everyday noise.

I carry so many voices inside me it’s hard to tell which are still real.

There’s a certain violence in soft words. I think about that often. How someone once said “take care” with eyes that had already left. How another said “I love you” in a voice so tired, it sounded like mourning. It’s not what people say that haunts—it’s the moment you realize they didn’t mean it. Or maybe they did… but only for a moment. And that moment ended.

And yet… I go looking for them.

In voicemail archives I never delete. In old videos I keep muted but never trash. In dreams I don’t admit to. I walk around replaying moments in my head like they’re sacred, even when I know they’re rotten. Like maybe if I loop them long enough, I’ll find the version where they stayed. Where I was enough. Where the voice didn’t go quiet mid-sentence.

I used to think ghosts were the dead. Now I know better.

Ghosts are the still-living.

The ones who stopped talking to you.

The ones who moved on without leaving instructions.

The ones whose voices you still hear in your head when you’re trying to choose between sleeping and not waking up.

And sometimes the ghost is me.

My own voice, looping in the hollow of my skull.

Saying things I never had the courage to say.

Things like “I miss you,” “please stay,” or “I’m not okay.”

But it’s too late now. The world demands performance. Strength. The illusion of being fine.

So I smile.

I nod.

I laugh at the right moments.

And I let the ghosts speak for me.

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