she stepped on another one this morning - soft, defeated underfoot. a thing of an orange. a persimmon, or what once was one. it looked like guts, or smashed up heart, too ripened for its own good. what used to be alive, now...just..rotting matter

it burst like guilt, its pulp clinging to the pavement in a patient, glistening ache. she stood there a while, watching the flesh spread thickly between cracks, clinging onto the nooks the way sins seep into memory. the air smelled faintly sweet, almost apologetic, like something that wanted to be forgiven but didnt know where to begin, or couldnt

there was a time she would have seen meaning in this—would have whispered a prayer, heart full of contentment and gratitude as she would lift her gaze to the sky, her Lord fills her heart. now she just kept walking, her shoe tacky with residue. the stickiness followed her through the day, each step reminding her that even the small, soft things resist being ignored

inside, her mind was a room with all the windows closed. the air thick with unspoken prayers, half-remembered verses, the voice she keeps silencing. she tells herself shes tired. that the world is too loud. that her Lord will understand if she just sleeps a little longer, hides a little deeper in the covers

but some nights, when she turns off the light, she can feel Him still waiting—not angry, not gone—just quietly there, like a heartbeat she forgot she had. the ache is too much. 

and in that quiet yet messy dark, before the next morning’s even messier noise, she swears she can smell persimmons again: ripe, ruined, yet unbearably alive

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 love, romance, and the lot

“youre such a prude!”

jk what was said to me was

“omg you ni sangatlaaaa innocent!”

upon hearing that ive never had a boyfriend before. i disagree, but thats not the point. anis is trying to matchmake me with his friend who is interested. and now im reminded of why i am still single. it takes too much effort, but maybe thats bc hes not the right person? i dont know, its too early to tell yet thats the only thing i could think about ever since she called me up to ask if i would like to get to know her friend. i started off feeling indifferent and now im probably overthinking about it more than the person who was interested in the first place. this note is proof. i cant ever be nonchalant about this icky sappy romantic stuff. i feel like im either trying too hard or not enough, and when the other loses interest its always my fault. i always blame it on me. it doesnt matter if i was not that into them or if it started off as just me “giving him a chance”, because once it starts its all i can think about and im always worried about them not liking me anymore. i would drive myself a little crazy waiting for the never coming or late texts, i would constantly feel like i could be prettier than this. its sickening. truth is, its easy to make the relationship stick. the guy just needs to be more interested in me. more into me. on a second thought… u know what. honestly theres no rule, its just my mind spiralling and attempting to find meanings in the littlest acts. to find a reason as to why my chat was left opened. a reason for them only looking for me when its almost bedtime. a reason for every petty response, every slight change in tone, in behaviour, in eye contact frequency. in all these superficial interactions. my mind is playing tricks on me, no, syaitan is. and i let it. i wont let it this time. i will stay true to myself, my purpose, my peace. i will guard my peace, my connection with God, my true calling, my purpose. i will not let something as petty take up such significant mental and emotional space, not something like this, not when i have a much bigger issue to care for (my relationship with God and this ever fluctuating nature of my iman as of late, this back and forth of being God conscious and drowning in dunya). so anis, thank you for the matchmaking. now i will let God. this does not define me, this shall not be my life or my world. its easy to write this all down, compartmentalize. truth is, i am still thinking about this. and i havent even started dissecting on the halal haram of it all, the blessing in whats to come. how do i make it clear that im not looking for casual, neither is he i hope. but we are both busy working adults and the only way we can get to know each other is through late night texting of random questions and conversations. on weekdays that is. maybe i can do this in a better way, ill figure it out. maybe he will come to kl to meet up. i just want him to know that he doesnt need to try too hard to be somebody he thinks i would like/be attracted to, because i dont want feelings that arise from acts and artificial fronts. truthfully im not worried about this bc i can always tell if someone is being genuine or not. i hope i can be myself because thats what i want from him too. to be himself and let me decide whether hes right for me and vise versa. what i would like/be attracted to is nothing more than kindness, softness of heart, sincerity in loving me but first and foremost, loving God. because i realise this ups and downs of iman is a constant, and something i think about on the daily, something i need to work on constantly—until im buried six feet under, until my heart stops beating and blood stays stagnant, until the very deceiving nature of this dunya collapses, and like a blanket being lifted off my face, i will then realise just how fake everything was—and having a lifetime partner of the same value and struggle and one thats willing to take this hand and work on it together, on pleasing Allah as much as we are capable, reminding each other of our true purpose and absolute reality. there is no reality, only Allah.  everything else is a manifestation of His will—including our existence and naturally our soul tie if that is to happen, and all that we know of, all of it. everything—well, there is nothing to come out of this note. just me rambling, a somewhat futile attempt of trying to unpack these knots and thoughts in my heart and my mind, now that a man has entered my life, and my life is changing again. 

