The people within me

I am not a single name.
Not a single wound.
Not a single sky.
I am the echo of footsteps that left,
and the silence that stayed behind.
A mirror shattered by many suns—
each shard a memory, still burning.
They passed through me
like wind through broken windows.
Lovers, strangers, enemies,
each carrying a piece of my face,
and leaving a name I no longer speak.
Even the ones who no longer write,
who turned into stone
in the garden of time—
I carry them in the curve of my hand,
in the way I fold my grief
like an old letter.
There was a version of me
that loved them.
And died with them.
And I do not bury the dead.
I build my home from their shadows.
I am not whole.
I am the map of exile,
drawn with fingers that trembled.
A mosaic made of borrowed light,
and forgotten prayers.
Do not ask me who I am.
Ask the wind.
Ask the Bougainvillea
that returns each spring
to the window of someone
who no longer waits.
I am everyone I have ever loved,
even for a heartbeat.
Even in silence.
Even in ruin.

Adiba Asad is a student at Viqarunnisa Noon College. She writes to explore the hidden architecture of grief, memory, and identity, believing poetry can hold what time cannot.