Her Embraces Were Enough

Trotting along, kicking dust all the while inhaling the senses that surrounded me; this was my favorite childhood pastime. On one of these days, I came upon a man, though I must admit I had heard him before I saw who's face belonged to such noise. My bare innocence lured me to his wooden front door and I knocked before I even thought of my reasoning for being there.

Behind the wall, I heard his footsteps creaking the floorboards as he made his way to the door. Moments later, I made out his eye from the "peeping hole" we so often used in our dares. "Who goes there," his voice bellowed and in fright I almost scurried away.

"Me," I said meekly as if my voice would be recognizable to him. The door was flung open, and in his gigantic 6ft. looming build, my heartbeat quickened to a pace where my fear for the explosion of my chest made me pray I would be invisible. That he would just turn around and go back inside. That I was just dreaming, and soon he would trample me over and I'd wake to the sound of my own screaming.

But he didn't– instead he greeted me warmly and urged me into his cluttered home. I remember scanning the many shelves with colorful shawls and slightly open boxes and I wondered what lay inside of them. As we made our way into his red alternating tan living room, I heard a wheezing in the room we had just passed. Excusing himself, he pointed to the tea and date cookies on the kitchen island, silently telling me to help myself. I nodded and sat where I was.

The croaking ensued, followed by a comforting 'shhh'. I concluded that his wife was very ill, and thus was the state of his home due to this very fact.

After what seemed like centuries, he emerged from the bedroom, one hand gripped around the knob, closing it silently behind himself, and the other wound around his shoulder, rubbing gently.

"What's the matter," I asked, dubiously.

"My mother is very ill."

His face was depicted so solemnly, anyone who hadn't sat this close to notice his heavy breathing could easily mistake him for a sculpture. Unknowing of what to say, I sat still, hands clenched in my lap. When the silence became eerily unnerving, I asked, "will she ever get better?"

To which he replied, "not unless I get worse."

"I don't understand."

"Let me tell you of something, perhaps one day it will be of benefit to you in ways money cannot."

I sat still.

"When you hug your mother, you're prone to feeling lighter, happier. Do you know why this is?"

I shook my head.

His eyes were on the opened window behind me, as if he were speaking to an entity beyond my vision. "This is because at birth, in fear of your well-being, your mother takes burden of the pain, you otherwise would've been inflicted upon. As you grow older, every embrace, every tear that is cast by her fingers, this is her way of molding you with successes, but reprieving any one thing that may discourage you."

"But I'm sure you're aware that nothing in this world is free. Decades went by, and her hardships became more difficult as my problems progressed with intensity. University, work, getting married, having children. Happiness in any one of these was by the elation in her hugs. She drained everything but joy in our lives, and with time she grew weak."

He went on. "She is terribly sick, and I am afraid she will pass and a number of days will make us forget her blessed soul. So, in hopes of maintaining whatever little is left of her, I strain my arms massaging hers. Often do I envelop her with a replica of her affection for me. And often do I fail. No burden is given to me from her weight load. No sickness is cast upon me from her sickness. Thus, I have realized that no matter how much I wish to relieve her, she clasps onto our pain with an iron-grip of might. Only by her passing will she ever release it, but by then, of what purpose will it be."

I sighed noisily, unaware that I'd been holding my breath all the while he spoke. "May I see her?"

He rose from his seat, and I followed suit. At the foot of her bed, I climbed the bed steps, and her face came to view. I quickly glanced back, where the giant lingered in the shadows of the bedroom closet. He nodded, allowing me.

I touched her face, outlining her gaunt cheekbones with my fingertips, engulfing the cold that radiated off of her. I traced her thick, arched eyebrows, let the back of hand heat her eyelids. I made my way slowly down the narrow bridge of her nose. Then, I leaned down, robotically almost, like a ritual, and embraced her alongside her snow-colored blankets. The world seized then, I could swear time came to a halt. It was just a battle between bodies. Of warmth, of frostiness.

Soon enough, I became aware of the goosebumps that were prickling my skin. Of the penetrating stillness. The air grew thick, and I knew then, I had lost the war.

Hamza's Heart

[Note: My mother's name is Hinda] 

"Ikraan-yasha damaantood waa necbahay"

Chuckles. "Why mom?"

"Waa naagihii hamza beerkiisa kalaa bexeen"

"Laakin Hind aa taas ladah'i jiraay" 

The irony  

Omission

Split to halves I am.
Their telling is greater in grief than I.
Woe be to my arrogant nature, cast me to a mountain who's weight is as heavy as my disobedience.

I swear I will salt my cup and drink from it until I am satisfied with the bitterness of my state.
My tears are better kept with strangers whose eyes glint a mother's consolation.
But here, no savior will expel this distraught.

I am caught in eternity to suffer for a suffrage I endlessly oath to have been a mistake.
To commit it twice, would make me a fool;
thrice, a coward-
who's only tragedy was to love with an intensity that caused the origins of a feeling so stubborn to flee in shame.

To banish love is a weakness,
and to love too hard is one too.
I hope I find the greater of the weaknesses in You.

Complexity of Women

"Naag usabir ama kasabir."

Fibbing Mu´ālims

And the education system is a sum of lies. And I was taught "and" cannot begin a sentence. And years later, I read a book and the first word of the chapter was "and." And I showed this to my fifth grade teacher. She told me, "You can begin with 'and' if you're an expert."

And I asked, "Then why did my second grade teacher tell me I couldn't, ever. It was a rule, Miss." 

