By Natalie May Sioco
We lived in corners you deemed unimportant
places your eyes never lingered.
Where light forgets to shine,
as if unsure of its invitation.
There, I searched for another breath–
a small permission to exist.
Our lives are small,
but never careless.
We learned the rhythm of your steps,
the tremor before a door opens
We learned your hours,
your sleep,
places your gazes favored.
No warning came
when you decided our lives were a threat
no trial,
no language shared,
no opportunity to defend
my crime for being alive.
Unfair it was
when dust knew no restraint.
it settled in your space
never cared for,
even when it drew the same attention.
I envied it, but there it was
with me when nothing dared too close.
I shrugged such thoughts
Perhaps it was just its lifelessness—
its passport to freedom.
I never asked to look this way,
nor to be born at all.
Yet I pathetically clung to this life.
Spending my days on fear,
Because fear was the only way
I knew how to exist.
Then, a butterfly crept into your house.
I scoffed at its ignorance–
how careless was it to fly in your space
And yet, you met it with gentle hands.
How peculiar.
It was an insect.
I was an insect.
Apparently, some insects get smiles too?
How lucky.
Or, was I wrong all along? Probably
Was I jealous? Absolutely
Did I want to try?
Maybe. Yes. By God, this is ignorant.
Yet I tried.
This life was led in the shadows,
while you waltzed where light always reached.
Just once,
I wished to exist in that glow.
But you reminded me quickly
how this light was never meant for me.
There I meet my first friend:
Death
It was friendlier than any.
It came without disgust,
welcoming me to its warm embrace.
In a world where existing meant erasure,
Death offered something surprisingly cozy.
