in times of a pandemic (from the archive series)

melting one into the other... my days are insignificantly and unforgivably inseparable. within the folding of this year, my heart stumbled with reflections. struggling to make sense of meanings. instead. i found a distance between faith and persistence. between confusion and resolve. between grieving and acceptance.

powerless in breath. i woke up one night to weeping sounds of my heart mourning missed chances. of companionships. of happiness. of love.

i was hurting for what is no longer within my reach.for an aloneness that often feels like a sentence than a choice.
for a future that feels incomprehensible with derailed and cancelled plans. for the happiness that appears only in passing flickers.

within this season. sadness overtook a space of emptiness. one that is often chased away with busyness and distractions. my cries were ones of longing. for hope. for love. for an embrace away from the darkness of a December moving as a ruthless digger. uncovering traps of insincerity; behind all the ‘fine’ and ‘okays’ is a different story. behind the stilled days is a fear of life never changing, or perhaps quickly morphing in a haste outside of my ability to adapt to it.

healing begins at a point of honesty. this year's trials were always in closing that distance; between pain and expression. telling myself that i am okay, when i'm really not. is chipping away pieces of trust, in my word, as well as others'. i keep uttering prayers for kindness to guide me. may this isolation never exhaust my ability to believe in the goodness of life's many offers.

forgiving the seasons. as i see it. is in appreciating the complexities of cycles. for fullness must indeed run empty. love will one day meet loss. and joy needs to know grief to grow abundantly. i know. for this isolation I feel, there is a silver lining. in strengthening my belief in securing a future strength. in a resilient self. unchallenged by difficult fates or circumstances. after darkness there is a sobering clarity. there is a grounding hope for better seasons to come.

***

haze (edited)

 she said: 

'i know what it's like to look for love, to wish something into existence, 

but my dear, the earth will survive a thousand wars before it learns to conceal you from pain.' 

a warm fog of smoke masks my mother's tired and tearful eyes, she sits beside me on the bed placing a cup of Karkade next to my shivering hands. 

Karkade was my mother's remedy, she would often tell me there isn't a passing sickness it wouldn't help cure. i remember the quiet nights in Sudan when the neighborhood was stilled with the sounds of Azaan (call to prayer). 

down with a feverish dream i'd hear my mother's distant footsteps in the kitchen, making me a cup of tea, she would blow twice on the cup and tell me to utter a passing prayer for the fever to go away. 

 was it faith in your words Ummi, 

or was it a habit 

but i never once dared to doubt the magic of Karkade

Ummi... 

the years…

the years aren't as forgiving  

as you might think 

i'm older now, much older 

that not even your beloved tea could cure this broken heart.

she brushed my hair softly, brought my head to her shoulder to whisper, 

'once upon a time; 

once upon a wandering light of a twilight that visits me in the shape of a dream; 

a dream that places itself upon my body, to govern & cover me.

i talk to your father then...

i talk to your father & he asks about you, 

almost immediately, 

i tell him of the sort of beauty you've grown into

 he sighs into the unwilling air...’

 

does he miss me? 

i ask her in shivers 

‘in every corner, 

he promised

in every corner 

he said 

in every corner 

i've planted a lonesome prayer, to echo from the gates of heaven, 

i am here. 

i will always be here.’

she answers

holding me closer, 

as i drift back into sleep 

to the faint smell of a cold and untouched hibiscus tea.

rosewater baths (pt.1)

A different life can exist behind closed doors, where stillness strips away the daylight smiles of the outside world, for longer nights of sorrows and a silent pride. During these nights, I would meet myself on the bathroom floor, succumbing to the cold against my skin, to ease the beatings of a raging heart. 

"Sam..." I dropped my gaze in fear of meeting hers, how can I begin to speak of everything and nothing? How different will it be this time? Will shame tie my tongue before honesty can release me? She brushed my hair in silence and poured a little warm water on the crown of my head as if to reassure me 'take your time, this night is ours' without breaking the silence in a space she created just for me, a space so full of love and attentiveness. 

