Poems - The Art Of Pain

I will gathering and updating poems here in honor of my own journey and that of the gorgeous Muslim women I have been allowed to witness

Witnessing each other's vulnerable and dark moments does not eliminate the pain, but it does strengthen our resolve and courage to seek support.

Poetry is an energy we can transfer and all energy can be used.

To be forgotten

Oh to be forgotten every day

An extension of not having existed

Except for being someone’s prey

Oh Allah, this fight against evaporating into thin air

Pour lead into me

So I will remain

Oh my Rabb, before I turn invisible

Fill me with stars

So I will shine

So I will be witnessed

And there is proof that I existed after all

Sometimes I believe I'm a coach to bi idhni Llaah heal you

To help you feel once again

To help you cross the bridge going from coping and escaping your pain

-Through perfectionism, sins and chasing your own stress hormones...-

To feeling yourself and your soul again.

To breathing deeply again, with love, joy and contentment.

Because that bridge is a pitch black abyss of despair and agony.

And you're going to have to cross it if you want to get to the other side.

And sometimes I think I'm just sent here to push you forward another day

Just hold on one more day

And another day

I see how much pain you carry

Every day it's suffocating you, chaining you, you drag it around like grave stones on your neck

Sometimes all you do is wait for the end, but who would understand?

And sometimes I think I'm a coach

Because I've spent too many years where I didn't have anybody to hold me in my darkest purging moments.

I just want to show you

The light you still have in you.

As they buried themselves in a field of lies

Layers of denial suffocating them

The light went out 

Little by little 

It left them

Choice after choice

The abused becomes the abuser

The sinned against becomes the sinner 

The hurt becomes the hurting one

Will you? 

Or will you fight? 

Will you risk all

For the saving of your soul? 

Will you sacrifice now

Or later? 

Isn’t it mad, how one can live in a torture chamber in his mind, and doesn’t know how to escape? 

It will last as long as it has to. 

There was nothing in me that wanted to choose me 

It was self-betrayal after betrayal so others would.. So I could escape the constant agony, the emptiness that vibrated through every breath I took 

Until Allah chose me. Timidly, I raised my head from the shadows and asked “do You really think I can do it? You saw me worthy to become Your worshipper?” 

I wasn’t what my parents wanted, but Allah wanted me. From all those billions of people, He chose me. 

And that’s why I always believed in myself from there on out. 

Healing was so hard.. I kept choosing the people who reflected my pain back to me 

Confirming what came before

And now, those days are over. My choices are for me now. 

Every choice from self-loyalty instead of betrayal 

Loving myself in the most beautiful way, so I can be a light. 

And all the pain that came before.. Lessons. I’ll be a teacher because of them.