I think I could love you

Until my skin grows wet

And my bones grow tired of holding us up

Until it feels like my words are echoing back to me

And my breath touches my face

I think I could love you until all I hear is I love you

I love you

I love you

I love you

I can hear you in the silence
With my eyes opened
A nice dark shade of exhaustion
Beneath my eyes

I want to knock on your door
Your absence did not **** me
I want you to see
That you mean nothing to me

I've forgotten the way you spun me
Beneath the pomegranate tree
How much I loved to hear the smile in your voice
Every time we spoke on the phone

I don't remember how your touch made me feel
I can't fool myself with the lies
But still I will try
To trick you with a disguise

Like my soul is not carrying around a corpse
Like my lips don't taste of tears

Mankind your manner amuses me
Commit the sin by your very hands
And rue the devil
Curse he who led you astray
Not your intent
Nor your will power
Or the weakness within you
The illness you fed
For at one point
Even the devil must have given up on you

It disturbs the peace of my heart
And the sanity of my mind
So I pray as much as I ache
The night is long
And the Lord is generous
Let me not destroy and betray myself for nothing
I like to obsess intensely
Mercilessly
There's no room to bend
And I don't care for logic
Sometimes my fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself
So I tell myself no heart could ever regret going in search of its dreams
I imagine how strangers can turn into family
And family can turn into strangers
That there will be months that ask questions
And months which will answer
And the hardest moments
Will be unlearning all I've ever known
I too am a daughter of the dust
How could I be more loving towards you
How could I be more kind?
You deserve to live for yourself
And sleep peacefully at night

Between my bones there are shadows
That haunt the make of my soul
Everytime I look at a reflection
And see a smile
I wonder when it will leave
When it will say **** this
And realise staying is not worth the burden
That inside me there is a storm
Which cannot be chased or caught
It's a storm you should run away from

I chase happiness into the depths of the night
And search for it on eBay and Amazon
I light a fire trying to find the light
But bring destruction upon myself
I spend the weekends working out why it's so simple but so complicated
That I found a home for my body in yours
And there isn't a greater anchor than that of a human
I confessed my love like a secret
That never got to be told
It wrapped around you like a rumour
You couldn't believe to be true
I stated it like a fact
A breed between a noun and a verb
Yet I am mute
And your hands were my subtitles
I can now say I have a heart because I can feel it breaking
I can now say that people are not medicine
I am able to taste history and remember things that never happened
The coldness in my heart never leaves from my tongue
I keep the worst of us close to myself

I am a gold digger
Speak to me in the language of God
Show me your wealth with the currency of deeds
I am attracted to the finer things in life
Your manners will leave butterflies in my stomach
I will be left breathless at virtue that shines brighter than any diamond you could find
And when your strength is measured against the trials and tribulations with the trust you have left
Everything will cease to exist except you and I
And humbleness will bring me to my knees
I am a gold digger
For the one whose company can truly benefit me
A banker of deeds
Who invests in good will
Keen to reach the top
And nothing could stop
Us reaching the seventh heaven

I am the forgotten Lego piece
The lost jigsaw
The pain when you stub your toe
The child waiting to go home
I am alone and happy
Because there is no one to please
No one to judge
I am free 
I am a wayfairing stranger
The naive traveller 
I am an introvert
A luddite
Born in the wrong era
I am the dreams gone silent
The unnoticed tear
Falling in the pouring rain 
I am the soft breeze 
On a cold foggy evening 
I am the regret of dreams come true 
The possession of what I think I want
Trapped in the be all and end all of needs 
The uncontrollable urge 
To do something I shouldn't 
I am the undiagnosed 
Just under the overflow of crazy

I am a trespasser in my own life
One who violates my own rights
Barricade my dreams
I find my soul on a Friday night
And let it go on a Sunday
As the blues leak in
I have grown roots I thought I needed
They tied me down and left me stranded
Now I nurture them because I grew them
I am not a tree
But like a blind man with no sense of time
I do not know what I am doing
I cannot remember what I did last week
I cannot make plans for a future when I don't know where I want to be

The seventy fourth time I believed you
I finally realised I should probably stop
And within a millisecond I knew I always would
I always thought people could change
And because you changed everything about who I used to be
I knew I would always believe you
Because that's the only part of myself I still have
It's the part I'm still waiting for you to change

She greets me with words of complaint. Hours spent retelling a version of conflict. To get off her chest. Believing I can bare or hold that something she offloads, her hearts discontent. A confidante that can halve these problems. To whom she can share these troubles. Someone who could at least listen
If not save her.

