The Architect of Morning

What if dawn hesitates at my window, afraid to wake the refugee's dreams? I teach my shadow to walk ahead— it knows the Damascus streets I've never seen. My homeland lives in my mother's teacup, its borders drawn in cardamom and grief. The map I carry rewrites itself each night, erasing roads that lead me home. We built our house from borrowed years. Each room holds a different season of loss, but jasmine climbs through the cracks, stubborn as prayer. In the space between heartbeat and hope, I measure distances in my father's sighs. Light moves faster than forgetting, but slower than the ache in my chest. This morning I watched the sun rehearse, stumbling like a child learning new words: "Every ending learns to begin again in the language of return." So I build my country one breath at a time, not from what was lost, but from the seeds my grandmother sewed into my jacket's hem. The morning I'm waiting for hasn't crossed the border yet. I learn to be its architect. Dawn finally speaks— it whispers through the open window: "Come home."