Paper Walls
A poem
The room breathes
in whispers, sighs
through thin walls,
paint curling back
like the pages of books
I never finished.
A draft touches my neck —
cold fingers of a ghost
I almost know.
The light stutters,
flickers over the table
where my hands rest, still
and waiting, waiting
for words that refuse
to come.
Outside, the city
grinds its teeth,
cars choke the streets,
pedestrians march
as though the pavement
owes them something.
I watch from this window,
as though glass
were anything more
than a boundary
I cannot cross.
I tell myself
there is beauty here —
the way the floor creaks
in protest under my weight,
the slow decay
of paint and plaster.
Each crack, a story,
each chip, a scar
this house bears
in silence.
But my bones know better.
They hum a different truth,
vibrate beneath skin
grown tired of pretending
there’s something noble
in survival.
We dress it up,
call it realism,
as if naming the thing
keeps it from swallowing
us whole.
In this room,
the world thins
to a thread.
I pull at it,
wonder if unraveling
would hurt less
than holding together.
In the next room,
someone coughs —
a harsh, wet sound
that punctures the quiet
I’ve learned to love.
I imagine their lungs,
red and raw,
how they cling to life
with the same stubbornness
I do, out of habit
more than hope.
What is the cost
of keeping yourself
tethered to a life
you barely recognize?
I ask this of no one,
knowing the answer
is carved into my ribs,
etched in the marrow
of my spine.
The window fogs
with my breath.
I trace shapes,
let them smear
into nothing.
The fog is fleeting,
but for a moment,
it’s mine.
This is the life
we choose, isn’t it?
To sit in rooms
with paper walls,
waiting for something
to break or heal,
or simply fade
into the wallpaper’s
dusty pattern.
And we call it living.
I think, sometimes,
of tearing it all down —
the walls, the windows,
even the ceiling.
To stand beneath open sky,
bare and unafraid.
But I know better.
The sky offers
no answers,
only cold winds
and a vast indifference.
The truth is here,
in the cracks,
the dirt beneath my nails,
the quiet persistence
of breath after breath.
There is no grand revelation,
only this —
the steady erosion
of self against time.
And I think,
maybe that’s enough.
I stand, my shadow
long and thin
against the wall,
and I wonder
how long it will be
before I disappear
into it.
Paper walls, I say aloud,
and the words settle
like dust,
like a truth I’ve known
all along.
