By Fatma Zohra
(For the place that arrived just in time)
I didn’t arrive the way the stories begin—
not with bright eyes and a bursting suitcase,
but with silence in my steps
and a failure folded carefully inside my chest.
The exam I thought would shape my life had slipped away,
and this college—
was never meant to be the story I’d tell.
“This isn’t how it was supposed to go,”
I whispered,
as hallways unfolded like unfamiliar questions,
as faces passed like scenes from a play I wasn’t in.
I was late by a month—
but more than that, I was late in spirit:
late to belonging,
late to ease.
Laughter had already taken root in corners I hadn’t touched,
friendships had begun to bloom,
and I wandered through their petals
like someone trying not to leave footprints.
“I’ll just finish this degree quietly,”
I told myself,
taking back benches like shelter,
offering only my name at roll call,
drifting through lectures
like wind through half-open windows.
The first year passed like fog—
soft enough to forget,
sharp enough to ache.
Even sunlight seemed indifferent.
Even the walls kept their distance.
I watched others write their stories in stairwell scribbles,
gathering memories over shared snacks and photocopied notes,
while I stayed in the margins,
still carrying the weight
of not being where I wanted to be.
But then something shifted—
not with a spark,
but like warmth returning to cold fingers,
slow, certain, impossible to ignore.
Like spring touching soil that had forgotten how to bloom.
And maybe it wasn’t the place that changed.
Maybe it was me.
Friendship didn’t arrive like a storm.
It unfolded like morning.
No grand entrance—
just presence.
A casual “come with us,”
a seat saved without asking,
an evening of snacks over assignments,
a birthday plan I wasn’t left out of.
Moments stitched themselves together—
shopping trips, silly pictures,
matching kurtis, unmatched playlists,
jokes that didn’t need to be explained.
There was space now—
for my voice,
for my laughter,
for my silences too.
“You’re coming, right?”
someone would ask,
as if I’d always been part of the plan.
I found myself staying in places I once fled—
staircases where time moved slower,
canteen tables sticky with stories,
quiet patches of grass where friendship settled softly.
We didn’t heal in declarations.
We healed in fragments—
in borrowed pens, in long walks to nowhere,
in sentences unfinished and understood anyway.
“Do you remember how quiet you were?”
someone asked,
and I laughed—
because now, the quiet in me had turned into a song.
Now, as the semester exhales its last breath,
as exams pile up and classrooms empty,
I stand in the heart of this campus—
the place I once resisted—
and want nothing more
than a little more time.
Time to sit on the stairs until dusk forgets the clock.
To spill one more secret,
share one more chai,
live one more ordinary day
that feels anything but.
This place, once a detour,
has become a destination.
It holds the version of me who walked its corridors with heavy feet—
and the one who now runs.
Not away,
but toward.
And if someone asked,
“What changed?”
I’d say,
“I stopped planning to leave…
and began staying like I belonged.”
I came late.
But I stayed.
And now,
I don’t want to go.
This campus—
with its red walls, spring flowers,
and garam chai that warms more than just hands,
its laughter echoing off old benches—
has become part of me.
Not something I passed through,
but something I carry.
Something that carries me.
Now I laugh the way I always did—
only louder.
Now I’m happy—
like I always was,
before doubt taught me otherwise.
And I will leave,
one day—
but not now.
Not without taking this place with me—
as a pulse under my skin,
a poem I lived without writing,
a home I never asked for,
but one that made room for me anyway.
Context:
This poem is about finding unexpected belonging. I arrived at college feeling lost and late, but with time , I found joy , friendship, and a version of my self I liked coming home to.