I open my mouth
And it’s not just me speaking
A line I don’t remember writing
Crawls across the ceiling

I blink too loud
The silence breaks in thirds
One voice pleads, one mocks, one waits
For me to choose a word

There’s a third voice, always listening
Just beneath the sound of breathing
It borrows tones, it sounds like truth
It sings my shame with perfect tuning

Who am I, if I can’t trace
Which one of us is thinking?

The mirror laughs with someone else’s mouth
The phone rings, but only inside
One voice says “You're lying.”
One says “You're fine.”
One says “Try again.”

And they rhyme.

There’s a third voice, always listening
Just beneath the sound of breathing
It borrows tones, it sounds like truth
It sings my shame with perfect tuning

Who am I, if I can’t trace
Which one of us is thinking?

“This isn’t your voice.”

There’s a third voice, hiding in light
Tied between my teeth at night
It fills the quiet, bends the facts
Then ducks away before impact

Who am I, if I repeat
What someone in me planted?

"I wanted silence, but I got an audience."
"And they all know me better than I do."

The Third Voice

I make albums for fictional bands with assistance of AI tools.

The Third Voice

Joel Leonard