Featured Poet - Jean Hatoum

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What John Missed

No one noticed

how carefully he walked.

How softly he closed doors.

How quickly he learned that silence could keep a room calm.

Other children returned home loudly.

Throwing bags to the floor.

Asking what smelled good in the kitchen.

Calling for their mothers

before even taking off their shoes.

John entered like a guest

who stayed too long.

He missed small things.

Someone brushing dust from his hair.

A hand resting briefly on his shoulder.

Being asked if he slept well.

A voice saying:

“You can rest now.”

He missed the kind of hunger

that food could fix.

At school,

he watched other boys complain

about ordinary things—

loud siblings, early curfews, chores—

and felt something strange inside him.

Not jealousy.

Something quieter.

Like standing outside a house in winter

watching light exist through the windows.

At night,

he memorized sounds.

The mood of footsteps.

The meaning of silence.

The distance between anger and danger.

No child should know those things.

No child should feel relief

when nobody speaks to him.

And still—

there were moments he carried secretly.

The smell of rain on dry earth.

A breeze through the curtains.

The call to prayer far away at sunset.

One good teacher.

One friend who sat beside him quietly

without asking questions.

Small mercies.

Tiny lights

the darkness could not fully swallow.

Sometimes,

that is all a childhood leaves behind:

Not happiness.

Just a few gentle things

surviving the fire.



THE NIGHTS HE ALMOST DISAPPEARED

There were nights

when John stopped opening the curtains.

Morning would arrive eventually,

but it no longer felt meant for him.

The room carried the stale weight

of untouched hours.

Half-finished water bottles.

Clothes draped over chairs.

A phone glowing quietly in the dark

with messages he could not answer.

Sometimes

he lay perfectly still

listening to the hum of the world outside.

Cars passing.

A dog barking somewhere far away.

Neighbors continuing their lives

as if surviving were ordinary.

He envied them for that.

The hardest part was not always the pain.

Sometimes

it was the exhaustion of carrying it

for so long.

Even breathing began to feel

like something manual.

Something he had to remember to do.

People think despair arrives loudly.

They imagine breaking points

as dramatic things.

But often,

it is quieter than that.

A toothbrush left dry for days.

Food losing its taste.

Showering in darkness

because light feels unbearable.

Sleeping at sunrise.

Ignoring mirrors.

Watching the ceiling for hours

because existing feels heavier

than movement.

There were moments

when the edge felt strangely peaceful.

Not because he wanted death.

Because he wanted silence.

Rest.

An end to the war inside himself.

And still—

some fragile thing remained.

A song he replayed at 3am.

Cold air entering through the window.

The feeling of water against his hands.

One sentence written down

instead of one wound acted upon.

The stubborn habit of tomorrow

arriving anyway.

So, he stayed.

Not bravely.

Not gracefully.

Sometimes staying looked like

crying on the bathroom floor

and still waking up the next day.

Sometimes survival

was nothing more heroic than this:

A hurting person

choosing, once again,

not to disappear.

EVEN THE LONGEST WINTER LEARNS TO END

There are days 

when the mind feels heavier than the body, 

when smiling is a borrowed habit 

that no longer fits, 

and silence becomes somebody we know 

too well.

We carry storms behind our ribs,

hide earthquakes in our gentle replies,

and still ask others,

“Are you okay?” with tired eyes.

Mental health is strange that way—

a garden asking for rain

while pretending it can bloom

through every season of pain.

Some nights,

the heart speaks in whispers so low

even the moon leans closer

just to hear the ache below.

But healing is not loud. 

It does not arrive with applause. 

Sometimes it is simply 

getting out of bed despite the wars—

wars that no one else can see, 

wars you've stopped trying to explain.

Sometimes it is drinking water,

answering one text,

opening the curtains

and believing there may be a next.

We are taught to be unbreakable,

yet even glass shines when cracked.

The softest people in this world

are often the strongest, in fact.

So, if your soul feels tired,

rest without shame.

The sun itself disappears each night

and still returns the same.

And if you feel lost inside yourself,

remember this gentle truth:

you do not have to be perfect

to deserve love, peace, or proof.

Because hearts are not machines.

They tremble. They bruise. They bend.

And sometimes surviving the day

is the bravest thing we ever pretend.

So, speak kindly to your inner world.

Hold your sadness like a friend.

