Voices Under The Stairs

There are whispers where light should be.
Not loud, not pleading—just... persistent.

The stairs, white and wrong-angled,
climb nowhere real,
slashing through the air like a wound trying to mend itself.

Beneath each crooked step,
mouths hang open in eternal telling,
each a frozen echo of the moment before silence claimed it.

They murmur things no one wants to hear:
secrets worn thin with repetition,
names of the long-forgotten,
the rustle of dresses descending in haste,
or boots climbing with dread.

Each spectral figure beneath the stairs is caught mid-confession,
but the words never quite reach.

The steps themselves remember.
Soles etched in pale dust press into them from both directions—
up and down, living and dead,
coming and going. But none ever stay.

The paint swirls in the background like breath held too long,
like memories refusing to settle.

There's beauty here, but not peace.
Movement, but not freedom.
The air is heavy with stories, with guilt,
with the weight of all that was never said aloud.

So the stairs remain,
cutting diagonally through time and reason,
a bridge for souls with unfinished business.

And beneath them,
the voices wait—mouths open,
eyes wide, still hoping someone might finally listen.