“etc.”
I’ve searched for my self everywhere— in things I’ve loved and hated, in the faces of strangers and familiars, in foreign cities and forgotten alleyways.

I’ve wandered near water springs, along riverbanks, through olive groves and wildflower fields, but not even a whisper of myself remains.

I’ve peered into teacups in dusty corners of cafés, in songs and interludes, in books stacked like old regrets, in memories—mine and borrowed— among the betrayed, and the betrayers.

I’ve searched in sentences, and even deeper, in the liminal space behind each “etc.”— where endless suggestions trail off and identity becomes suggestion, then abstraction.

Each time I ask my loved ones how to find what I’ve lost, they offer long lists: places, things, hobbies, people— all ending in “etc.” But they don’t understand: I’ve overturned every rock beneath that word.

And now, I know: my self was never here. I wasn’t lost... I was never found.

Just chasing the illusion that something whole ever existed.

[Original poem published in Arabic on March 11, 2024 at ahewar.org]”