I Am

I do not know if I have ever lived.

Not fully.

Not in a way I chose.

The shoes were always there—

lined up at the threshold,

the laces loose,

the path implied.

So I stepped in.

Not because I wanted to go.

Only because they fit.

I learned that stillness

makes you good.

That ease

makes you lovable.

So I softened.

Flattened.

Took the shape

that kept things smooth.

They asked what I wanted to be,

but they didn’t mean be.

They meant:

what role will you play

so others don’t have to think twice?

And I played it.

Easily.

Quietly.

Who I am

is less me

than momentum—

a practiced expression,

a tone of voice,

a record playing

what I was told to be,

what I rehearsed,

because I was too afraid

to say no.

Even those who love me

only know the outline.

It isn’t their fault.

I never filled it in.

Now the years arrive

without becoming.

Living feels like carrying a tray

through a door you didn’t open,

toward a room

you never asked to enter.

My mind

wants peace—

achingly—

but still

it sharpens its teeth

on the inside of my skull.

And after so many battles,

even pain has gone quiet.

No sorrow,

no joy—

just a low hum

where a person should be.

And I wonder:

if we communicate with God

through feeling more than word,

then feeling must be the closest we come

to godliness.

And if this is true,

then what am I

but dust at the hem of something sacred?

What is a life

without ache,

without pull,

without pulse?

If to feel

is to mean,

then what of me,

who feels almost nothing

for who I’ve become?

Some days,

I let myself believe

that tomorrow I’ll be happy.

Other days,

I know

a mere day

could never work such miracles.

And on those days,

I start to wonder

if this is it—

if this is the happiest

I will ever be

again.

And if so, let no one call it tragedy.

For I have never lived.