I AM

I spent my first night on the streets sleeping on a metro’s stairs. By a couple of weeks I’d gotten used to the cold, the devoid, the reticence at nights and the clamor in the morning. I met other people who slept in the streets and soon learned of all their separate corners, their friends and some of their pets. We referred to each other by nicknames. I’d quickly forgotten what I used to be called and so had they. Although we never mentioned anything of our past I assumed we shared a common past. Maybe it was because I felt less alone, but it was relieving to think other people shared my faith and I was not the only felon looking for a warm ground to sleep on.

 

 At nights we wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, we’d build a fire, sit around and chat till the sun rose again. It seemed as if our lives were starting all over again and these were our first steps, it seemed as though we were creating a story from scratch. I did not know how one could be charged for losing their identity but I started to understand more as nights passed and we kept on talking. Before too long, I’d become detached from all my memories, I’d really lost it all. And when I would sit in front of the fire, trying to warm up my face until it blushed red, I’d feel like I was grieving. Grieving something I could not remember however hard I tried, but grieving nonetheless. And so was everybody else, you could read how sombre their faces got, how their lips often trembled and not just because of the cold. So we are all designated felons, I thought. If only we could remember what we used to be and what we did to get here, perhaps we’d sleep in peace. What I’d figured was that the system worked backwards. First I had been accused and then I had committed the crime, I had finally lost myself. 

 

 It was hallucinating in a way, spending each day in a body, self and mind completely new to me. Sometimes I looked up at the sky and wondered what I used to dream of as I stared up at it way back when I still knew who I was. Then I wondered if I’ve been drugged or have developed amnesia. But I never was afraid. I thought if I knew what I had lost, then perhaps I would’ve been afraid. Terrified. But life had become a blur. The clouds, the sun, the occasional pigeon that flew by, they had become a blur. And me, I was a nameless object with no name, no relatives, no home, no mind to think of what would eventually become of me. I had become no one in just a couple of weeks, another body on the streets everyone would just rather ignore. 

 

One night around our campfire, someone read a poem by John Clare. I’ve never heard of it before, I think I've never heard of it before. But now I have it memorised. Because when I read it to myself now before sleep, wherever I am, it makes me feel. Not like my old-self, not like the things I’ve lost, not like a nobody. It just makes me feel.

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live …