Jean Hatoum - Author

 There is a peculiar habit we have as human beings. We believe what we can see. A broken bone earns sympathy because an X-ray can prove it. A cast tells a story without needing words. A scar announces that something happened here. Invisible battles are different. They leave no obvious evidence. No photograph captures the effort it took to get out of bed. No medical image reveals the conversation someone had with themselves before answering a simple phone call. No stranger passing on the street can measure the weight another person has carried all day. And yet, some of the heaviest burdens are the ones no one else ever notices. We are surrounded by invisible battles. The parent quietly grieving while making breakfast for their children. The student smiling through an anxiety they cannot explain. The person living with chronic pain who has become so accustomed to saying, "I'm okay," that even they have begun to question what okay feels like. The friend who keeps making ever...

 There are rooms we leave with our feet. And there are rooms we never truly leave at all. They follow us quietly. Sometimes they arrive as a memory. Sometimes as a scent drifting through an open window. Sometimes as the hesitation before turning a familiar doorknob. A room is never just walls. It is the life that unfolded inside them. The conversations that were whispered. The words that were never spoken. The laughter that echoed. The silence that lingered long after everyone had gone. Years pass. The furniture changes. The paint fades. Other people move in. Yet somewhere inside us, those rooms remain exactly as we left them. Memory has its own architecture. It rebuilds places with astonishing precision. A particular beam of afternoon light. The sound of rain against old glass. The creak of a wooden floor that always announced someone's arrival. The corner where we learned to read. The chair that remained empty. The doorway we stared at while hoping someone would come home. We car...

 There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes from being told you seem fine. Not because people are unkind. But because they believe what they see. You went to work. You answered your messages. You smiled when someone greeted you. You remembered birthdays. You laughed at the right moments. From the outside, nothing appears unusual. From the inside, every ordinary task may have required extraordinary effort. That is the paradox of being high-functioning. The world often mistakes functioning for flourishing. If you are still standing, people assume you are no longer struggling. If you continue showing up, they believe the hardest part must already be behind you. We have quietly learned to measure wellness by productivity, as though our ability to complete a day's responsibilities tells the whole story of our hearts. It doesn't. Sometimes functioning is not evidence of healing. Sometimes it is evidence of survival. There were days when the smallest tasks felt impossibly hea...

 People often imagine trauma as a single moment. An accident. A loss. A war. A night that changed everything. In stories, there is usually a clear beginning and an ending. The event happens, the dust settles, and life slowly returns to what it once was. Real life is rarely so generous. Trauma has a peculiar relationship with time. The event may last minutes, hours, or days, yet its echoes can continue for years. The body remembers places the mind wishes it could forget. A familiar sound can awaken a fear that has been asleep for months. A scent, a hallway, a certain time of day, even the turning of a doorknob can suddenly return you to a place you thought you had already left. From the outside, nothing is happening. From the inside, everything is happening again. That is one of the loneliest parts of trauma. The world measures time with calendars. Trauma measures it with reminders. People sometimes ask, "Why can't you move on?" It is usually an honest question. But healin...

 People often think silence is the absence of sound. It isn't. Silence has a voice of its own. Sometimes it sounds like the sentence you rehearsed a hundred times but never spoke. Sometimes it sounds like the message you typed, then deleted before pressing "Send." Sometimes it sounds like a smile that arrives a little too quickly, hoping no one notices the storm behind it. Silence is rarely empty. More often, it is crowded. It carries conversations that never happened, apologies that were never received, questions that were never answered, and tears that were never allowed to fall. It remembers everything we asked it to hide. For years, I believed silence was strength. I thought that if I carried everything quietly enough, I would somehow protect the people around me. I convinced myself that speaking about pain would only make it heavier, so I became very good at pretending. I answered "I'm fine" with remarkable fluency. I laughed at the right moments. I sho...

 There are books written because someone has a story to tell. There are books written because someone has mastered a craft. And then there are books written because, for a little while, writing becomes the only place left to survive. I Wrote So I Would Not Fade belongs to the third kind. For a long time, I believed silence was the safest way to exist. I lived quietly, carrying experiences that never truly found words. Living with Major Depressive Disorder, severe PTSD, severe panic disorder, and recurring suicidal thoughts often made my own mind feel like the most difficult place to remain. So I began writing. Not because I wanted to become an author. Not because I dreamed of publishing. I wrote because every sentence carried a little of the weight that my mind could no longer hold alone. Some of the poems in this collection are written in strict rhyme and classical form. At the time, I didn't fully understand why. Looking back, I realize they were an attempt to create order while...