It’s times like these when I need you the most.

It’s moments like this when I’m suffocating in the pitch-black darkness and I need your comforting arms to hold me, your soothing voice to calm my nerves… when I feel like every single cell in my body is breaking and the ever-viscous sadness is creeping out of my every tiny little pore.

My tears are pain-drenched, rushing angrily onto the pillow like the blood of a martyr. They seep into the fabric quickly to make room for the ones bound to follow. They don’t move fast enough, and soon I find myself drowning. I’m finding it hard to breathe; it’s not an easy task with this heaviness sitting in my chest. It feels like my lungs are about to collapse and I’m face-down in this pillow that reeks of sorrow.

I need you to hold my hand. Why don’t you hold my hand one last time before you leave? I need you to look me in the eyes and assure me with your smile that my world isn’t about to crumble beneath my shaky feet. Please. Please don’t lie to me and tell me that the damage is reparable. Don’t tell me that I can go on without you because I can’t.

You once said that sometimes the ending leaves you with a lot of missing pieces, but you find out later that you can live without them. Well, this isn’t one of those endings because the moment you left me, you took everything with you. You are the oxygen my organs are failing without. You are the one for whom these beats in my chest were fashioned, you are the boiling tears flowing out of these deprived eyes.

So you climb into bed with me because you find it in your heart to take mercy on me. I don’t mind being pitied, pride is something I have with people other than you. I’m watching your silhouette slip under the covers on your side of this king-size and I roll myself towards you.

“I hate you for leaving.” I whisper into your ear.

“You could never hate me.” You reply. And you’re right.

I cry quietly onto your chest. Your fingers are tracing lines across my back and it puts me to sleep like a lullaby does to a child. You’re the only one who knows how to kill my insomnia, it fears you like a deer fears a lion. It runs the other way when faced by you, and my eyelids meet one another like long-estranged lovers. You whisper I-love-yous into my ears all night long. Your voice echoes into my dreams that are already full of you.

And I’m dreaming again of how you left. I dream of the hospital, of the blood, I dream of your body lying under all that white. I dream of the doctors, of your mother, of that moment my heart stopped beating because it was just so in sync with yours. I dream of it and pretend it’s just a dream. I dream and try to forget that it’s my reality. I dream of the way you left me, I dream of yesterday.

And I wake up because you’ve gone again, and I’m still here. And even though you’ve left, I’m still haunted by your presence. And even though you’re six feet under, I’m the one who’s really dead.

© Copyright 7ala Abdullah

We awaken each morning to a clean slate.

Every step we take either blots it or purifies it further. But it doesn’t matter; it never matters. When we close our eyes at the end of the day, it all fades away. We wake up again to a blinding whiteness. New day, new choices. New life. But some things aren’t so easy to erase. Some things stick with us day in and day out. Some things can’t be fixed by the simple act of closing our eyes. Some things are permenant – or at least more long-lasting than others. Some things leave a huge disgusting stain on our lives that we are powerless to clean.

I try to shrug you off but you’ve never left my shoulders. I’ve never been alone, but there’s a certain death that comes along with being left behind. I’m left in this godless place and you’re no where to be found.

You used to be so caged and I used to be so free and now I feel like irony’s having a laugh at our expense. You’re finding out how it feels like to have wings and I’m finding out how it feels to have my wings cut off. You’ve set out on this new adventure; all excitement and spontaneity, and I seem to have made a home of this painful rut I’ve found myself stuck in.

Would you save some room for me in case I get to fly again? Because like the tide to the moon, I’ll always be drawn to you. You’ve shined down on me in the darkest hours and now I’m left in the black come sunset.

Would you have stayed, had I asked?

Should I have asked?

It feels like this is where it all stops. When I open my eyes every morning, your beautiful face sits stubbornly on my canvas. I long for the days when it used to be all white, all clean.

All-new.

But I still long for you. And maybe this isn’t an end.

© Copyright 7ala Abdullah

It’s all about getting used to change.

Being strong enough to stay unaffected by it if it’s bad, being wise enough to be thankful for it if it’s good. Being indifferent if you realize it doesn’t affect you in any way.

But I was never strong, wise, or indifferent. I have a weak heart, a vulnerable mind, and I dwell on the littlest of details; hence proving that I could never be indifferent. Change has always caused mind-quakes in my head – and instead of buildings and houses breaking down it was always I that fell to the ground. I shook and shivered and clutched to familiarity till it cut me off from our umbilical chord and I was left there to fend for my own self. I always felt betrayed by the old and invaded by the new. I refused to believe that anything else would compare to what I had back in my beloved comfort zone. I cried and scratched and held on with all my might until all I was left with was my scars and bruises in all-new territory. I gave up on coping before I even started trying to. I longed for the past and ignored the blessings of the change that the present brought me.

Then you came like a beautiful storm of devastating unfamiliarity and robbed me of all I’d come to know. At the time, I didn’t see all that had changed because your light had blinded me to everything else around me. I was too lost in you to realize that I was just lost. Too focused on you to realize that everything around me was disappearing.

And then you, too, disappeared.

And everything I’d gotten used to and depended on to survive was gone in a second. You turned my whole life upside down and just left me there to put the pieces back together.  And I laid there helplessly with something that felt very much like pride holding me down. I convinced myself that it’ll all come back. I told myself that everything will change back if I just lay here and wait.

Stillness took over and I still refused to move. Ironically, what had changed around me had started to settle and I was the one who was starting to change inside.

And here I am after what felt like endless decades of resistance. A changed woman; I now disacknowledge predictability. I’ve molded myself into a different species of being, one that is indifferent to its surroundings. I’ve made myself into a warrior whose past is her greatest enemy. I’ve taught myself that it is the only way to survive. Come what way, I’ve turned into someone who can weather all storms without doubt or regret. In this ever-changing world, sticking with the old and known only meant that you’d get stomped on by everyone running towards the new and undiscovered. And I’d been stomped too many times to allow it to happen again.

It’s not that I’d gotten used to change. It’s that I found a way to remain oblivious to it. I’ve built a tiny little box around myself that shielded me from all things human and worldly. Things like emotions, feelings, hardships, problems, truth, lies, and what-not.

It’s working for me so far.

I’ve learned how to be content with being alone.

I’ve learned how to be strong, wise, and indifferent.

I’ve learned how it feels to be unaffected by change.

But all it takes is a little whiff of your perfume for the nostalgia to creep under my skin and undo all the work I’ve done.

© Copyright 7ala Abdullah