As the house grows emptier, I have more room to breathe—maybe more than my lungs know to deal with. Crickets and lizards step into my stoic skies. Electricity hums through the wiring behind the walls, like Fairuz playing at the neighbours. This sultry silence, in all its breathing, drapes itself over my words. I speak louder, over‑enunciating my vowels; all this freedom—dare I adieu?—might have swallowed half the sounds or lost these unused vocal cords to the screams these walls claim, the towels muffle, begging me to wonder— What do I become when the house is silent? Am I a contradictory existence—laughing at all absurdities in crowds only to submit to the grounds dissecting jokes of those privileged with minds too shallow–or was that survival, honed to express, to hide, to live just rightly absurd in their sight? I walk through the house, leaving every door open. All the mirrors conspiring: a single image in a thousand directions, reflections, possibilities, teasing me of all that could’ve been—me, her, us. In these few moments of crisp air and softened verdicts, when I am no one’s daughter to mend, direct, or burdened with the honour of my “sex,” who can I be if not theirs, if not here? I sit with old letters on the veranda, a cool rising to my sinuses with the mercy of marble and northern winds. Letters dismantling years of distance and tending beg me not to burn them, though ashes seem to fall from my lips like pigeons lofting into the dusk of a newfound sky—unstoic. The cigarette ashing away new patterns on my dermis. Do I then become something? Perhaps a soul slipping from its body, admiring all the hosts it once held. I visit memories to learn to speak. (Ps. Welcome to my brain,sorry)