The Guardian Ghost of Memories

When I was small, I heard soft feet

walking slowly down the hall.

No one else would hear a sound,

yet I listened every fall.

Years went by, and still it stayed,

never speaking,never near.

I felt it in the quiet nights,

like a shadow made of fear.

But it never wished me harm,

never pulled me from my way.

It sat beside my lonely thoughts

on the hardest kind of day.

Then one night I asked its name

The room was still, the window wide.

A memory crossed my heart and mind,

and suddenly I knew why.

The ghost was not a stranger there.

It was every loss I could not leave.

It followed me through growing years,

woven gently in my grief.

Now it walks a step behind,

not as fear, but part of me.

A quiet friend from yesterday,

keeping old memories company