Borrowed Light by Rahees ibn Rafeeq

I was not born with a sun—
only a mirror
stitched behind my ribs.

So I learned early
how to face the right direction,
how to catch brightness
as it passed through other people.

I wore their laughter
like morning,
held their words
like small, flickering candles
in the corridors of my chest.

But mirrors are fragile things.

One crack—
and the light bends wrong.
Two—
and everything becomes
a question.

So I walked carefully,
afraid of sharp emotions,
of voices raised too high,
of nights that swallowed reflections whole.

Until one evening,
in a room with no windows,
no one left to shine for me—

I waited.

And waited.

And nothing came.

That’s when I noticed—
in the quiet,
in the dark—
a pulse.

Faint, stubborn,
unpracticed.

Not a sun,
not yet—

but something
that refused
to borrow light anymore.

I was not born with a sun—
only a mirror
stitched behind my ribs.

So I learned early
how to face the right direction,
how to catch brightness
as it passed through other people.

I wore their laughter
like morning,
held their words
like small, flickering candles
in the corridors of my chest.

But mirrors are fragile things.

One crack—
and the light bends wrong.
Two—
and everything becomes
a question.

So I walked carefully,
afraid of sharp emotions,
of voices raised too high,
of nights that swallowed reflections whole.

Until one evening,
in a room with no windows,
no one left to shine for me—

I waited.

And waited.

And nothing came.

That’s when I noticed—
in the quiet,
in the dark—
a pulse.

Faint, stubborn,
unpracticed.

Not a sun,
not yet—

but something
that refused
to borrow light anymore.