I can't

I can't hold this burden of the truth you tell me. I can't be in the know and live for now. All my worries are yours. All these problems that cloud my mind are yours too. I'm not strong enough. I'm not good enough. I don't know what to do. I'm not the person you're looking for. Your words eat away at my being like a poison frothing in my mind. Nothing seems the same. I want to tell you to stop. That I will only be another disappointment. I can't live up to these expectations. She spills her secrets blinded by her pain. Blind enough not to see that they hurt me. That I don't want her to shatter my distorted reality. I want to pretend. I don't want to know. I don't want to listen. I don't want to be told.

*I wish I was strong enough for the both of us

What are you made of
You cold hearted *****
He roared
And I didn't even blink
Long after he left the room
I whispered
Heartbreak
Pain
And chaos
I've tamed that girl that used to cry
The wild animal that would whimper
I controlled it
Made it strong
Buried her deep deep down inside
She doesn't even try to surface
I no longer see the point in crying over things
I can't control
I took the tears and froze them
For they are nothing but a useless reaction
Just like the noise of anger
And the withering of heartbreak
So I chose to become a statue
Sometimes this thing in my chest
It does things I no longer recognise
It makes me feel so strange inside
But it's been so long since I gave these things the honour of a name
I let them pass like the way I release breaths
Silently
Secretly
Without being acknowledged

You are the devil my idle mind slips to
So I keep myself busy
So busy I don't have time to scratch my head

I don't love you
not completely
at least not yet
but I can feel my soul
reaching to entwine with yours
it's tied in a nice neat knot
I love your smile
I love your laugh
I love your stubborness
and everything in between
I don't love you
not completely
at least not yet
not until the knot becomes a tangle
and I love you to the point of stupidity
to the total loss of sanity
to sacrificial limitations
past where I could never forget you
irreversibly wicked
I don't love you
not completely
at least not yet

I dreamt a pheonix was rising out of the ashes
I dreamt no smile was too big for your face
I dreamt of being held so tight I couldn't feel my heartbreak
I dreamt of barren trees beneath a hard grey sky
I dreamt that everything I ever lost came back to me
I dreamt of one day missing everything I have right now
I dreamt of all the things I want to be when I give up

I fear a day
When you'll sit next to me
And my phone will vibrate
A message from you asking what's for lunch?

I fear a day
When talented beings
Educated with graduate degrees
Will work in MacDonalds
For minimum wage

I fear a day
Where I'll need to take out a mortgage
For a parking fee
Daylight robbery

I fear a day
Where kids will no longer
Play at the park
No one ever heard of jigsaws
And wooden train sets

I fear a day
When strangers would be able to see
My every post
People I don't even know
Will know all about me

I fear a day
When people will drive to the gym
To run on the treadmill
And we'll all forget
The luminous glow of the moon

I fear a day
We'll forget about stars
And handwritten cards
When we'll care more about cars
Than our counterparts

I fear a day
When the world will all speak English
And read shakespeare
Wear the same high street gear
And eat KFC

I fear a day
Where honour and dignity
Respect and modesty
Will be a thing of the past
And those who hold steadfast
To their culture and traditions
Ways of life
Will be mocked and ridiculed as backwards

I fear a day
When all my fears
Come true
And that day a part of me will die inside
I'll lose the sound of your voice
And mums special home-made recipes with secret ingredients
I'll lose the way your letters felt
Slanted and joined so rounded together
The way the cross on the t and the dot on the i's leaned to hug one another
I'll lose the rush of the wind
As I felt how it was to fly on a swing
The reassuring touch on my back as you pushed and held me back then helped me to stop
I fear a day
I will breathe but cease to exist
Lost in mere memories of a past
Where I was meant to be

