She stared awkwardly at her cell phone. It’s sleek cover and high-tech model gave her a false sense of security, worth. I’m just like you, she thought. I can buy what you buy. Use the same things.

She had no internet access and was not in the mood to play any game. Nor in the mood to use any of the Islamic apps she had so carefully downloaded earlier that morning, lying in bed after fajr, trying to see past the deep sense of failure that seemed to wash over her every few days. She had failed herself, failed her ambition to be perfect.

To want nothing from no one so strongly as she had done. Instead, she decided to check her messages. “Good morning beautiful, As Salaamu Alaikum”. She read his text message again. Wishing it evoked some emotion, some heightened sense of love. That love that she felt months ago, though unaware of its name. It stormed into her heart this time in a way that she could not identify, so when the captor left her standing in the storm, she had nothing, no shield, no defense.

She just stood there drenched, unable to mentally connect the cold rain with the shivers shaking her body. This text message was no blanket, but it would do. He would continue to send empty gestures of affection and concern like all men do when they are playing that role, not yet into themselves, not yet fully a man.

No, this message was not like the love she had felt for him. It did not grip her heart, making her hang on every word. It did not push her to recite more Quran, and stand up dutifully in prayer, hoping and sure that Allah had blessed her with such joy. It did not inspire her.

And yet, she wondered if this was the beginning of her true self. Her true story.

Maybe no pure, inspiring love waited for her in her late 20s. No happy home would comfort her in her 30s. She would not rest on the shoulders of an established man in her 40s. She could not meet this love again.

She was to be messaged. Emailed. Called irregularly. Shallow. Shielded this time. Just as she imagined. Those years before: empty advances, meaningless insinuations, and empty promises, was all that she was familiar with. Briana decided that she was not worthy of the only love she had desired. Such a love is for the weak, the needy, the worst of the sinners. To inspire, shape, and support one’s full destiny.

No, she did not deserve this kind of love. She was too strong. Destined for greatness. She could only do the inspiring. She could only love, but so many times, the men who were never meant to love her in return.

Her story was written etched in gold, the maiden that she was. She had failed herself, as she gripped the cold subway bars. She failed in her logic, in her heart, in her rationality. Indeed, she had succumbed to the grimacing idea that her happiness was impossible. Immature, even, to assume that she could ever meet it. At least in this life.

Now, she just coped, tightened the pins on her scarf, and as she stepped out of the subway, hit play to same track that she entered with.

i had this voice inside of me screaming each day, i would figure that i could configure lines like anybody else

better than anybody else

i’d whisper them out loud in the bottom bunk of my dormitory

so many stories untold only imagined

i’d sink deep thoughts in to hallow spaces of paper pieces

i could never let them go, dared to write it down too quickly lest the lines would be imperfect

i used to write

i used to write love poems of my true love

every week new tales of how we found became and gave up one another

i wouldnt bother to make it G rated just capitalized on every feeling inside of me

i would hop through lines and spaces through time with the idea of being in love

it never came to fluition. i was left only with spilled ink and solid tears

i used to write

i used to write of a girl brown like me who discovered her beauty in some corner of a classroom

in between psychology theories and social research papers

then hopped between aisles of doubt and disregard

she loved and celebrated herself not apologizing for never being tainted

battered, brusied, or given to anyone. she was pure and unlike

any

other

girl

she had ever cared to meet. she was me, unique.

i used to write

writing freedom songs of ancestors that i only met through movies and documentaries of a reality all too painful to be true

my beats and rhthyms cried out from this square image created of myself.

i could give voice in a way no other knew i could. i was unlike the caged bird within

their beatings captivity freedom and pain consumed the pages of accounts indebted to their broadcasting

someone had to tell it. why couldnt it be me

i used to write

i used to free myself laying down with this grief and sorrow for the world

my eyes close with pierced lips yearning to talk again

fingers yearning to write again

heart yearning to love again.

i used to write, but love don’t love nobody.

-Amira (c) 2011

SH. Dremali is a GEM! Please, donate to help support his health. Him and his family is in dire need and he has contributed so much to Islam in North America.