"I wish you knew how much I'm trying to stay afloat" I whispered as I let go of my fists to the bottom of the bathtub, "I wish you knew how much I'm trying" I repeated mostly to myself echoing a tired affirmation of each day I woke up to tell myself that today will be different, yet it never is. 

I carry bruises and scars of faded colors of innocence and stolen childhood, how can I outrun a past that still lives in this body? A body that I came to know through his gaze, every touch that followed each inch of my growing body... It does not belong to me, this body feels more his than it ever did mine. 

A single tear betrayed me that I quickly washed over with water. Rosewater my sister's favorite remedy for difficult nights. The smell alone brings back memories of when my mother would soak us both in the bathtub before bedtime. A part of me always longed for those rosewater baths, I didn't know it at the time but those moments were always suspended as the only safety I'll come to know. 

Trauma can create gnawing gaps and life often falls right through. Days turn into weeks and months vanish meaninglessly. I can't remember when the abuse started or ended, I can't remember why or where it happened, I can't remember what I was doing, what I was feeling, I can't remember anything that would make this pain lighter to carry. 

"Is it the bad dream again?" Sam's voice was clothed in worry she's not accustomed to, I looked up to catch a glimpse of her face that hid her emotions so well. Sam was always the strong one, ever since she was young, people always said she'll be going places, and she kept every word like a promise while creating a larger life outside of our family's reach. I hated that she left me behind with the rest of her past. 

"Yes," I answered quietly. 

"Did you see what was chasing you?" Sam asked me while bringing my hands to hers to massage my knuckles. 

"No, I only remember the darkness I fell into..." I broke off. 

She was staring at me conflicted about whether she should speak or wait for me to say something, this is the awful score of years of distance; we forgot how to trust in each other, or how easy it was to speak to one another. The silence that felt so vulnerable was becoming as chill as this water engulfing me. 

The hardest truth to swallow is recognizing that I will never find healing in those around me, yet I keep searching, not for people but for the memories they trigger; memories that would testify to a happy and protected child once upon a time. 

wounds

at my lowest.

lonesomeness absorbs me completely 

exhausted 

aimless
in healing 

a foolish heart that loved you unconditionally. 

longing is but a terrible liar 

i wish i never knew you

never entertained a thought of you

sheltered safe from the likes of you 

at my lowest. 

i clothe memories with false legacy 

& 

i build you up into something you never were

i swallow distrust with air

losing myself to dark corners 

again.

at my lowest. 

you are the reason my heart trembles 

in fear 

in disbelief 

anxious at the possibility of 

promised happiness. 

a touch of momentary bliss

surrounded 

by a sure fate of suffering 

love is but a grieved eternity 

burdened with forgotten wounds, uncovering 

with cowardly spite 

with tearful anger
abandoned cries & cries

of

hard & settled

unforgiveness.  

lavender dreams

untamed. crowding demons. tied to whispers that are too proud to silence. 

she carries a self. consumed in commanding hatred. as shattered glass tempting to a child. 

she cries in the neglectful nights. confined in lonely separation. with overstretched prayers passing a cold life. into an ever inviting emptiness. 

God heals the broken. 

she believed that to be true. 

yet at midnight, she would stare helplessly at the skies for a generous sign. a guiding light to settle a fatigued heart safely to rest. 

why do bad things happen to good people? 

she wondered if she was truly good. with roughly drawn edges. had God failed to remember her with the mentioned; the lucky ones who found a comfort in His warmth. 

tired of deserted needs. she slips into her bathtub; rose-colored, with lavender scented candles in-between. dying in fainting flickers. one dull sigh after another. closing inconsolable wounds. 

taking the water in. slowly. down to her last breath. dreaming only of embracing peace. within an immeasurable isolation. that had the final word to speak. 