I remember dancing at your wedding
To the sound of gunshots chasing into the sky
The dancefloor hungry for our dabke
Feet pounding in unison
Splitting the Earth open
Outside in the streets
We grew up in
We stamped with hope
But our chained arms around each other's shoulders
Was a wave of grief for the dead
For your father
Abdallah
Everyone loved him so
For your brother Khalid
And his son Saif
It was too early for them to go
At my wedding the line of dancers so short
Our feet battered the ground in accusation
For all the ones it swallowed
I pummeled the unfaithful soil
And on my way home
I hung the swing we played on
Many moons ago

His voice was deep and low
Very low
I can't paint a voice
But if I could
It would be dark
Midnight blue
Dark
With a hint of light
And an edge of red
The paint would blend like golden honey
Thick, sweet and sticky
With intoxicated headiness I could only imagine what his moans would taste like

And if I don't find you
What will I tell this heart of mine?
How would I repress it's asking for you?
Should I trick it like a child
Say that you couldn't come
Something came up
But keep giving it hope
Or console it with the distraction of something else

You don't let me move on
You don't let me sleep
How did you do it?
Merge my every living moment with yours
Perhaps if you'd taught me
I could have done the same to you

Because it stops all the questions
And I want to find God again
I miss myself, who I used to be
I miss loving everything

Because it makes you happy
And I hate making people worry
Especially about me
I smile so I don't look lonely

Because maybe you will feel it
Even if I don't
Maybe if I smile all the time
It will start to rub off on the inside

I found freedom in prayer
Peace in prostration
And belonging in submission
As my head touched the floor

I found my heart at the mosque
And a lullaby in the recitation of supplications
I found hypocrisy in preachers
And piety in the poor

Sisters that lay in the shadows
To show me light when I fall
Brothers who are protective 
But most of all respectful

I found a unity with strangers
A vision beyond this world
I wanted to see my reflection in
The rivers at the Gardens of Eden

I fell in love with manners
Smitten with worship
Prayer swept me off my feet
Where there is God there is no defeat

You say that you are a Muslim 
You say you stand for Islam 
But how can your Islam
Be so different to mine 

Two individuals 
On opposite sides of the globe
We believe in the same God 
Follow the same voice 

If you are a Muslim
Your actions would show it 
You would follow the Qur'an 
And not distort it

If you are Muslim and this is your Islam
Then I am a non-believer
Refusing to take the blame
So oppress not in my name

If you must
Break the promises you made
Shatter the dreams I have
But please for Gods sake
Don't break my heart
I can't bear this unease with myself
Every second is persuading me not to give up
Don't let go
Or life will be nothing but miserable
But a broken heart is quick to sink
It won't even take the rope
Ready aim fire
I hope your arrow of poison expires
Before it reaches its destination
I can't live with the disgust of letting it get to the point where this is all that ever mattered
Where I can't see anything beyond

My friend
My well-wisher
Do not curse me
With a long life
Do not make this prayer
Leave me in my state
I am a widow of love
Let this poison **** me quickly
Do not drag out my pain

To my mother,

May God save you from ever being helpless
For ever having to rely on anyone for anything
May God grant you great health, every happiness and ease from financial burdens

You are an angel
A woman of countless talents
A woman surrounded by thankless people
A woman who is selfless

You are
The glue in the cracks
The respect he doesn't deserve
The cook, the nurse, the finance manager

You are a defeated fighter
I've seen people tear you down
Stab you with their words
Bury you with their bitter twisted lies

But when those very people ask for your help
You've tirelessly helped
The very snakes that robbed you of your smile
You have a heart of naivety

A mind of forgiveness
An unbreakable belief in innocence
You've always been an easy target
And I hate that part of you

I admire that part of you

Your belief in God unshakeable
Your patience is endless
Even if I pray that God exacts your revenge
I know you will feel pity and pray for them

I dreamt of a feast
In the warmth of the sun
That made my mouth drool
And my eyes water
The scent clouded my mind
So tempting
I didn't even try to resist
Didn't even wait for an invite
Instead in full consciousness
I leant forward with both hands
And gorged
Indulged more that I should have
I stuffed my mouth with delicacies
And moaned aloud at the ******* flavours
Utter bliss
With complete abandonment
I didn't slow down
Until my belly ached
And my jaw grew tired
Uncontrollably I took more than my fill
Until I became nauseated
Dizzy
And my body slumped
I sat panting
Stomach bloated
Hands stained with the evidence
Each inhale squashed against my organs
This time I moaned for different reasons
Turning away from the morsels which remained
Their sight now offending me
Loud and booming
I heard the call to prayer
Telling me to hurry
And I remember lying there
Filled with sheer dread
Skin clammy with a sheen of sweat
Daunted with the reality
That I was supposed to be fasting
Supposed to be abstaining
Early that morning I had made an oath to God
And I had broken it
A wail broke out from my mouth
At the horror
Of my sins
All the while
My brain chanted
Again and again
Eve had only eaten an apple

