Where does the shadow go when you sleep?
Does it curl like smoke in the corners of the room,
waiting for the sun’s first twitch to crawl back into form?
Does it pace the floorboards while your body lies still,
counting breaths like sins,
mouthing secrets you’ve long since buried beneath your ribs?
Does it seep into the hollow chambers of your skull,
to mingle with the clutter—
half-formed regrets,
the murmur of old arguments,
the unfinished thoughts that chew the edges of dreams?
Or does it slink into darker caverns,
to embrace the demons you dare not name?
Those patient beasts who gnaw with velvet teeth,
whose eyes are mirrors,
whose laughter sounds exactly like your own.
What even is a shadow?
A loyal parasite? A silhouette of guilt?
Is it the echo of every choice you never made,
the shape of shame traced in twilight?
Perhaps it is not a thing of darkness,
but of light—
that cruel, exposing light
which dares to define you,
frame you,
remind you
that you are never whole.
Is it not strange—
how it clings to your heels in daylight,
but vanishes into walls when the night falls?
As if it, too, is afraid of true darkness—
or perhaps it becomes it.
Is a shadow a conscience?
A witness?
Or the silhouette of a soul
slowly detaching from the body
like frost from glass?
Likewise, it doesn’t sleep when you do.
It waits.
It watches the rise and fall of your chest,
tender as a predator.
And in the fragile hours before dawn,
it whispers in your ear:
"You are never alone."
Not in light.
Not in dark.
Not even in dreams.
The shadow is not cast.
It remains.
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