“Say goodbye to the
cocoon that once
felt comfortable.
Its limiting walls
cannot contain your
potential anymore. Break through the
barrier and welcome
the rough edges of
a reality that belongs
solely to you.”
ANOTHER DAY IN DYSTOPIA WHILE THE WORLD LOOKS ON IN HORROR
Hearing about the nightmares is a breeze compared to residing within one, and then another, and then another. You haven’t come up for air in years.
Warfare is dotted with dangerous optimism. No one has suffered for a scrap of freedom like this. You console yourself with ’Inshallah khair’ repeatedly, dreaming of a path lined with olive trees, an upright minaret, family members that haven’t died in your arms. You’ve seen too many corpses for fifty lifetimes.
The fistfuls of sand and dirt fool your exhausted mind for a few moments while you pretend it’s a loaf of warm bread. With every day that drags you through the mud, you sink further into veiled cries and a looming countdown (to what, you shudder to think).
Happy to announce that my latest book is available now! Compiled over five years, ‘The Weight of Chaos’ serves as a reminder to first recognize hardship before finding peace within it. It is collection of poems that touches on tough truths while holding your hand through it all.
“She will never be an obnoxious summer day, revealing all of herself to the blistering heat. There is something soft and enchanting about her darkness that leaves you wanting to warm her delicate skin, something that leaves you comforted but changed all at once.”
Sometimes there is a day you just want to get far away from. Feel it shrink inside you like an island, as if you were on a boat. I always wish to be on a boat. Then, maybe, no more fighting about land. I want that day to feel as if it never happened, when Ahmad was burned, when people were killed, when my cousin was shot. The day someone went to jail is not a day that shines. I want to have a clear mind again, as a baby who stares at the light wisping through the window and thinks, That’s mine.
Stitch new fingerprints onto your fingertips. Tell yourself you have new hands. Hollow yourself out to chase the next high. Hide your passport photos somewhere they’ll never be found. Wonder if the nothingness wonders about you. Cover your ears when someone speaks to you. Convince yourself that you’re better off without the inconveniences of conversation.
Your mind is a jigsaw puzzle with pieces you haven’t crafted yet, let alone figured out how to put together. ‘Put together’, the dream you allow yourself to dream when you’re busy cowering in the face of connection.
At least in private, you can crumble in piece. No one judges your mess, and you refuse to part with it anyway. You wither away ceremoniously in sweatpants and your favourite winter socks, too proud of who you have become to permit disruption.
Article after article warns that the loneliest people die first, and you’re sure they have a point. But this way, at least you control heartache. At least this way, you perish on your own terms. If there is a cost to the silence, you happily pay it.
“The creak in your heart’s floorboards is becoming louder with each soul that lets you down and leaves you choking. One disappointment means one more reason to lock yourself away from those that could potentially make your burdens feel just a little lighter. This is what your breaking point feels like.”
In my language, you speak in cursive. There are no rough drafts or reread lines. Every ounce of feeling is crystal clear. You are a catalog of emotion, brimming from warm pages.
I don’t know when the lightning struck you, but I silently thank it for jolting you in to action. You are on fire from the inside out, fully alive after years of stoicism.
There was only so much to say in your past life. Now you know to confide in a heart that has always been wide open for you, urging you to whisper your first word.
“We hop into a car
far too small for
widened dreams
and even wider eyes,
hungry for adventure
and an unpaved road. May we find our
answers by the ocean, along with the smell
of sea-salt and a
fresh start. Let us
breathe it in.”
