I was born fluent in an accent never spoken.
Even as a child I was taught the very etiquette of
How to stay out of the frame,
How to smile without showing teeth,
How to communicate without words,
How to avoid intimacy of eyes,
How to embrace without any arm,
How to be bereft of any and every breath.

I learned which walls could be touched,
Which scars could be scratched,
Which silences could be left polite,
Which questions could be answered
Which lines could be crossed,
Which places could be trespassed,
Which commanders deserved obedience,
Which Gods heard prayers.

I borrowed accents the way one borrows coats,
Not because I don’t have any
But because mine was never cut
For the weather everybody else survived in.
I wore them just enough to feel warmth,
Never enough to be intimate.
I wore them long enough to blend,
Never enough to leave a scent.
I wore them tight enough to cover my skin
Never enough to be mistaken for kin.

I attended to meetings I were never invited.
Pulled chairs to the tables never reserved.
Entered through doors never opened.
Spoke to minds never responded.

I imagine being expected
Never welcomed.

They would call me many things.
I could hear their echoes.
None sounded like my name.

I was named only to exist.
Never to be called.
It was etched into my skin
Like a curse rehearsed.

Cities held my shadows longer,
Streets watched my footsteps longer,
Buildings remembered my habits longer,
Than any human I met.

I left no dents in couches,
No scent in clothes,
No stains on cups,
No trails on beaches.
I learned how to live without residue.
How to leave as if I had never arrived.
How to die as if I had never been born.

I learned that belonging is recognition
And recognition is a deity that looks away,
A God, ashamed of its own reflection.
When you meet its eyes
It gazes back like the abyss,
Never with care
Always with wrath.

I have been a fetus in a womb,
Always seen through the echo of ultrasound.
Never uncensored
Always blurry and noisy.

I have been advised to be
Useful,
Kind,
Quiet,
Caring,
But never myself.

Eventually, I othered myself.
The bird meant to chirp in my chest
Discarded its voice nine lives ago.
The snake meant to rattle its tail in my head
Never woken up from its hibernation.

I tried devotion,
I tried irony,
I tried art,
I tried literacy.
All to avoid the sound of my own breathing.

I was always an afterthought,
Smoke of a cigarette,
Crumbs on a table,
Smell after rain.

Conversations waited my silence.
Jokes recoiled from my laughter.
Skins were wounded by my touch.
Souls felt tainted with my existence.

I learned that my presence
Relied solely on my absence.

I learned that there is no casket for my body.
No water to rinse my sins away.
No prayer to relieve my pain.
No dirt that would take me in.

Perhaps that belonging
Has never belonged to me.
Perhaps I refused it first,
And mistook it for rejection.

Perhaps this is all that life is about.
To arrive softly,
As if not to disturb the air.
To leave gently,
As though nothing changed.
To speak in lowered tones,
To listen more than breathe.
To disappear so completely
Even silence forgets my name.