time

I heard from a friend the other day that you took your shahada. Heard that you heard about my pain. Did he tell you how the ground gave out from under me, how my legs still shake when I try to walk? How long has it been since that day when you gathered me in your arms, like laundry from the dryer, when I showed you how her knife cut into my heart? He said your jaw made contact with the ground, that it hasn't risen since. He's angry too. But anger left me a long time ago, made a shell out of my grief. I've lost so many things, had them all slip through my fingers like the sky letting down its hair in autumn. They say distance and time heals all wounds. No, neither really helps. You just get used to the numbness. I miss him every day. Some mornings I wake with the ache of it from the night before, as if my pain had followed me into my dreams and slept down beside me. But some mornings are better than others. On these days the cold thaws a little, and it feels like spring is near. The trees always remain bare though.


I spent the night staring at my ceiling. Spent all that time wondering how quickly a few months can change you into someone else. I need to know that it aches for you too. I wish I had told him how I felt about you, thought to ask him more about you, pump him for details. And not just you, I wish I had thought to tape everything he did, write down all the answers to questions I had yet to ask him then. He would have been proud of you, you know. He would have stretched his mouth in happiness, his arm tight around my shoulders and said, that's my man...look at him go. Do you know that I'm older than him now? I've met so many people since, written so many things. Even last night I was out with good people, sitting in a shisha spot where the smoke that left my mouth I imagined as all the rot that's built up since being expelled from my body. One of them asked me, so, how many of you are there, and I faltered. I still look at my fingers, confused. There is something so incredibly unnatural about getting close to people who will never know him. Sometimes I get so quiet even my breath clamours to hear itself move. People seem to notice me when I'm like this. Seem to notice me most when I wish they wouldn't. And sometimes I chatter so much even my ears get irritated. 


Some things haven't changed though. My uncles still keep their suitcases underneath their beds, my hoyoo still listens to the qur'an from her small transistor radio against the beat of her tasbeeh. My abo, I doubt, will ever be far removed from his books. I must be my father's daughter, only reading seems to give me respite. It may be selfish of me but I need to say I'm sorry, how I wish now that I hadn't left you alone like that, in a long hallway with no door in sight. I still do that, the leaving. Yeah, that hasn't changed. I'm still awkward too, less so these days, it's less noticeable now. But every man after you falls short. None of them seem to get me: my dry humour, how moody I can be, how sometimes I just want to be still and stare off into the distance. They all seem to be pulled by the wind, their eyes drawn to every beautiful thing that walks by. It's disheartening to just be...beautiful. I still laugh, I still smile those smiles of mine that used to make you breathe irregularly. But I have no use for mirrors anymore. I live on fruits now. I gut them with my teeth, imagining how this would be what I would do to the coward who shot him.