“The Sky Forgets My Name”

The Sky Forgets My shayan

I used to believe the sky was a witness.

That every word I whispered into the wind found a home among the clouds, that every tear that slipped from my cheek was counted by the rain. I believed the sky would remember me when no one else could.

But lately, I feel it slipping.

The horizon does not turn its head when I call. The clouds drift by without recognition. Even the moon, that pale archivist of sleepless nights, looks at me as though I am a stranger.

And so I write. Not to be remembered, but to trace myself against the fading.

I. The Sky Forgets My Name

The first time I noticed it,

I stood on the balcony and shouted,

not in anger but in affirmation—

my name,

three syllables wrapped in breath and hope.

The wind carried it upward.

I waited for the echo,

the small acknowledgment I’d always felt,

a soft tug in the chest,

the hush of leaves responding.

Nothing.

Only silence thick enough to bruise.

The sky tilted its great blue body away from me,

and I realized with a shiver:

it did not know me anymore.

II. Clouds That Refuse Memory

I used to trace my childhood in them—

castles, dragons, a grandmother’s face.

They always complied,

folding themselves into memory’s shapes.

Now they pass by blank,

featureless as erased chalkboards.

I search for signs,

but they dissolve before I can name them.

It is as though my history has been

wrung from the sky’s cloth.

A life unlived.

A name unspoken.

III. The Moon’s Betrayal

I thought the moon would stay loyal.

It has known me the longest,

watched me grow into my shadow,

kept my secrets in its craters.

But last night,

its light slipped over me without pause,

as if I were nothing more

than another stone in the field.

I raised my face,

mouth open in prayer,

but it glided past like a god

too weary to listen.

Even the tides forgot to rise

at the sound of my weeping.

IV. Memory Like Rain

Some days,

I feel it trying to return.

Raindrops tapping windows like old friends,

saying, We almost remember you.

I press my palms to the glass,

begging them to recall,

but they run downward,

joining rivers that do not bear my reflection.

My name should sound like thunder.

Instead, it is static,

a syllable drowned

in the static between stations.

V. Who Am I Without the Sky?

If the sky forgets,

who remains to testify that I was here?

The trees still rustle,

but not with my stories.

The birds sing,

but not the songs I taught them.

Even my own voice stumbles,

strange in my ears,

as though I am borrowing it

from a stranger.

I used to belong to the firmament.

Now I float unmoored,

a balloon cut loose,

name scrawled on its surface

in ink that fades as it rises.

VI. Rebellion

Yet I refuse disappearance.

If the sky forgets,

I will etch myself into the dirt,

into stone,

into the ribs of rivers.

I will write poems

that taste like blood and salt,

poems that bruise paper with longing,

so when the last syllable of me

slips from the air,

it will still pulse

in the earth’s veins.

VII. A Bargain With Dawn

This morning,

I tried once more.

I whispered my name into dawn’s light,

so gently it trembled.

For a moment,

the colors paused,

as if unsure whether to bloom without me.

And in that fragile pause,

I felt something—

not memory,

but possibility.

Perhaps the sky has not truly forgotten.

Perhaps it waits

for me to remember myself.

VIII. I Am Still Here

So I gather my fragments,

string them into poems,

and lift them like lanterns.

If the sky has forgotten,

I will remind it.

If the stars look past me,

I will burn brighter.

If my name vanishes from every horizon,

I will carve it into tomorrow.

Because even if the sky forgets my name,

I will not.

Not yet.