The sea is quiet now.
Only the hum of engines fading into the horizon,
and a sky that pretends it never saw us.
Our shadows float behind,
heavy with the names we didn’t say.
I left the city with a plastic bag and a heartbeat.
Every wave erased a face,
every gust of wind carried another version of me away.
You can’t pray here —
only breathe, and hope the air forgives you.
There was a road before this.
A road made of dust and whispering feet.
Mothers counting their children,
men holding silence in their fists,
everyone walking like the ground might remember them.
At night, the wind sounded like language.
It said nothing new —
just repeated the sound of walls breaking,
the echo of laughter swallowed by sirens,
the scent of metal and bread,
the taste of unfinished mornings.
Before that,
the world had color.
A boy running under an orange sky,
a radio playing something slow,
a window shaking with summer heat.
Everything small was holy.
Even boredom had a rhythm.
Even loneliness had light.
Now it’s all reverse motion —
like film burning backward through the reel.
Smoke turns to houses,
cries turn to dinner talk,
the ruins rebuild themselves just to fall again.
And me —
I keep walking past myself,
the version that stayed,
the one that left,
the one still waiting by the gate for a future that never crossed the border.
Home is just a sound now.
Sometimes it rings in my sleep,
sometimes it hides inside the wind.
When I wake,
the silence is the same shape as memory.
When I close my eyes,
the sea starts again.
The city here sleeps without fear.
Neon hums instead of bombs,
and rain doesn’t mean running.
But I still flinch when doors close too hard,
and I still count exits when I enter a room.
People smile like nothing ever burned.
They drink coffee,
talk about weather,
post pictures of the same sun that once watched my world collapse.
I try to join —
to pretend I belong to this peace.
But peace feels foreign,
like trying on someone else’s skin.
At night I walk —
streets wet with reflections that don’t recognize me.
Each step feels borrowed.
Each breath feels like I owe someone for it.
Freedom came with too much silence.
It echoes,
it hums,
it never leaves.
Sometimes I dream of the crossing.
The engine chokes,
the air smells like rust and salt.
A child’s cry gets caught between waves,
and the sea opens its mouth too wide.
I wake before it swallows us again.
They say time heals,
but time doesn’t know the way back.
It just keeps moving,
dragging me through days that all sound the same.
I learned to smile on command.
To answer when they ask, “How are you?”
To say “good” like it means something.
But somewhere behind my ribs,
a house is still burning slowly.
Its smoke rises through my chest when I hear my mother’s language.
It fills my throat,
and I stay quiet —
because some names are too heavy to carry in another country’s air.
The sea is quiet now.
It looks harmless.
But every time I see it,
I see the end again.
And I wonder if I really escaped,
or just found a slower way to drown.
Nov 10, 2025
Nov 10, 2025 at 12:20 PM UTC
The sea is quiet now.
Only the hum of engines fading into the horizon,
and a sky that pretends it never saw us.
Our shadows float behind,
heavy with the names we didn’t say.
I left the city with a plastic bag and a heartbeat.
Every wave erased a face,
every gust of wind carried another version of me away.
You can’t pray here —
only breathe, and hope the air forgives you.
There was a road before this.
A road made of dust and whispering feet.
Mothers counting their children,
men holding silence in their fists,
everyone walking like the ground might remember them.
At night, the wind sounded like language.
It said nothing new —
just repeated the sound of walls breaking,
the echo of laughter swallowed by sirens,
the scent of metal and bread,
the taste of unfinished mornings.
Before that,
the world had color.
A boy running under an orange sky,
a radio playing something slow,
a window shaking with summer heat.
Everything small was holy.
Even boredom had a rhythm.
Even loneliness had light.
Now it’s all reverse motion —
like film burning backward through the reel.
Smoke turns to houses,
cries turn to dinner talk,
the ruins rebuild themselves just to fall again.
And me —
I keep walking past myself,
the version that stayed,
the one that left,
the one still waiting by the gate for a future that never crossed the border.
Home is just a sound now.
Sometimes it rings in my sleep,
sometimes it hides inside the wind.
When I wake,
the silence is the same shape as memory.
When I close my eyes,
the sea starts again.
The city here sleeps without fear.
Neon hums instead of bombs,
and rain doesn’t mean running.
But I still flinch when doors close too hard,
and I still count exits when I enter a room.
People smile like nothing ever burned.
They drink coffee,
talk about weather,
post pictures of the same sun that once watched my world collapse.
I try to join —
to pretend I belong to this peace.
But peace feels foreign,
like trying on someone else’s skin.
At night I walk —
streets wet with reflections that don’t recognize me.
Each step feels borrowed.
Each breath feels like I owe someone for it.
Freedom came with too much silence.
It echoes,
it hums,
it never leaves.
Sometimes I dream of the crossing.
The engine chokes,
the air smells like rust and salt.
A child’s cry gets caught between waves,
and the sea opens its mouth too wide.
I wake before it swallows us again.
They say time heals,
but time doesn’t know the way back.
It just keeps moving,
dragging me through days that all sound the same.
I learned to smile on command.
To answer when they ask, “How are you?”
To say “good” like it means something.
But somewhere behind my ribs,
a house is still burning slowly.
Its smoke rises through my chest when I hear my mother’s language.
It fills my throat,
and I stay quiet —
because some names are too heavy to carry in another country’s air.
The sea is quiet now.
It looks harmless.
But every time I see it,
I see the end again.
And I wonder if I really escaped,
or just found a slower way to drown.
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