What Would I Do If I Lost All My Possessions?: When Nothing Is Mine

If one morning,  
the floor beneath my feet felt lighter  
because everything that once weighed it down—  
the furniture, the frames,  
the books that collected my thoughts like dust—  
was gone,  
I think I would first stand still.  

Still,  
as if waiting for silence to confess something,  
as if the walls—bare and trembling—  
might whisper where everything went.  
But they would not.  
They, too, would stand stripped,  
their memories peeled away  
like wallpaper losing its grip on time.  

And in that hollow space,  
where once stood pieces of me  
stitched to things I thought I owned,  
I would exhale.  

Not cry—  
not yet.  
Grief needs something to hold,  
and there would be nothing left to cradle.  

I think I would sit on the floor,  
that sudden ancient ground  
turned larger now, emptier,  
a cathedral for the soul to echo in.  
I would trace cracks  
and remember how they were hidden once—  
under rugs that pretended to be perfect.  
But now, the truth would be all that remained.  

Maybe I would laugh,  
a small wild sound,  
because loss, when it comes completely,  
has a strange mercy—  
it leaves nothing else to fear.  

I would walk out barefoot,  
because even shoes, I suppose, are possessions.  
Feel dirt for the first time  
not as something to be cleaned,  
but as something to belong to.  
I would hear birds  
and think—  
how rich they are, singing with empty stomachs,  
owning only the sky.  

I might go searching, not for my things,  
but for my reflection—  
the one that hides beneath the person  
who measures life in acquisitions.  

What do I become,  
when no blade of identity is left to polish?  
Could I still call my name mine  
if the world forgot it with my bank passbook?  

I might find a small river somewhere  
and sit beside it,  
watching it carry itself without worry.  
Even a river has no pockets,  
just direction and surrender.  

Would I miss my photographs?  
The faces that time cannot replay?  
Yes, surely.  
But then again,  
those who truly saw me  
live in muscles,  
in the breath that shaped my voice  
when I said their names.  

Possessions—  
how sly they were, pretending to love me,  
while quietly enrolling me into their service.  
I fed them electricity, polish, time.  
And when they left,  
they left me myself—  
unvarnished, raw, asking,  
“Who are you now, without us?”  

Maybe I’d answer softly:  
I am breath,  
I am hunger,  
I am the light that doesn’t need a lamp to exist.  

I’d begin again,  
not by buying,  
but by gathering.  
Small things the earth gives freely—  
fallen leaves, a feather, a stone  
shaped perfectly by years of letting go.  
Their weight would teach me  
what matters never needed storage.  

In losing everything,  
perhaps I’d find rhythm again.  
How the pulse meets dawn,  
how voices in markets hum a prayer.  
I might talk to strangers longer,  
because I’d have nowhere to hurry back to.  
And when someone shared their bread,  
I’d taste not only flour  
but the miracle of kindness unsold.  

Night would return differently.  
Without a bed,  
I’d lie under the wide cool palm of the sky,  
and for once—  
see stars not as distant,  
but as belonging,  
because they ask ownership from no one.  

Would fear creep in?  
Of course.  
Fear is human furniture—  
it fills every empty room first.  
But maybe I would talk to it,  
invite it to sit beside me,  
tell it:  
“You can stay tonight,  
but you don’t get to redecorate my heart.”  

Perhaps I’d write with a stick on soil,  
let my words live briefly,  
before wind takes them like a messenger.  
And I’d smile—  
this is how expression should be:  
not stored,  
but shared with the moment that made it.  

I would learn hunger again,  
not as suffering,  
but as reminder—  
that even emptiness nourishes awareness.  
Every taste would become an event.  
A sip of water—  
a festival of clarity.  

And slowly,  
I would unlearn possession.  
Because maybe it was never lost;  
perhaps it was "I" who was misplaced,  
buried under layers of ownership.  

If I had nothing left,  
maybe I’d finally listen—  
to the sound of my own footsteps  
meeting ground,  
to wind conducting invisible symphonies  
between trees and phone wires.  

Time would stretch,  
not like a schedule,  
but like a companion.  
Days would no longer need checking off;  
they would unfold like rivers,  
complete in their own arrival.  

Would I build again?  
Yes, but differently.  
Not to accumulate,  
but to anchor presence.  
A hut of hands and simplicity,  
where things enter only by need  
and leave when their story is done.  

I’d keep a bowl, perhaps,  
for rain,  
for starlight,  
for generosity.  
I’d call it enough.  

When you lose everything,  
you meet the horizon in its full honesty.  
There is no door left to close,  
no drawer to hide regrets.  
Only air, moving freely  
where once stood your walls.  

And maybe that is what living should be—  
not building fences of “mine,”  
but meeting mornings unarmed.  

I would learn to thank loss  
for sweeping my house clean  
of illusions.  
It did what courage never dared—  
it set me naked  
before my own essence.  

And in that nakedness,  
I would find dignity,  
not shame.  
Because we are born untitled—  
and every name, every achievement,  
is merely borrowed cloth.  

What would I do if I lost all my possessions?  
I would grieve, yes.  
I would tremble,  
because the habit of holding is old.  
But then,  
I would lift my palms to the sky,  
and find they were still full—  
of touch, of heartbeats, of tomorrow.  

I would walk on,  
lighter now,  
unburdened by proof.  
I would make a home out of moments,  
a kingdom out of connection.  

And when people asked,  
“What did you lose?”  
I’d answer,  
“Everything that wasn’t truly mine.”  

When they asked,  
“And what did you find?”  
I’d say—  
“The space to become infinite.”