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 i keep digging

and digging

the hole in my head isnt even a hole, not really 

just a soft spot that feels wrong when my soft fingers brush over it

but i dig anyway

my nails hook into dried skin - scrape, tear, guide it through strands of hair just as dry 

blood spurts out quick and embarrassed

like it knows it shouldnt be there

im disgusted

im disgusting

the blood always dries too soon

and my fingers never wait — they claw back in, automatic, like some broken machine programmed to “repeat”

i dont even think about it anymore

i just dig, peel, dig again

my heart sinks like im aware yet my fingers flick all the same

dig again

soon my fingernails go, one by one, bending back

showing little pink n red crescents in them

head burning always the brightest after every successful bit of skin turned inside out 

completely off my head

doesnt matter. i keep going. 

thats the worst part- im not even sure what im looking for

maybe the bottom, maybe nothing

maybe just a quiet space inside the hole where everything finally stops

maybe this time the pain from the water hitting my head will be too unbearable even for a grotesque monster like me

maybe soon the flakes i collect inside a little plastic bag wont hold

maybe then i will realise

but by then it will be too late

head is an orange she cant stop peeling

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and so it happens again, the turning of another chapter, or at least thats what they call it, the passage of time suggesting movement, suggesting change, but no, its all just the same to me. the same unrelenting cycle i can never break free of- a rise, a fall, this ceaseless pendulum of better, worse, better, worse- an endless oscillation that leaves one not with hope nor the promise of transformation but with the slow erosion of certainty, because theres nothing more certain than this return to what i thought id left behind. and i know this, God knows this, no one else does, and perhaps no one else needs to, because this is mine and mine alone to overcome. my own forgetting and remembering- and thats just the worst of it, not just the failing, but the forgetting, the slipping away of the very resolve that had once burned with conviction, only to fade into the grayness of resignation, and i am so tired of it

tired of forgetting

sick of giving in

i must overcome

bcs what is left if not the struggle itself, what else is there if not the attempt? however doomed, however futile, to pull this self free?

but even this, even this struggle, what is it if not the failure to love, not myself, no, i am not concerned with that, it is not myself that i wish to love per se, but God, and yet how can one say they love God if they do not live as though they do, if every moment, every action, every breath is weighed down by the knowledge that they are failing, not in the grand, dramatic way of the truly lost, but in the slow, banal, unbearable way of those who know what is right yet turn away from it all the same? its easy to say that i care, i would like to say that i am trying, but im not even sure about that either. is this really what it means to fight? or is this merely drifting, floating in that nameless, weightless space again, the place that i have always hated, and yet here i am again, though i swore i would never return?

theres a verse, a warning, a condemnation They forgot God, so He made them forget themselves and what greater terror is there than this, this unraveling, this quiet undoing of the self, not through catastrophe, not through some grand and violent reckoning, but through the slow erosion of purpose, the gradual fading of what was once clear, and so i ask, i plead, let me not be among them, let me not slip away unnoticed even to myself, let me not wake one day to find that ive become nothing, that i have lost even the will to ask for help, because it is only to You that i ask for help, it is only to You that i turn, for there is nowhere else to go.

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I wrote Lunar approximately a year ago. When i first started to feel distant from Allah, when my life was all filled with meaningless acts, actually, being mindful is easy, once u get the hang of it. once you start and persevere, its easy to stay focused and mindful. it was the deliberate act of not being mindful, that started this downfall for me. that single decision, small yet, i am smaller. what a joke, to be smaller than my bad decision, than my nafs, to have no control over my mind. when ifirst decided to listen to music agin, when i first started to leave the sunnah prayers, when i first started to sleep through tahajjud, when i first started to skip my daily quran, when i first started to make the worldly life an occupier of mind longer than it should have been, shouldnt have been one at all. i am a broken record. i want God to helpme but I cant even help myself. i am weak i am hopeless, i am ungrateful, i am forgetful, i am full- i fill my stomach to the brim, i sleep too much, i talk about others, i put God out of my mind sometimes, i am in a bubble. ive always lived in a bubble, id like to think that id popped out of it once, and it has somehow managed to wrap me back inside. i am not alone in this, that is to say,well, God is always there, and it is through His Mercy that i am not yet lost, no i wouldnt hope so, for the sake of Allah. I need You Yaa Allah Yaa Rabbi Yaa Rahman Yaa Rahim. Yaa Rahman Yaa Rahim </3

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 Palestine will be free

& a lil something to keep me sane thru all the madness;

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too gold and too still to be true

as if its holding its breath to stay illuminating and say,

here i am

and here will i stay still

so that a child in the backseat of a moving car may challenge it to a race

his dainty finger pointing to the suspended orb,

look! i wonder which of us will get there first

he will soon learn of its perpetual presence

for its orbit —as long as the universe stands— would never allow it to stray far

a golden globe whose body we shall only be permitted to see a single face of

a discarded yolk singled out by a picky eater

distant

what do i know about distant? oh trust me i know alright 

i have been distant for quite a while

too long for my own good

i cant seem to retrace my steps back to the contentment, the warmth of that blanket of love and tranquility

cant i? or do i just not want to?

and what could make me reject the most perfect way to live

the antidote for this poisoned heart darkening more and more as empty days go by,

an empty day is what started it all 

unfilled, that is— brimming but rather with meaningless and thoughtless acts

a paradox of its own, what a mess that is!

emptymindedemptyheadedemptydays

flip, flip, flip, or was it tick! tick! tick!? 

the days went by fast (perhaps it was swoosh! swoosh! swoosh!) 

as i perfectly knew they would 

but i was living way too intensely in each 24 hours, i was looking forward to nothing at all

but yeah, like i said, i knew

i always do

feeling good requires the collective effort

of the mind, heart and body

a continuous reminder and constant remembrance

of The Merciful Maker

who told the night sphere to be

and is too, always telling us,

here I am

and here will I stay still

for my servants who look

but unlike with the creation, there doesn’t need to be any distance

don’t you get it? 

return, return to your Lord

seek true happiness, seek everlasting repose

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