Talk to Soon: A Journey Through Voices Unheard

I
would like
to talk
to the shadow that slinks
under my bed when I pretend
I don’t see it.

Not the monster.
The shadow.
It is less hungry, more loyal.
Sometimes it hums.
I want to ask it—what song?
Where did you hear that tune,
and why does it follow me
when I walk barefoot through dawn’s migraine?

I would like to talk to the woman in the dream
with sand in her voice and wires for hair.
She tells me something every night but forgets the ending.
“Meet me in the museum of unopened emails,” she said once.
I forgot which password I buried
in the backyard of 2011.

Also,
I would like to speak to my fifth-grade self
but only when he’s eating boiled corn
and crying because someone said
he blinked too much.
I’d like to ask him
why he stopped drawing
planets that looked like lemons.

He might ask me
why I stopped naming clouds
or why I now press my thumb
on my chest
as if trying to print myself.

I would like to talk to the architect
of silence.
Surely someone built it.
Gave it a ceiling of cracked ceramic
and a sofa that squeaks
when you sit with too much grief.
I’d ask—
why make silence a cathedral
with no doors?

I want to talk
to the cactus that died
on my windowsill
three years ago.
It saw everything.
Conversations with blue light,
arguments with the moon,
laughs that didn’t belong to me.
It died whispering.
But I was sleeping.
I think it said “less salt.”
Or maybe “leave sooner.”

I would like to talk to the smell
of my grandmother’s cupboard.
Mothballs.
Camphor.
Peppermint.
Regret.
And a little prayer stuck between
two rusted bangles.
I want to talk to that smell
and ask
how long it has been hiding
in my collar.

I’d like to talk to
my future voicemail.
What do I sound like
when I am not there?
Do I still begin with “hey,”
or have I learned
to greet time more gracefully?

I’d like to talk to
the man at the corner stall
who speaks to crows in Arabic.
He doesn’t sell hope, I realized.
Only time.
Five-minute vacations
from the self.
I owe him
at least a question.

I want to speak
to the hunger in my knees.
The way it bends
when ambition forgets
to hold my hand.
It knows where
I buried the unfinished poems.
Maybe it will forgive me
for rhyming pain
with train, again.

I would like to talk
to the silence between
“Are you okay?”
and
“Yeah, just tired.”
That pause.
That inhale between oceans.
It holds a novella.
It holds the sky’s receipts.
It knows I wasn’t tired.
Just… too audible inside.

I want to talk to the red crayon
I broke in 1997
in rage.
It left a mark on the wall.
That wall got painted thrice.
But the rage remains,
wearing spectacles now.

I’d like to speak to
the voice inside GPS
when it says “recalculating.”
Because honestly,
so am I.
Daily.
Hourly.
In micro-dreams and queue lines.
Does she sigh when she says that?
Does she believe we’ll ever arrive?

I want to talk to
the last message I didn’t send.
It’s probably frozen.
Caught mid-word.
I’d ask it—were you brave?
Were you too late?
Or did you know
that not every goodbye needs lips?

I would like to talk to
the color mauve.
It feels misunderstood.
Not quite purple.
Too elegant to be sad.
I wore it once
and someone said
I looked like a memory
trying to apologize.

I’d like to talk
to the eyelash
I blew away with a wish
I can’t remember.
Where did it land?
Did it become
a satellite of forgotten dreams?

Let me talk to the train
that left before I got there.
It knew something I didn’t.
Timing, perhaps.
Maybe courage.
Maybe surrender.

I want to speak
to the way coffee cools
when a person waits
too long to say
what they really mean.
That silence scalds.

I’d like to talk to
the smell of old bookstores.
It knows everything
about wanting, waiting,
and pages that hold
a breath for too long.

I want to talk to
the people I invented
so I wouldn’t feel alone
at weddings.
They were kind.
Some even danced.

I’d like to talk
to the part of me
that never left the sea.
The salt-licked soul
still spinning sandcastles
inside my spine.

And yes—
maybe—
I want to talk
to the one I never spoke to.
The stranger I almost loved
on the metro.
The eyes I borrowed peace from
at the airport.
The “hello”
I swallowed because
the world felt too permanent
that day.

Who would I like to talk to soon?

Maybe
all of them.
At once.
In a room with paper walls
and no clocks.
Where language drips
not from mouths
but from skin.
Where questions are danced,
not asked.
Where every voice
is mine
but older,
braver,
slightly off-key.
And honest.

I would like to talk
to the “me” I buried
under layers of “should,”
“must,”
and “what will they think?”
He deserves
a cigarette,
a scream,
and a symphony.

Maybe tomorrow.
Or maybe
as soon as I
stop writing
and start
listening.