Nobody is here.

Nobody is here.
Nobody is touching me.
Nobody is beating me.
Nobody is hitting me.
Nobody is engulfing my space.
Nobody is screaming at me.
Nobody is manipulating me.
Nobody is scheming behind me.
Nobody is degrading me.
Nobody is humiliating me.
Nobody is hitting the back of my head.
Nobody is looking at me.
Nobody is pushing me.
Nobody is killing me.
Nobody is abusing me.

Nobody is judging me.

Nobody is laughing at me.

Nobody is commenting on me.

Nobody is excluding me.

Nobody is following me.

Nobody is waiting outside the door.

Nobody is standing in the hallway.

Nobody is listening through the wall.

Nobody is reading my messages.

Nobody is checking my phone.

Nobody is tracking my steps.

Nobody is counting my breaths.

Nobody is timing my silence.

Nobody is correcting my tone.

Nobody is policing my body.

Nobody is rewriting my words.

Nobody is twisting my memory.

Nobody is asking what I did to deserve it.

Nobody is telling me I imagined it.

Nobody is warning me to behave.

Nobody is threatening consequences.

Nobody is measuring my usefulness.

Nobody is deciding my worth.

Nobody is shrinking the room.

Nobody is locking the door.

Nobody is holding the key.

Nobody is watching me sleep.

Nobody is rehearsing an excuse.

Nobody is preparing a story.

Nobody is waiting for me to forget.

Nobody is coming.

This is what safety sounds like,
in my half-room.
while I hold myself
and repeat these lines.

STOP! STOP! STOP!

Reminding myself...
That what had happened.
is not happening right now.

And yet it is happening

inside the body.

As the intrusive rumination of the past

occupies my present,

and the intrusive rumination of the present

settles into my future.

No active threat detected.
No incident report filed.
No visible bruising.
No current occupation.

My body disagrees.

Nobody is here...
so why does my spine rehearse surrender?
Nobody is touching me...
so why does my skin still flinch at footsteps?
Nobody is screaming...
so who taught my sleep to duck?
Nobody is manipulating...
so why do I cross-examine my own memory?

Somewhere else,
the same sentence is spoken louder.

As you prepare your breakfast, think of others

   (do not forget the pigeon’s food).

As you conduct your wars, think of others

   (do not forget those who seek peace).

As you pay your water bill, think of others

   (those who are nursed by clouds).

As you return home, to your home, think of others

   (do not forget the people of the camps).

As you sleep and count the stars, think of others

   (those who have nowhere to sleep).

As you liberate yourself in metaphor, think of others

   (those who have lost the right to speak).

As you think of others far away, think of yourself

   (say: “If only I were a candle in the dark”).

- ‘Think of Others,’ Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008)

Nobody is bombing.
Nobody is starving.
Nobody is suppressing.
Nobody is silencing women.
Nobody is legislating bodies.
Nobody is disappearing dissent.

Nobody is burning books.

Nobody is drawing borders.

Nobody is poisoning water.

Nobody is profiting from pain.

Nobody is chaining the gates.

Nobody is selling the future.

Nobody is watching through glass.

Nobody is marking the skin.

Nobody is forgetting the names.

Nobody is looking at the screen.

Nobody is feeling the routine.

Nobody is waking to the screams.

Nobody is shattering the dreams.

Nobody is claiming it was their fault.

Nobody is stopping the assault.

Nobody is holding the empty plate.

Nobody is checking at the gate.

Nobody is seeing the truth unfold.

Nobody is doing as they are told.

Nobody is taking all the blame.

Nobody is calling them by name.

Nobody is turning the page.

Nobody is closing the book.

Nobody is pulling the lever.

Nobody is writing the law.

Nobody is taking the toll.

Nobody is breaking the bread.

Nobody is lighting the fuse.

Nobody is stealing the light.

Nobody is selling the truth.

Nobody is closing the door.

Nobody is stopping the clock.

Nobody is waking the ghost.

Nobody is changing the lock.

Nobody is holding the key.

Nobody is setting it free.

Nobody is signing the orders.

Nobody is counting the bodies.

Nobody is answering for it.

Nobody is responsible.

It is called stability.

It is called order.

It is called protection.

It is always called something else.

Nobody was hurt.
Nobody meant it.
Nobody remembers it that way.

My nervous system does.
The rubble does.
History does.

If not nobody, then who?

Stop saying nobody.

Say:

They were here.

They did it.

They benefited from it.

They are still benefiting.
They are still doing it.
They are still here.

Different house.

Different flag.

Same architecture.

And there was never nobody.
And there was always someone here.
And someone was always signing the orders.
And the absence is someone's uniform.
And I am done pretending absence is peace.
And you knew.

~ Oizys.

—

After-poetry note: This poem-like paraphernalia is about somatic memory, trauma memory, and intergenerational residue that aggravates and furthers harm while preventing present safety; institutional and societal denial of harm; linguistic gaslighting; power and privilege hiding in passive voices; the violence of “stability”; the myth of absence; the interrogatory grammar of the abuser; the accomplice that is “no one”; and the escalation–de-escalation ricochet from personal trauma to collective violence, as well as the tension between private body and public violence. Our bodies, souls, minds, hearts, and nervous systems remember what official language forgets. Sometimes, zooming out from the half-room to the geopolitical scale, we write the “necessary.” So I had to. Even if I can't escape this half-room anytime soon, I don’t know when. I don’t know if I ever will. But the walls are not unnamed, because the silence has fingerprints, and the word “nobody” no longer protects them. I have spent my whole life, until now, learning that survival is not the same as agreement. And I am still here... breathing, witnessing, writing in a corner, reading, thinking, questioning, refusing the passive tense. Even if the door does not open, and a path is never paved, and the body trembles and shakes, and the mouth fumbles, and the feet stumble, and history echoes, wanting us to repeat, I am done rehearsing surrender. I am done bowing. I refuse to echo. And if I cannot leave the half-room, I will name it. And if I cannot dismantle the architecture, I will map it. And if I cannot stop the clock, I will mark the hour. Because even here, even now, someone is here. And that someone is me.