When I was nine,
the nights stopped feeling safe.
Every evening had footsteps,
I prayed they would skip my door.
It kept happening,
almost every night
until fear felt like a bedtime routine,
and my own skin forgot it belonged to me.
He left eventually,
back to Iran
and the silence he left behind
was almost worse,
loud with what I couldn’t say.
For four months,
my dreams replayed the dark,
every sleep a rerun I didn’t choose.
But the sun kept showing up anyway,
and one morning,
I realized it rose for me, too.
When I go to sleep now,
it doesn’t win.
It’s mine again,
and it can’t touch me.
Jan 16
Jan 16, 2026 at 5:35 AM UTC
When I was nine,
the nights stopped feeling safe.
Every evening had footsteps,
I prayed they would skip my door.
It kept happening,
almost every night
until fear felt like a bedtime routine,
and my own skin forgot it belonged to me.
He left eventually,
back to Iran
and the silence he left behind
was almost worse,
loud with what I couldn’t say.
For four months,
my dreams replayed the dark,
every sleep a rerun I didn’t choose.
But the sun kept showing up anyway,
and one morning,
I realized it rose for me, too.
When I go to sleep now,
it doesn’t win.
It’s mine again,
and it can’t touch me.
submitted this into a college young writers competition and didn't win or i don't think i won because i haven't heard anything... thought it was some of my strongest work maybe.