Yes
You were here
Yes
You were with me
Yes
I could see you
Love you, hug you, kiss you, feel you
So I imagine this world a prison
My fingers the cell bars
Clamped in a fist
I imagine it was my choice
That I saw the suffering
Which I could not stop from touching you
That I allowed it
I let you go
And that makes it just a little bit more okay
I pretend that I wasn't heartless
That my heart is not stubborn
Selfish
I remember it
Like I was the guardian gone rogue
That you escaped
And I turned a blind eye
Letting you go
Secretly, silently
Like the breaths
                           you
                                  let
                                        g
                                        o

I came to you even when they told me not to
My cheeks blushed openly
Hands were painted red
I live with a worry in my heart
About a heartbreak that might be mine
A story they all wait to hear
Don't ask me the lessons I've learnt
From falling in love
That is a story for another time
I live with a worry in my heart
I live with hope
I wonder what the state of my life will be
Will your words be faithful
Your promises hold?
Will I lower my head in shame
Avoid all gazes
Will I never hear the end of my rebellion?
Of all the trouble I caused in becoming yours
When I saw my soul cast in your eyes

When the last leaf falls
And the stars claim you as their own
I'll chase day into night
Stand at the peak of the mountain
And sigh my lonely breath into the clouds
There is no such fate where you are not mine
Somewhere far away
Sometime long ago
Written for me
Was a day that dawns with the sun
And ends with the stars

Some days I want to do nothing but write
Grab the moment
Dwell in it for life
Fingers that itch to bleed letters
So I let them fall
From a mind that buzzes with nothing but white noise until it can be seen before me
I can hear non existent conversations
Words that make new meanings
Until meaningless starts to make sense
And I wish I could feed on it
But then I remember how it will leave me
Alone and mute
Some days nothing comes to mind
And I wonder if that part of me has died
One hit wonders
It happens all the time
I'll still write
No quality
It lacks shine
Leaving discontent behind
And I long for old times
Still it's mine
It deserves a post
To those words I can't be unjust
Then like a whirlwind tornado
Something unexpected will set me off
The ball starts rolling
And I'll write words in the air with my fingers
Committing them to memory
Bringing them to life
And that is when you too
Can feel the passion

I love that you dream out loud
You say things that make everyone laugh at your far fetched fantasies
Yet in conviction you voice your thoughts as though they are in the mailbox coming into reality
I love that you dream and imagine things happening that are not really realistic
I love that you dream them anyway and believe that they'll happen someday

I love you like I love dreaming of travelling
I love you like I love walking outside in the drizzling rain
I love you like I love the ache in my bones after a good workout at the gym
I love you like I love the thrill of new experiences
I love you like I love the sun touching my eyelids first thing in the morning
I love you like I love watching the world go by from the window of a fast car
I love you like I love Christmas lights brightening up the streets on a cold winters evening
I love you like I love shortcuts
I love you like I love a blank canvas being filled with writing

When you say you hate it here
That this world is a horrible place
I wish you could fall in love again and again
At least five times a day
See the city through my eyes
And love the way lashes kiss cheeks
See how statues come alive
Feel the hum of the ground
And hear how loud the flowers are
The sun is on fire
And still it does not expire
I wish you could learn life and living from scratch
I wish you could hear the sound of your dreams
And feel the way I love your heartbeat

I've seen people love You madly
I've seen them drowned in light
I've seen them in worship never wanting to lift their head off the ground
Ya Allah
I've seen these very people get lost
They've turned their backs and forgotten your existence
Called it laziness
I see them suffer
I watch them pine
After a love they once held
And let slip through their hands
I've heard of hearts at unease
And life being empty
And of that I am afraid
I'm begging you please
To never let me let you go
And if ever I wonder
Make it easy to find my way back to you
For I have been where they are
And I am afraid of going back

You come to me in your time of need,
My shoulder I lend
As your heart bleeds,
To you I tend.

