The Weight of Invisible Things by rahees ibn Rafeeq

I carried a mountain once—
no one saw it.
They only asked
why I walked so slowly.

It sat between my ribs,
a quiet continent,
shifting when I smiled,
cracking when I tried to speak.

Some days
it became a storm cloud,
pouring rain behind my eyes
while the sky above me stayed blue.

Other days
it was a locked room
with no doors—
only echoes of things
I never said.

I learned to fold it,
this impossible weight,
like a letter I would never send,
tucking its sharp corners
into softer parts of myself.

And still,
it grew.

Roots of silence
wrapped around my lungs,
teaching me how to breathe
in smaller and smaller ways.

Until one morning,
I placed the mountain down—
not on the ground,
but into words.

And suddenly,
it was no longer heavy.

Just a landscape
someone else
might understand.