Letting go

Today I am letting you go. Not with my heart but with my hands. For the hands can cause destruction. In the depths of my heart and mind I will bury you. I will bury you in-between the waves of consciousness and unconsciousness. A place where forgetting is as easy as closing your eyes. I will bury you in a box with a lock to which only God holds the key. For if I leave you to flutter around the walls of my fragile heart, it will be fooled into believing it has found its equal.  

'You are not beautiful enough for me'

The words no girl wants to hear

“You are not beautiful enough for me”

I am not going to say who exactly these words were uttered by, when, or even why. But what I will tell you is that they were not uttered by a lover, admirer or even good friend. We were neither to each other. So it might seem strange why they were said. To be honest it’s still strange to me even till this day. I was not interested in him and until he spoke those words I didn’t for a second imagine that the thought of us being together ever crossed his mind. My very first after thought was “huh, well you’re no Leonardo Di Capiro yourself mate”. Let’s stop. This right here, his ruthless verbal expression for his distaste in my appearance, and my mental distaste of his is in my opinion, the number one problem facing young men and women when finding a partner. This idea of beauty being the first benchmark one has to meet before they stand a chance. And only once someone has rated at least a 7/10 in our books, will we attempt to open the book and take a look at the first page.

These are the words that also confirmed what I already knew. I was not ready for any kind of relationship. They confirmed this because they stung. The words stung.

Whenever I’m given the tedious task of describing myself using ‘X’ amount of words, the word 'confident' more often than not makes the list. But in that moment confidence didn’t matter. What he said hurt. Not only in that second but afterwards too. In the days following I found myself retreating more and more into the self-conscious teenager I thought I’d forgotten how to be a long time ago. Beneath the peaks of arrogance, scoffing and denial of what he said I was losing a war with myself. I was becoming critical of something I did not choose, couldn’t fundamentally change and something that even the most stunning of people will one day loose- their looks.

I am not for a second denying that levels of attraction in any partner we have are important. And even my religion of Islam does not disregard that. But it emphasizes above physical attraction a type of attraction that rather than withering over the years, will blossom and bloom year after year. An attraction that we can only determine exists between us after getting to know someone. After closing the eyes and allowing the third inner eye to see someone. The problem was not in his opinion in me. It’s OK not to find someone attractive. But the problem lay in the fact that he verbalised it. The second you verbalise a thought like that it has the potential to harm. Funnily enough not long after very firmly stating his random disinterest in me, the same boy ended up asking me to marry him. I was shocked as you are no doubt too. He apologised for his stupidity claiming he’d now seen how 'beautiful' I was on the inside. The same boy who said I wasn't physically attractive enough for his standards now claimed I was precious and rare, one of a kind.  My intelligence, my humour, my love for others, even my voice attracted him and now my looks were becoming less important….. Safe to say I quietly declined his offer.

A year and a half on from when those words escaped from his mouth, and the sound waves reached my ears and into my body those words left a hole, in that hole now grows a flower. A flower that survives only when I water it. The flower although small, has deep roots which grow deeper every day. They keep me together and whole. The wholeness isn’t dependent on value, praise or compliments from anyone but myself. A self-respecting women isn’t in need of that.

“You are not beautiful enough for me”

I said those are the words no girl wants to hear. But now as a women hearing them I shrug. Oh well. I’m beautiful enough for me. 

Today I am 21

21 years old but how many the wiser?

21 years my body has aged but how many has my soul?

The number could be less or even more

I wish I had a blueprint, a scan, a diagram of some kind…anything to show me

The premature cracks and wrinkles that maybe etched around my soul from the sorrow I have seen that has aged me before my time

Or maybe layers of dust from the years I neglected it

Today I am 21 years old

But how many years counted and how many must I have wasted…

All these years did I really believe time was in my hands?

Time

Time

Tick tock

Time

I wonder how much time

Until I begin to live like I have no time

And also all the time

Actions of urgency blanketed in a peacefulness

Actions of meaning

Importance

Consideration

And Strength

But carried out in the gentlest and sweetest of ways

Palatable to all

An ambition too high? I can never know

At age 21 I have understood 21 things

1-Accepting yourself is hard
2- Accepting others even harder
3- I have no control over anyone but myself
4-it is OK to let other make their own mistakes
5-God really does loves us all
6-He shows his love through tests
7-Most people will misinterpret his love for hate
8-I cannot control how anyone views their world
9-It is up to Allah to guide
10-I don’t know why he chose to guide me
11- Guidance is my greatest gift
12-My life is already written
13-Allah knows best
14-I have to accept, love and trust God's plan
15-My tongue is my biggest enemy
16-My tongue is my greatest ally
17-life is long and hard and uphill
18- But Life hasn’t even begun
19-I want everyone to feel peace
20-Guidance can be taken away from me at any time
21-I need to keep asking for it

At age 21 I feel I have a lot to give
But even more to learn.

R.S.

