The Room is Unfamiliar: A Journey into the Self

Unfamiliar Rooms

The room is unfamiliar.
I don’t know how I got here.
A tableau of questions spills across the floor—
Like scattered puzzle pieces, no edges to frame them,
No corner to start from, no hand to guide.

The walls hum in tones I’ve never heard.
Not whispers. Not words.
Just a vibration. A presence.
They pulse like they know me,
Or have been waiting.

There’s a chair,
Bent and tired as though it’s been sat on
By centuries of ghosts.
It does not offer itself to me.
I stand.

The air—thicker than memory,
Yet thinner than the dream
That must have dropped me here.
Or did I drop myself?
A slip between one thought and another,
Now stranded in this space
That seems to know my name.

The light is wrong.
It drips from a bulb that flickers,
Each blink a Morse code
I am too disoriented to translate.
Shadows lean across the floor,
Stretching toward me,
Too human in their movements,
Too hungry in their stillness.

I reach for the door,
But it isn’t where it should be.
Or maybe it never was.
Instead, a frame—empty and breathing,
A picture that shifts as I stare.
It’s me,
But also not me.
A version? A fragment?
I am afraid to look too long.

A clock ticks somewhere,
Not with seconds but with heartbeats,
Each one an accusation.
You know why you’re here.
Do I?
The fragments in my mind grind against each other,
Sparks but no fire,
Truth but no shape.

The room is unfamiliar,
But it knows me.
I see it now.
The cracks in the plaster
Curl like the veins on my wrist.
The stains on the carpet—
A map of places I swore I’d never go again.

There’s a window,
But it does not show outside.
It shows me inside.
A reel of images,
Moments I buried,
Choices I denied.
Faces I turned away from.
They smile,
But their eyes—
Their eyes are mirrors.

I look down.
The floor is gone,
Replaced by a pool,
Still and black as ink.
It waits for me,
Patient and endless.
I step back.

The chair speaks, finally.
It creaks, it groans,
A symphony of regret.
It does not tell me to sit.
It tells me to listen.

The walls hum louder.
Not tones now. Words.
You were running. You were hiding.
The light flickers faster.
The bulb is a metronome of my guilt.

The room is unfamiliar.
And yet…
I built it.
Every crack, every stain, every shadow.
Every absence.

I walk to the window,
Not to escape,
But to see.
The reel is relentless,
A kaleidoscope of failures and triumphs,
Twisted together until they are indistinguishable.

I touch the glass.
It ripples,
Soft as breath,
Sharp as memory.
I do not pull away.

The chair whispers.
You’ve always been here.
The pool beckons.
The walls wait.
The door does not exist.

I am the architect of this room.
Every fear, every denial,
Every unspoken word—
Each one a brick, a nail, a lock.

The room is unfamiliar.
Because I never wanted to see it.
Because I never wanted to see myself.

But now,
The light steadies.
The clock slows.
The shadows retreat.

I step into the pool.
It is not water,
But ink.
It fills my lungs,
My veins,
My thoughts.

I drown.
And in drowning,
I breathe.

The room is no longer unfamiliar.
It is me.
And I am ready
To leave.

#Poetry #Surrealism #Introspection #SelfDiscovery