Even the longest winter

eventually learns to end.

THINGS THAT STAYED BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Some houses are loud with love.

Plates clattering in the kitchen.

Someone laughing from another room.

Windows open to evening air.

A child running freely between voices.

This was not that house.

In John’s house,

doors were not made of wood alone.

They were made of moods.

Of waiting.

Of learning when not to speak.

Even the walls felt careful.

He learned early

that survival could look like stillness.

Sit quietly.

Answer briefly.

Do not make the room heavier

than it already is.

Sometimes he stood outside closed doors

trying to understand silence.

Not every silence meant safety.

Some silences were only pauses

between storms.

At night,

light slipped beneath certain doorframes

like something alive.

He would watch it from the hallway

and wonder

what kind of families spoke gently after dark.

What kind of fathers softened at night.

What kind of homes allowed children

to fall asleep without listening?

So much of fear

was not the shouting.

It was the waiting.

The listening for footsteps.

The sudden change in breathing.

The way a whole body could tense

from the sound of a doorknob turning.

And yet—

there were small survivals.

A blanket wrapped tightly enough

to feel like protection.

Rain tapping softly on the windows.

The comfort of everyone finally asleep.

A notebook hidden safely in a drawer.

Words becoming the only place

no lock could reach.

Some children remember childhood

through photographs.

John remembers it

through sounds behind doors.

And the strange loneliness

of growing up

feeling safer alone

than witnessed.

QUIET DEFIANCE

A hollow sunrise leaking through the blinds,

a body waking without fully arriving.

Breath turned mechanical.

Pulse buried beneath the freezing.

Shadows gather where the light gave up.

Memories reopen themselves like wounds.

Nightmares bloom behind the eyes,

feeding quietly on silence.

The walls lean inward.

The mind comes apart at the seams.

Thought sinks under its own weight.

Cold settles where love once lived.

The mirror stops feeling truthful.

Hope rusts slowly into exhaustion.

Hands release what they could not keep.

Air grows heavier.

The lungs forget their rhythm.

Time stretches cruelly—

every second scraping the nerves.

Voices rise from nowhere.

Accusing. Distorting.

Even silence feels hostile now.

Sanity frays softly at the edges

while terror roots itself deeper,

quiet as mold behind a wall.

And then

the dark begins offering invitations:

a ledge,

an exit,

a stillness pretending to be peace.

Reason flickers weakly.

Strength drains from the body

like water through broken hands.

Yet somewhere beneath the collapse,

something refuses.

Not hope.

Not healing.

Just a stubborn pulse

still insisting on existence—

a fractured ember

continuing despite itself.

The ruined throat still sings.

Even shattered souls

ache toward meaning.

Scars glow faintly in the dark

like constellations no one notices forming.

Proof the body survived

what the mind still struggles to name.

And every breath, however uneven,

becomes defiance.

Every hour endured

is resistance.

Though despair returns without fatigue,

there remains beneath all the breaking

a truth darkness keeps misunderstanding:

Staying—

while shattered,

while trembling,

while exhausted—

is not surrender.

It is resistance.

The past keeps forcing itself into the present.

Sleep becomes another battlefield.

Morning arrives without relief.

Crowded rooms suffocate.

The body searches instinctively for exits.

Trust dissolves beneath constant fear.

Safety begins to feel unfamiliar.

Then numbness spreads.

Joy feels borrowed from another life.

The world loses its color quietly,

one shade at a time.

Even simple living becomes difficult.

The smallest task feels mountainous.

And beneath it all,

the mind turns against itself

with exhausting precision.

Still—

something survives the ruin.

A pulse beneath devastation.

A soul refusing erasure.

Not peace.

Not redemption.

Only continuation.

Breathing, even unevenly.

Standing, even shaking.

Living, even in anguish.

And for every soul silently fighting to remain,

for everyone convinced they are disappearing—

this matters:

To stay

through the panic,

through the grief,

through the unbearable weight of being—

is its own kind of fierce.

Its own quiet defiance.

ABOUT THE POEMS:  "These poems are selected from 'I Wrote So I Would Not Fade', a collection of poetry, prose, and fragments written during a period of profound personal struggle. Together, they explore invisibility, trauma, survival, resilience, and hope. While deeply personal, they are offered with the hope that readers who have experienced suffering may recognize that they are not alone."

ISBN: 979-8184667881



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