No Address

 I forgot what happiness felt like-

it became a distant memory,

buried beneath years of sacrifice.

I chased only what others wanted,

left my own dreams standing in silence,

my voice fading into unheard cries.

I built homes for everyone but myself,

became a sanctuary for the weary and worn.

I lit up every room I entered-

yet inside me,

something stayed cold and unlit.

I fixed what was broken without a sound,

mended shattered hopes with careful hands.

I wore courage like armor on my face

while my soul whispered quiet demands.

I gave my days to other people’s lives-

my energy, my love, my time.

And in return, I kept the dark hours,

alone with the weight of my own decline.

I let others take the credit,

poured my essence into shadows.

I kept waiting for “someday,”

for a dawn that never seemed to come.

I gave my best years away to others,

left pieces of myself in places I can’t return to.

One day I stood before the mirror

and did not recognize

the person staring back at me.

And when it was all said and done,

when the world looked at what remained,

it wrote beside my fading shape:

No address.

As if I had lived everywhere

but never truly belonged anywhere.

Yet even now, in this quiet aftermath,

a whisper stirs within me.

A flicker. A pulse.

Because sometimes even lost souls

find their way home.

Sometimes the one without an address

learns to build one within.

For every shadow carries a dawn,

and even in the deepest dark

I am still here-

trying to breathe,

trying to become,

trying to begin again-

but this time,

not only for others’ dreams,

but for my own.