A conversation with the moon

Please Mr Moon, please don't leave.
For as long as I can gaze up at you the burdens upon my heart feel light. You remind me of his face, although I've never seen it and keep me from drowning into the night of my own making.
I'm sorry dear soul leave I must. But don't fret I promise I'll be back soon. In the meantime search for my friend.

Oh Sun! Glorious Sun! I wish you'd never leave. Your blazing light humbles yet exalts me reminding me I'm alive. As long as you're here I will never frown.
I'm sorry dear soul but leave I must. I've dried this land enough and my presence missed elsewhere. In the meantime I think you need some rain.

Rain. How I adore you rain. When I hear your tapping and feel your coolness I can't help but feel my sins are being washed away. Please stay! Don't go! Your friends have all left me and without you I fear I will lose my way. 

Oh poor soul. Aren't our combined tears enough? Water is short elsewhere so leave I must.

Oh foolish girl climb back onto my rope and hold firm! Don't you see It's because I love you I send you these signs and then take them away. I adorn the sky with lamps and pour mercy from the heavens only to remind you of me. Your test was in remembering me when they were no longer there. Do not cry reassured soul but only for me. My love for you will never end. I'm here. Always here. I'll send your friends back soon. Look at them and remember me, and know that I too am remembering you.

R.S.

Old Friends

You disturbed the peace of my heart,

So I gave you up.

Please do not loath me for this,

For your company I will surely miss.

I'll pray for you and wish you well,

You're my sister.

You're my brother.

But alas, some hearts were not meant to bond

Our lord tells us this,

That our souls have all met,

An encounter we don't recall.

I like to imagine our souls as animals.

Although the lion and the mouse live in the same place,

Walk the same ground,

A friendship between them would never work.

Even if they tried one day the lion would trample the mouse.

Or I see our souls as colors.

Although a sky blue and fierce red compliment each other,

In essence they are different.

Too different.

Our souls are stubborn and almost impossible to change.

We know this about our own,

So why don't we accept this for others?

Patience can only take you so far,

Tolerance can only take you so far,

Some souls were just never meant to meet.

As much as we try to push such unions,

They will always lack peace,

Tranquility.

So don't be sad old friend,

Please don't be sad,

Be free!

I have freed us both.

There are plenty of other souls just like you,

You will find them.

Stay brave,

And strong.

Don't become a stranger to your own soul,

And fight against it.

Instead close your eyes,

And allow it to drown you.

There is treasure inside us all.

A longing.

For peace..

Utter peace

But this peace is also made of fire and is strong,

The kind of peace that temporary happiness cannot kindle.

Search for it.
I'm searching too.

R.S. 

Foolish Heart

Oh foolish heart!
When will you learn?
That the love you seek is coming
So patiently wait your turn
Oh foolish heart,
Did you again forget?
Those feelings of sadness and regret
What about the days you wept?
Alas you'll always be a fool
And fools are always fooled

R.S.

I am lost.

I don’t know where I’m going

There are many destinations

But each seems so far away

And too hard to obtain

It is dark too

And cloudy

But the clouds are in my head

Sometimes I see a light

But the light only appears after a blow to my head
Or a blow to my heart

It is only when I am broken do I find the light

The light is like a path of its own

When I follow it every other destination seems futile

I feel nothing and everything at once

Peace

But the path is uphill

And slippery

And I keep on falling

Fall

Fall

I am falling

When I fall I forget the light

It becomes like a flickering lamp in a misty forest

It becomes like a light you want to shield your eyes from

The irritating kind

But it is still hard to forget

It always flickers in the back of my mind

It is easier to forget because most around me ignore the light

They are all walking, running, even dancing on the other path

In masses

They say it’s the path to freedom and peace

But sometimes it is hard to believe

When all I see are corpses

And people who may as well be

There is intoxication to escape from reality

There is blood

And people are dying

Why are they dying?

Nobody is stopping

Even the strongest are defeated and tired

Puppets and dogs on strings

But all are holding signs

Saying that they are happy

I don’t understand

There is a book

And a man

Many men and women

Whom history tells us were good and kind

Who told us that isn’t the path to follow

That it only leads to heartbreak

And reminded us this world is but temporary

And it wasn’t designed to carry the most precious and heavy of our possessions

Our hearts

That if we want to break the cycle of heartbreak

Then we must break

Break completely

The ceilings and walls

Of our hearts

And minds

Only then will the fog clear

And we can seize the branch that will never snap

The branch that said it fashioned us gave us due proportion

And breathed in us a light from its own divine light

The light that seemed so familiar yet so alien in the lamp in the misty forest of my head

And when we recognize the lights are from the same source then we will have succeeded

And when we truly love for others what we love for ourselves

And when we greet each other with words of peace

It should be easy

And I wish we always lived this way

But we don’t

And I don’t

And I break

Wishing I did

But it is the breaking which keeps us whole and firm

The breaking symbolises the love from the divine

If we didn’t break then we would find comfort on the wrong path

I like to remember this

When I am lost

I am still lost

But not completely

R.S