Is life
just the rise and fall of lungs
a hollow motion
in a hollow chest?
All around me,
a silence so deep, so wide,
it swallowed my soul alive.
My eyes, once mirrors of dreams,
now reflect
shards of trust, broken,
hope crushed
beneath the weight of what is.
Each breath
a blade through spirit,
each exhale
a silent scream.
My gaze has turned to stone.
The feeling of being
gone.
Am I alive?
I ask,
again, again
maybe, perhaps…
Yes.
I scream it to myself
as though repetition
might resurrect
the girl I used to be.
Days bleed into nights,
nights into days,
as I sit in stillness
in this same room
where once
my mother’s brilliant daughter
laughed,
lived.
I stare at my hands,
tracing lines
that once promised miracles.
Where did they go?
Where did I go?
Was I ever here
or just a beautiful lie
I whispered to myself in the dark?
Now I sit,
gathering glittering shards
of long-lost dreams,
and say nothing.
Why am I so quiet?
Why do memories fade
like breath on glass?
Why does fear
grip me
at the sight of men?
Why does the world outside
feel like war?
Why can’t I stop
these tears
from falling?
I have torn myself
into too many pieces,
scattered across a life
that no longer fits me.
Will I ever gather
what remains?
Will I ever feel whole again?
Will I ever
trust?
My hands,
my feet,
bleed from ruins
of choices I made
when I still believed.
My home echoes
with cries
no one hears.
Is this the cost
of trust?
They say:
when a wise woman loves,
legends are born.
But when she’s betrayed—
she dies,
bit by bit,
in silence.
Love is not a deal.
There are no profits.
No loss.
And yet
we weigh hearts
like gold.
When love betrays,
your lungs still breathe
but your soul forgets how.
And even fear
can’t make you fear death
anymore.
After the death of love,
what is left to fear?
Perhaps,
for those who truly see,
love must be forbidden.
It has become
a transaction,
a script
already written
before the first word.
And you
you sit
in your sweet illusion,
believing every line,
living every lie,
while the storyteller
smiles
behind their mask.
A soul awakened
does not love
it falls into Ishq.
And Ishq
is not gentle.
It is fire.
It is ruin.
It is the holy burning.
In Ishq,
failure does not break you
it buries you.
Death is gentler
than life,
for death is still,
but life brings
a fresh agony
with every breath.
And so I ask, once more
Is breathing
truly
living?