Foreign Tongues in Familiar Rooms

The moment it lands

—not loud, not dramatic—

just a shift in the air.

A glance,

a laugh that doesn't reach me,

a sentence that floats by

without a place to land.

These aren’t my people.

Not anymore.

It’s in the way their words ricochet,

jagged and unfamiliar,

like a language I once knew

but forgot on purpose.

I try to follow—

smile, nod,

answer when they ask.

But my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

Like I’m borrowing a version of myself

I’ve already outgrown.

They laugh again.

I don’t

not out of bitterness—

but because I don’t recognize the shape of the joke.

It’s like standing outside a house

I used to live in,

peering in through the window

at rooms rearranged

and people who don’t remember

my name.

And suddenly,

it all makes sense.

The pause,

the stillness,

the way my soul tugs gently toward the door.

I don’t belong here.

Not in anger,

not in sorrow

just in truth.

I let the moment breathe.

Let myself grieve the closeness that once was.

And then—I loosen my grip

on the conversations,

the comfort,

the version of me that needed this.

With quiet hands, I turn toward the unfamiliar,

not with fear,

but with a softness I didn’t know I’d earned.

This chapter has ended.

And I am finally ready

to walk forward

unfolding,

unapologetically alone,

but never lonely.