No Curtain Falls
I’ve seen so many movies
that looked like my life—
a girl running,
a border burning,
a mother screaming names into silence.
Dust rising like ghosts,
brothers dragged offscreen,
hunger held like prayer
in a home that never felt like home.
They say the screen can save you,
that art is a balm,
but I watched
and waited
and nothing inside me moved.
No tears fell—
because my eyes had already dried
back when soldiers broke the door
and called it law.
Back when neighbors turned their faces
and I learned the shape of alone.
There was no catharsis.
Only the echo of boots,
and the ache of being the only one left standing
when everyone else was turned to ash
or memory.
I don’t need another movie
telling me who I could have been.
I need the world
to feel the raw,
unsoftened violence
of being unseen.
I am not a symbol.
I am not your tragic heroine.
I am the scream that wasn’t scripted,
the life that didn’t get closure,
the flame that survived the scene
but never left the fire.