Whispers

Come in.
Let me place a coat of embraces around your shoulders,
as if warmth were something fragile
the morning could carry away.

Do you hear the whispering
from the corners of the room?
It sounds like dust
learning how to breathe.

Stay here.
Let us bury each other.

Do not be afraid —
perhaps on the other side
there is only a love letter
without a sender.

Let us bury our memories.
Not only the heavy ones.
Also the warm ones,
the ones that smell like summer
and familiar voices.

Let us hold hands
while we gather everything —
every sorrowful memory,
every voice
that ever mispronounced our names —

and scatter them
far enough
that even the night
cannot find them again.

Let us bury everything
that comes after the words
“I am.”

Our desires.
The dreams
we carried through the years
like wet clothes against our skin.

You say:
If all of that disappears —
what remains of us?

And we keep walking
through this strange silence,
wondering
if peace is only numbness
wearing a kinder face.

Still, the world continues.

Someone makes coffee in the morning.
A sibling outgrows their shoes.
A neighbor pulls too hard
on a dog’s leash.
Somewhere, a stone falls into water
and becomes memory.

Someone tells their child:
“Do not forget who you are.”

And something unspoken
moves through the rooms
like smoke.

Someone searches for themselves
inside another person’s love
and calls it home.

But if I leave everything here —
in this earth,
in this still, open mouth of darkness —

where do I go?

Am I still my body?
Still my voice?
Still the shadow
walking beside you?

Or only its echo?

Come.
Let us look at it together.
Let us find out
what remains of a person
when even their name
learns how to become quiet.

– Melike Kara