Nothing Here Belongs To Me
I wake, I breathe, I move, I fade,
A specter stitched from a torn-out page.
A thing that walks but leaves no trace,
A mouth that speaks, but not a face.
I press my hands to solid skin,
Feel the warmth, the pulse within.
It beats, it drums, it hums, it sways—
But it is borrowed. Not mine—not mine.
I wear a voice that isn’t true,
It speaks in tones I never knew.
They nod, they smile, they call my name,
But I am absent, all the same.
They say I’m here, they say I breathe,
But nothing here belongs to me.
Not the air, not the ground, not the bones I hold—
Just skin too loose and blood too cold.
I watch them dance, I watch them sing,
I try to move, but I am string.
A puppet stitched with hollow thread,
A mannequin that mimics red.
The world is warm, the world is bright,
But never quite within my sight.
I press my palm to window glass,
And let the world just watch me pass.
I smile, I nod, I play my part,
I bow, I clap, I feign a heart.
They look, they see, but never quite—
I flicker dim, I steal the light.
And when I leave—oh, when I go—
No rivers bend, no cold winds blow.
The clocks don’t pause, the birds don’t hush,
The world forgets me in a rush.
No footprints pressed in salted dirt,
No echoes where my ribs once hurt.
No hollow name upon the tongue,
Just silence—soft, just silence—young.
A ripple smoothed before it swells,
A whisper swallowed whole by bells.
A shadow stretched, then pulled too thin,
A door that locked me out, within.
And so I breathe, and so I fade,
A ghost before the grave is made.
A thing that walks but leaves no trace,
A mouth that speaks—
But not a face.
Copyright ©
Amar Nasreddine
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