While Time Walked On

I slept as time slipped quietly by
Was my slumber as deep as theirs,
Those youths of Eshab-ı Kehf,
Drifting through the corridors of an ancient dream?

I forgot myself,
My name, my shape, my soul.
Memory left me
Day and night became the same pale shade.

The world turned its tale,
Wove its grief into history.
COVID devoured the breath of millions.
And still, I slept.
How many dawns? I cannot say.

In Palestine, they died
Then, I was awake.
But soon the air grew heavy,
Smoke thick with sorrow pulled me under again.
And in that hush,
Cries echoed through the void:
“End the war, stop the dying
I can bear no more.”

Still, I lay
Curled in the hollow of the earth,
While time stepped over me,
While time passed through me,
Leaving wonder I could not name.

Was I alive? Was I gone?
Or caught between
A guest of some ghostly dream?

My mind, a fractured mirror
Its pieces scattered in silence.
Fatigue, a fog that pressed against the soul.
And here I linger still:
An aching wraith, a solitary watcher
At the fragile gate of sleep.