The advice I give,
Is wasted on you,
He holds your love captive,
And you continue to forgive.

Why didn't you listen to me?
Why couldn't you see?
I was trying to set you free.

I continued fulfilling this friendship of mine,
Tired of you paying no heed,
You obviously didn't mind.

Doing one thing and saying another,
Trapped in a web of lies
You wanted to believe,
I'm done
Listening to your cries.

I'm done
watching you burn
Only to return your hand to the flame,
I'm done
Listening to your agony,
Of self-inflicted tragedy.

I met a girl who chased paradise 
Whilst I chased the sun
She stood firm for prayer
Whilst I sat laid back 

Lord she was steadfast
And strong 
Determined and right
She was guided by the light

And I got distracted by the night 
So there I stood a sinner 
Oblivious of one more sin 
And there she was happy 

Content and thankful
So I pray to be like her 
And that she gets rewarded for being faithful
Whilst I committed to fault after fault

She came to you before the casket closed 
We will all come back to you when our eyes won't open

I've seen the tell tale
bite of your lip
Your hands meet one another
Twisting fingers
Eyes quickly squeezed
Tightly shut.
You open them again
This time hardened
Staring up
**** in a breath
Then back at me
Straight in the eye
Lips stretched
Over a gleaming set of teeth
You tilt your head
"I'm fine"

I don't even know
What to say anymore
I don't know
What's the matter
But just know that
I'm going to stick around
And I can't make you tell me
So I'm going to wait
Sooner or later
I wish you would confide in me

Could there be a me without you
It would be like a mosque without a minaret
A church without pews
A bar without beer

I'm not good at staying
Or being in one piece
I'm not good at commitment
Or comforting the weak
I wish you could see
I'm not as good as you make me out to be
But you
You see me as someone strong
You tell me all these kind words
Effortlessly genuine
You look at me in awe and bottomless trust
And you make me scared
You are pure and real
And I am a tripping revelation
Of skinned knees
Bloodied by holy words
You are taking a walk on the wild side
Flirting with death
And tempting the devil
I'm the helpless fall
The guilt in being unable to resist
I'm hopeless
But sometimes I can see the rainbow painted on the ground
The only beautiful sight in the soggy pouring rain
I'm also the butterflies when you call
You make me nervously sick
This picture of piety you painted of me
And instant forgiveness
At not seeing what you see
It's the way you tug on emotions I never knew I could feel
It's the beauty in you slaying the beast in me
Everything feels dangerously perfect when you are in the room
I've learned that I can get addicted to anything
And people are too unpredictable
So this time I'm not going to pick up
I'm not going to reply
I don't feel like dreaming of things that won't happen

In this story I don't keep secrets
And tell you all about
Gunshots and fireworks
How they both sound the same
I always sit next to a window
Or a door
If it leads outdoors
I hate black and dark, small spaces and walls
Loud noises remind me of showers
And water pelting on empty tiles
Silence feels like loss
Or the calm before the storm I could never trust
But it's not that serious
I can take the loud and the silence
The gunshots and the fireworks
You won't even be able to see me flinch in the fraction of a millisecond it takes for you to blink
Nothing is serious
I laugh about everything
Even pain
And death
And how they were lucky to get an early exit ticket on this crazy ride
My biggest problem is I could never let things slide
Always questioning age old sanctions
I could never keep my mouth shut
Eyes closed
Feet moving forward
Maybe that's why I'm always changing
I'm different to who I was yesterday and last week
I don't even recognise the me years ago
The world was different then
It has ended for me many times
And began again in the morning
Sometimes when I'm toppling over and my insides can't contain the life
I don't have any room for oxygen
But you'll never know that
No one does
I'm good at hiding
And pretending
Make shift scenarios
Finding solutions
They work for me even if there's flaws in the theory behind them
I free fall in and out of everything
Planning never made any sense
Not when I didn't know where I'd be
I like running
On treadmills, on pavements, on planes
When it gets too comfortable I have an urge to rock the boat
New things keep you awake
And fresh
By the time you figured it out
It's time to move on