The Ghosts We Carry Home
Poetry and Prose by Britt Wolfe
There are certain memories
that don’t stay politely in the past—
they follow you like perfume,
threading themselves through the seams
of every December night.
You open a door and there they are,
barefoot in the hallway,
still wearing the version of you
that believed forever was a choice
you could hold in your hands.
I swore I outgrew it—
the echo of your laugh in the stairwell,
the way my heart stuttered
when “our” song came on by accident,
the soft collapse of a moment
I didn’t mean to remember.
But some things don’t leave.
They linger like a chorus
you’ve sung too many times
to ever forget the melody.
Nostalgia is such a gentle thief.
It doesn’t ask permission—
just slips into your chest
and rearranges the furniture,
leaving everything familiar
and slightly haunted.
I still see you in the glow
of streetlamps on wet pavement,
in the pale shimmer of frost
on the window we once pressed
our future against.
And maybe it’s foolish,
but there are nights
when I let the past sit beside me.
Nights when I let myself admit
that some people don’t vanish—
they just quiet themselves
to a softer frequency,
like a song turned down low
but never truly gone.
Because that’s the truth, isn’t it?
Certain loves don’t leave—
they just live in the margins,
in the half-lit corners
where memory and magic
share the same heartbeat.
Where a single lyric,
a familiar chord,
can pull everything back
in a breathless instant.
Some stories haunt us
because they mattered.
Some people linger
because they loved us once.
And some echoes
never fade—
they just keep whispering
the parts of the song
we’re still learning
how to stop singing.
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Poetry Anthologies by Britt Wolfe
