Kerfe Roig

How will I name myself?
What voice speaks for me?
Whose dreams can I share?
What door opens to welcome me?

I am full of nothing, separated
into parts that were never
something I could call my own—
how will I name myself?

Where is the language
that sounds natural
on my tongue?
What voice speaks for me?

Everything belongs to someone else—
even my questions are not my own.
I am unjoined, unincluded—
whose dreams can I share?

I sit afraid, alone,
clashing with my background.
My days pass unnoticed and unbound—
what door opens to welcome me?

A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Her poetry and art have been featured online by Silver Birch Press, Feral, Pure Haiku, Zen Space, Visual Verse, Collaborature, and The Ekphrastic Review, and published in Ella@100, Incandescent Mind, The Raw Art Review, The Anthropocene Hymnal, The Polaris Trilogy, and What We Hold On To: Poems of Coping, Connection, and Carrying On. Follow her explorations on her blog at kblog.blog

This poem appears in Uprooted: Poems of Resistance, Witness, and Survival (The Chaos Section Poetry Project, Fall 2026). We’re sharing each poem from the collection individually over the coming weeks. You can read the full book or download the free PDF here.