Inside each man abides a ghost—
and one I fear above the rest.
It fashions plans and quiet schemes,
casting its will in borrowed dreams.
It bends toward pleasure, leans to desire,
sets its heart on wealth and rising fire.
It cloaks its hunger, soft and close,
names the cost but hides the loss.
With careful words it smooths the blade,
offers reasons, debts delayed.
To every man it wears a face
of loyal friend, of familiar grace.
Inside each man abides a void,
a hollow kept, a place avoided.
For to fill it is to host
what chooses best above the most.
To let it linger, to let it stay,
requires a self to fall away.
Dreams then wither, or else are bent,
their shape unmade, their purpose spent.
Life is reordered, root and frame,
nothing untouched, nothing the same.
It stands against desire and gain,
insists on measure stern and plain.
A life no longer shaped by will,
nor owned by hope or longing still—
desire fulfilled by dreams not mine,
but borrowed from a will divine.
Which voice, then, shall I seat today:
the softer ease, or the harder way?
To yield to one, the other I deny—
in one a brother, in one a foe nearby.
And yet, though choice is clearly made,
the ache remains of what I’ve stayed.
For longing lingers, thin and true,
from the path not taken through.
© 2026 Steven Scott. All Rights Reserved.
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