A Visitor

there was a visitor once.

uninvited.

he entered quietly,

the way dust enters through a closed window.

not enough to notice,

until suddenly,

you’re choking on it.

he didn’t knock.

didn’t announce himself.

he just slipped into the house

and rearranged the air

like he owned it,

like he owned us.

and everything changed.

the light.

the hours.

the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

even laughter,

when it happened,

felt borrowed,

something on loan

from a world we couldn’t touch anymore.

people kept saying words,

prayers, remedies, statistics,

but none of them knew

that the real fight wasn’t outside.

it was the silence inside the walls,

the way the house held its breath

every morning,

like it was waiting

for a verdict.

and i learned things.

things no one my age

should learn that early.

how fear moves,

slow at first,

then suddenly everywhere.

how hope bends,

but doesn’t break

if you hold it carefully.

how time stretches

when you don’t want it to,

and collapses

when you need one more minute.

every day, i sat with the visitor.

not because i wanted to,

but because he demanded it.

he had a way

of making the smallest moments

feel like negotiations.

a breath.

a heartbeat.

a night without crying.

a morning without shaking.

and then one day,

just like he arrived,

he left.

no apology.

no lesson.

just absence.

a chair suddenly empty.

a room suddenly lighter.

a life suddenly possible again.

people celebrated.

said we were lucky.

said the worst was over.

but they didn’t understand.

when the visitor walked out,

he took all from him,

and everything from me.

because you don’t go through a storm like that

and come out the same shape.

the visitor had a name.

leukaemia.

he came and exited quietly.

and even when he left,

he stayed with me.

not as fear,

but as resilience.