defeated

once again. 

loneliness shook me. violently. erupting from a seemingly peaceful dream; barefoot against a drowning distance, forsaken all unwelcoming hearts.

constantly. my Light. 

i pray for an embrace. a devoted embrace. patiently accepting. ceasing all selfish quests. inviting to a degree, comfortably; unknowingly, unquestioning of my ill ways. consumed. terribly. within awful defeat. i am wounded in sharp solitude. chronically dissatisfied. faith took the blade. absently. i lost all remembrance of taught grace. aching for life to receive me. i am aching for life to relieve me. persistently. of this sickness. devouring my mind in silent gloom. 

forgive me. my Light. 

struggling is writing. and all writing had been in vain; a hardly audible cry, hesitant to pierce the hideously indifferent age. exhausted. i kneel at every standstill of pain. chained to a wreckage of self; punished. unloved. lost again to bitter tears. 

my heart at nanna's

‘do you know what it means to forgive, my child, it is when the love; that leftover scrambled love you have inside of your heart for someone, that very love that goes nowhere, buried within deep scars of the past, that very love, no longer pulls you down in painful bitterness, no longer wounds you in hopelessness, but rather, channels itself in urges to grant wishes and prayers of wellness for that person. 

i know it is difficult to accept the lost potentiality of love. i know how hard it is to struggle with the heavy need to let go of it, but you see.. 

not all love is meant to blossom into a life story. 

when love draws two people together, growth is inevitable, some grow together, while others grow apart. people change in the course of time, not all change is agreeable, and that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing, it just means the chapter has come to an end. 

wish them well. 

release their memory of the disappointment you unfairly placed upon it. remember my darling.. 

people can only meet you as far as they've met themselves. 

you can not demand change out of someone. nothing that is forced will ever remain, not genuinely, my child. remember, you young people claim to love and know love, but as soon as you find this “one”, you turn into enemies, how is that? how can love become a battlefield? that is not love. that is attachment to an idea of how love should be. that is what happens when you believe you have found “the one” that fits that idea of how you want your love to be. you fall into a terrible abyss. because, you see, you keep growing, and your idea of love changes, and their idea of love changes as well, now you are two strangers unfamiliar with each other, how does that happen? 

you are both salves to your minds, my child. 

in-love with the idea of love. love isn’t an idea. love is a practice. love is giving and sharing. not demanding, not expecting the meeting of those demands. i will tell you something, i know your heart is hurting right now, i know you are struggling to let go, but it is not the love that you are mourning, it is the effort you believe you have wasted. that is where your grief resides underneath all of that anger and resentment. you see, you are being selfish. thinking only of yourself. you’re saying: i did this, i did that, and i was met with nothing in return. maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. that’s beside the point. 

it could be your love that saved someone’s life. it could be your love that mirrored a person into a new path of self-discovery. it could be because of your love that someone can learn to love themselves into transformation. you will never know. and you shouldn’t because it’s not your part to play anymore. 

do no poison your heart with entitlement, my child. 

remember what i told you: love should free your lover, not keep them confined in cages. the moment you feel your love is imprisoning them, the moment you feel their love is enslaving you, know that that is not love, and you should let go for your sake and theirs. 

no one that has loved genuinely, can ever hate. 

even if they’ve misused your love, like you keep saying. even then. especially then, it’s when you wish them well. because remember, nobody ever regrets having loved fully. nobody ever forgets being loved fully. 

it could be the memory of your love that shields them to believe in a joy longing to embrace them again. it could be the memory of your love that pushes them to find themselves over and over again. and you should hold tight to the memory of their love, it should be your guiding hand to always remember to dig deeper, to plant the seed there, water and nurture compassion in your heart; for yourself and others, no matter the lingering ache, the drought and the suffering you feel inside. 

you are going to be okay, my child. 

a heart that loves will always know how and when to forgive, 

and

welcome back tenderness after such a long absence.'