"Sometimes teachers lie so they don't expose the secrets of another teacher's lesson. This is one of them. You'll see." And I sauntered away more confused than I'll ever see. And now, I start all my sentences with 'and' because I know a secret the teachers will never know.

Replay Me

Level with the transcribed "middle" an anguish so hateful settles to become an exotic feeling of death. As if, the graves had brought every atom of soil to make my ribs one. Intertwined. And I wished upon the blinds that filtered the rising sun for the DJ to accidentally press 'rewind', and though everyone would groan in annoyance, I'd have a chance to replay myself.

Death

The night is dark.

In it's folds lies every mentioned evil, and I seek refuge in the lone star that was the cause of good since time began.

Their eldest daughter passed away- gruesomely taken to sleep with no beauty on behalf of he to awaken her with a touch-scent- so powerful it leaves their corpses toiling beneath rubble..

My mind is instilled to step over thresholds and inquire-to which the youngest of them all, responded "i hated her because she loved make-up and she only took the girls out, never me."

And the kittens purred in agreement—

 so,10 subtract null for a waste of a room that would be left behind as is because 'that's the way she would've wanted it'

She lurked in the periphery of guests who plead the bondage of a broken marriage,
dressed in white,
applying a misty substance to her face.


Memories vast, time fast- and with each, one slowly fades away

Dilemma, Dilemma

Once upon a time...

A man was happily married to his loving and overly-compassionate wife. The man was hard-working, earnest and generous. All day to and fro, he would do labor to satisfy the rights of his wife and home. In the times of his absense, the wife became well acquainted with the modest maid who was almost always busying herself dusting off the already dusted furniture in their domicile. They would converse all afternoon, bake goods together. By dusk, she retreated to her home in the village, where she slept till early the next morning when she returned to her daily duties as a maid.

The wife became very fond of her. One night, her husband came home to a warm furnace and a heated dinner. After settlement, and comfort, she proposed an idea to him.

"That is insane!" He exclaimed. "I cannot marry her! I cannot accompany anyone with you, dear."

"If it is I you wish to please," she replied, head downcast. "Then, you will be wed to our maid. Our company is faint when it is two. Amongst the three of us, we will build a bigger, more loving home!"

He stayed silent, eyes peering at the face that has secured every thought he ever spoke. 'How could I possibly add another beat alongside the pumping of my heart?' 

She leaned forward on her chair, fingers intertwined, eyes beaming,  "My love, do you not appeal to this idea? How fortunate would we be to share our intellect every night as a family? She IS a very splendid cook, might I add."

He sighed, and wearily reached for his wife's hand. "If this is what you wish, then I will obey."

The following day, the wife took to proposing her vision to the maid's parents. They gleamed with honor, unhesitant of any reproach. Shortly thereafter, the wife built her new companion a home close in range to her own, yet ensured with privacy.

The wedding took place, and time went by. They stitched together, laughed, ate dinner, and bonded over happenings as life went by. It was everything the elder wife conceived.

Amongst one of the blissful days, the latter-wed's mother came for a visit. Scoping the furniture, she clucked her tongue and shook her head. "My, my, dear. Have they really looped you in deceptiveness? You're living dirt for a man of his wealth. How lavish is her home, whilst he presents you her pass-me-downs. Have I raised you such that you'd accept anything readily."

With her mother's departure, she began to peer around with a new set of eyes. Criticism and envy took residence in the pit of her stomach and she awaited the arrival of her husband.

Fatigued and in need of solace, he came home and she welcomed him at the door with an outburst. He began to reassure her and promised he would replace everything she didn't find desirable.

"I do not find her desirable. Get rid of her, or get rid of me."

"Do not—"

"THAT IS MY ONLY REQUEST. IT IS EITHER I. OR HER!"

He stammered, and reached for her shoulder attempting to calm her. Jerking his arm away, she breathed in a shaky breath, said "And keep in my mind when you make your decision, that I am now bearing your child."

A Spirit Anew

I proclaimed my takbeer to flow warm the constricted blood in your vessels

melodious was my recitation, thus was your heart at ease

By rukoo´ you clung tight to your knees until it's hinges creaked
and your fingers became immune to sensation

with emergence, I swore I heard "blessings be to My thankful slave"

you threw yourself before me, unafraid of your head being cast to that of a mule's

you sought forgiveness in glorification because that was all you knew to utter

῾῾Rabbi ighfir li, Rabbi ighfir li.᾿᾿

And again your fingers wrapped around the thread-bordering edges of the salī and pleaded for a sound heart

By salām–
you were the imām
and I was praying in congregation to a drenched prayer mat and a spirit anew

The Moor's Last Sigh

I let my forearm rest atop my forelock, and breathed in the darkness that encompassed me. Silhouettes of my blinds reflected hallucinations of imprisonment. My flowerless vase sat atop my bookless sill. Vacant cold rushed in from sealed windows and I closed my eyes.

"Sara?"

"Yeah?" the voice on the receiver answered absent-mindedly.

"I gave up on the world..," I trailed off.

The void was filled with a concerned reassuring that I grew accustomed to. After a while, she breathed in, flustered. I do not blame her. Had it been me speaking to myself, I'd have choked sense into my senselessness.

"Why, Ikraan?"

"Because the world gave up on me."

And I emitted a deep, long, audible breath of defeat. Five centuries ago, this was The Moor's Last Sigh. Five centuries later, Abu `Abdallah instilled within me the honor of releasing what he held captive his entire life.