Trapped Inside Someone Else’s Body

Trapped Inside Someone Else’s Body

My voice doesn’t match the mouth that opens.

When I speak, the words snag.

Not wrong. Not bad. Just not mine.

Like someone borrowed my thoughts,

then handed them back—creased,

grammar mangled,

meaning curled up in the corner

like it gave up trying.

I hear myself

and flinch.

Not at the sound,

but at the mismatch.

I don’t know who this is.

Not this tone, not this rhythm,

not these hands,

not this shape,

not this mirror that blinks at me

as if I’m the stranger.

Trapped in skin I didn’t choose.

Trapped in rules I didn’t write.

Trapped in a world where

being clear means being clean,

and clean means being

not me.

They tell me,

“You just have to speak louder,”

as if volume could fix truth.

As if shouting would untangle

the sentence knotted in my chest

or rewrite the body

I never signed up for.

I’m not broken,

but I’ve been edited.

So many times

that even silence stutters now.

So many corrections

that the red ink became

my accent.

But I know what I meant.

Even if the spelling’s off.

Even if the shape doesn’t match the story.

Even if they never hear it right.

I am not your grammar.

I am not your version.

I am not a mistake in translation.

I’m still here.

Inside this wrong body.

Inside this wrong sentence.

And I still know how to write.

Why was I born again into this?

I didn’t ask for resurrection.

Not like this.

Not into a life that feels borrowed,

stitched together wrong,

too tight in the ribs,

too loose in the soul.

I want my old me.

My body that moved like mine.

My face I recognised.

My laugh that didn’t catch in my throat

before it came out.

They call it rebirth.

They say start fresh,

like I should be grateful

for the scraps

of who I used to be.

But I want her back,

the me before the glitch,

before the slowing,

before my hands forgot

how to trust their grip.

This new version

hurts in quiet ways.

Ways no one claps for.

Ways no one sees.

And I’m supposed to smile,

supposed to say,

“I’m here, I made it.”

But it’s not me that made it.

It’s someone else,

some tired echo

wearing my name.

I don’t want a second chance.

I want my first one.

I want the right skin.

The right time.

The right song.

And I want it now.

Not later.

Not in some lesson.

Not in some purpose.

Let the saints keep their wisdom.

I want my damn body back.