When life doesn’t feel real
I float above every room, every street, I’m a million tiny droplets in the sky and my body below, alone, walks to class, walks home, I cannot will it to lift my face up, to breathe myself in. It sleepwalks, instead and I, a little ghost, drift away, find myself among a crowd of translucent bodies. Layered over each other, I see teeth through knees and fingertips, ribs. If I listen I can hear silence in the distance so I go beyond the murmuring heads to a heath and there is a ring of fog as wide as the horizon. My feet remain an inch, a breath away from the grass, small blades of grass, I see you. I cannot touch you like I could before. But I think you would be cold on my ankles, above my socks. Where I pass must wilt at dusk and I will never truly know anywhere I have been.
Laila Kayyali is a senior at New York University. Originally from Amman, Jordan, she is completing her bachelor’s degree in Media, Culture and Communication while minoring in both Creative Writing and Documentary. In her free time, she loves reading the Modern Love column in the New York Times and completing the Mini Crossword.