By Dr. Adnan Bouzan

On a night that lay gently upon the eyelashes of time, in a far corner of the room, where solitude dwells like a weary lover, I sat before the paper, watching the whiteness as one watches the sea before drowning. In my hands, a blank page—neither complaining nor rejoicing—but waiting… waiting for my soul to speak, to breathe its ink in silence, to leave a trace that resembles a moan written without a sound.

Every letter I write is not mere ink spilled—it is a breath; the breath of a heart too tight within its chest, finding no refuge but the paper. I am not writing... I am sighing, exhaling the disappointments clinging to my soul, the dreams frozen on the edges of hope, and the faces that passed like perfume then vanished, yet left behind a fragrance threading through every line.

My breaths yawn between the lines, dampened with memories still seeking their language, as though ink were a mirror reflecting features I no longer recognize. The paper does not ask, but it listens... listens like a silent friend—one who neither interrupts nor debates, but who masters the art of holding space. In it, I place my pain, as a widow places her ring in a small box—hidden from the world, yet opened every night.

I write not to say something, but to rid myself of everything. I write because every time I try to speak, language betrays me, and my throat fails me. But the paper... the paper opens its arms, clears the path, stretches a distance between me and the abyss, and allows me to fly—even with just one wing.

Every drop of ink is a stifled breath finally released. Every comma is hesitation, a sigh before collapse. And every line is a step along a long road that leads to no one, but still takes me a bit further from myself—from that open wound no one dared to look into.

How many breaths have I imprisoned in unsent letters? How many sighs have I hidden in the margins of an old notebook that remained a witness to the night I cried in silence, leaving the page soaked with tears instead of ink?

Only paper knows how many times I was born from my ashes, and how many times the word has slain me. Only paper was there when I was let down and didn’t scream, when I wished and did not receive, when I loved too much and wrote too little.

I still write—not because I’m skilled at writing, but because I don’t know how to live without it. Writing is not a talent, but a survival... it is the air I breathe when my heart chokes on the unspeakable. It is the only purity that betrayal has never stained, nor falseness tainted.

My breaths on paper are not just letters... they are scars, the traces of fingers trying to soothe a painful memory, to pat gently the shoulder of an inner self whispering: “Hold on, the word will heal—even after a long ache.”

This is how I breathe—not through lungs, but through the pen. This is how I live—not among people, but between the lines. And this is how I love—in unwritten messages, unread poems, and phrases that sleep upon the pillow, never spoken aloud.

So to you who reads, always remember:
Not every text is a story, but it is always a heartbeat.
Not everything written is a tale, but it is surely a breath.
And in every letter, you will find me...
A soul sighing,
A heart dwelling in a page,
Whispering from afar:
“I am here... breaths upon a sighing page.”