They walk beside me,
thin veils of memory stitched to my feet,
moving only when I do,
silent as breath held too long.

In the full blaze of day,
when truth spills over the edges of everything,
they remain,
dark echoes
cut from light itself.

I used to think clarity meant freedom,
that sunlight was a promise
to erase all the things I no longer carry.
But even in the brightest hour,
they cling to my outline,
gentle reminders
that the past does not burn away,
it only bends behind me.

Some stretch long and distant,
others stay curled near my heels,
the ones I never speak of.

Mo one sees them fully.
Not even me.
But they are there,
faithful as a second skin,
proof that even in light,
I am never without
what shaped me in the dark.