The Door Unlatched - conversing With Self Poem by Basim Alansari

You do not ask the earth to keep your footprint.

You walk, and let the dust decide.

You do not fear the darkened room
where breath loosens from the ribs

like a tenant returning borrowed keys.

Death is not a thief to you;

only a final realism, 

a closing hand after the trade is done.

Still,
you know a man leaves traces.

Not because he wishes to, 

but because heat lingers in walls

long after the fire has gone.

Some leave blood.

A child carrying the architecture of their face,

their illnesses, 

their stubborn silence.

Some leave bone to science,

their bodies unfolded beneath white lights

so strangers may learn

how pain travels through flesh.

Even in pieces, 

they continue speaking.

Others leave objects: 

watches that stop in drawers, 
photographs silvering at the corners, 
houses that forget the sound of their owners.

Names carved into buildings

like prayers against disappearance.

But you…

you have no hunger for monuments.
If your name survives,
let it survive accidentally,

the way a cup remains warm

after someone leaves the table.

What matters is smaller than memory.

A sentence that steadied somebody.

A kindness performed too quickly to become virtue.

The refusal to poison another life

with your own despair.

You think legacy is mostly unconscious;

a transfer of weather between souls.

A person lives among others long enough

and some part of them stains the air.

So you ask for no ceremonies.

No trembling hands preserving your voice in boxes.

No burden laid upon the living

to become caretakers of your absence.

When your hour comes, 

let it come plainly.

No epic meaning.

No bargain with eternity.
Only this:

that while alive, 

you stood honestly beneath the sun, 
and when it was time to leave, 

you left the door unlatched
for whoever came after.
……