Surrendering

Between you and my life overload I had considered that I was too busy to breathe. Then you disappeared and the overload just vanished and I was all alone. I looked around me at sunshine trying to brighten myself in it's rays. I thought inwardly of the good times that were always with you. I slashed my room to bits scratching out the memories you left.

And sitting in the empty place, empty from you, all of it gone this morning in a Garbage truck, I'm wondering when I became nothing.

You and I know that we spent all my free time together. I called you when I was down, and you called me when you knew I was free or would bravely free me from my life. After some time though, you always seemed to be searching for me. Too many missed calls, too many texts sent days later, and I always missed our meetings. Always missed you. And right before that Garbage truck crunched up your reminders I always missed you.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. How did I become nothing? No friends, and lost traces of my family, and when...when did I stop praying? I even emptied the source of life from my heart. God.

When did you become everything to me? How did I let you become my center of gravity. A magnet that I orbited around thinking I was independent. Feeling so free, looping around your activities, but truly being trapped and contained by whatever you ordained.

Perhaps what happened was that I surrendered to you. I let you pull me into your loops. And as I rounded your life I felt significant, as if you had brought me a purpose.

And perhaps when I began to worry about my work, my thoughts and the other pieces of my life I wasn't overloaded. I had just neglected it too long I was wondering how to set myself straight. So when you called and called trying to put your solar system back on track, I was shooting away.

I was falling, and perhaps soon I will shine as I should. You never let me be bright. Our meetings with others were only to feed your own big head. Had I felt confidence you ate it off and nibbled away the determination I felt.

Actually you made our meetings painful. The anxiety up to our meetings would distract me from every piece of productivity I could have managed. You made me shorten my prayers and told me I should spend more time with people.

People. Your friends. You called them our friends. You took me to bars where they would drink and you would assure me it was okay to be with them as they lay waste to the little brain cells they had left after both of them were demoted in their jobs. And you never let me leave, the toxic smells crushing me, and only let me pinch my nose hiddenly. The music drumming any thoughts I could have had and you would smile and make me say things I didn't believe in. A wish for a life with you a flowery bliss, whispered into my ear while the waitresses rolled their eyes at our friends. A constructed future with you was filled with flowers and happiness, good places and friends. But yet you whispered to me in a dark place with flashing dizzying lights, vomit smells spinning off the carpets and friends that couldn't hold their promises let alone a conversation.

Hypocrite.

You almost stole my soul.

And that day when we were with just one of those friends, and you convinced them to leave us alone and chase after one of those short dressed girls that spun like tops, I saw your slimy mind clearly. That was just two months ago. I told you I was headed to the bathroom and I escaped and actually, I didn't talk to you for a week. And every night that week I woke up in the middle of a nightmare of your slimy brain catching me and I got up to pray. Pray to be brought to something better. Pray to be set to a straight path. Pray to have unwavering determination in something good. I calmed down at long last, the anxiety was disappearing. Just like the bruise on my arm. The Ipod you filled with your favourite songs got lost at the bottom of the closet with those sharp shoes you convinced be to overspend on.

And the next week I missed your dinner invitation. And after that my phone was on silent, and you sent me ten messages a day.

I read them weeks later on the train home. I miss you. That was the day you found me. Wrapping an arm around me like a winter scarf you nuzzled your face into my fading bruise. The dull ache kept me grounded away from surprise. You were a familiar habit, but yet I was kicking you out.

"I miss you." You whispered. The phone in my hand said that same message dozens of times.

"I know."

You turned my face towards you, your frozen hand smoothing out my hijab.

"Will you meet me tomorrow at eight?"

"Sure, I'm free then. Where do you want to go?"

Your face lit up. You pulled my mitten off and took my warm hand in yours, sucking away my comfort.

"I want to show you a new project. So come by my house." You pushed your nose into my bruise again.

The train stopped. I stood and walked towards the doors.

"Okay." I said. My mitten was in your other hand.

And at 8:30pm the next day I stood outside your apartment, about to knock.

A girl in a niqab came out of the elevator and I watched her as her brown eyes glanced at me. Her long black abaya flowed against her boots and her long blue hijab wrapped around her like a queen. The Coach purse caught me by surprise. She seemed like a professional, somehow, like she had just stepped out of her meeting with a CEO. As if she was there with purpose, walking with determination, and questioning my presence on a light level.

"Assalamualaikum" (May Peace be Upon you) She said. A greeting for a fellow Muslim brother or sister. She was brave even, many people I knew would never greet another Muslim in public. What would the non-Muslims think? They don't know what we are saying. They would think we knew each other. Maybe that was what was so right about saying it though. A connection on some level. We believe the same thing. The Oneness of God. You are my sister, and I am acknowledging you.

"Walaikumalaisalam"(May Peace be Upon you as well) I whispered.

She looked at the door I stood in front of.

"Are you going inside?" She said.

"I'm lost." I stared at her. I couldn't see her expression. I knew you were inside, waiting for me, but who was she to you?

"That's okay, just go back to the bottom of the building and ask for directions." She squinted her eyes at me, but I could tell she was smiling.

"Thank you." I strode to the elevator.

You opened your door to her knock. Arms open for an embrace. A red rose dropped at your feet. The shock in your wide eyes disturbed me.

A glance at me from you and then from her had me dashing past the open elevator to the stairs.

Two hours later you were knocking at my door. I was doing salat (performing prayer). To finish my prayer I said Assalamualaikum to the angel on my right shoulder that writes my good deeds, I said Assalamualaikum to the angel on my left shoulder that records my bad deeds, and you knocked again. My breath caught. Shock streamed through my body as I stared to my left. This angel had been working very hard lately.

You knocked again.

Then my cell phone began to ring.

You knocked again.

"I know you are there, please open the door. I love you! Please open the door. Let me talk to you."

My phone began to beep with text messages.

I was frozen, but I put my hands up to pray to be set on the right path, the straight path and to have an amazing husband that would meet me properly before we were married, have good habits and meet me in paradise in the hereafter. I prayed to not be so alone, such a nothing.

The curiosity and the constant knocking had me at my phone soon after. Reading about your sister's surprise visit and how she knew that you had a girl in mind to marry, but she didn't know how often we met, how close we were, how close you sat to me. You love me. You love me. You love me. That's what your twenty five messages told me.

Shame is all those messages brought me. Of course you wouldn't want to tell your religious sister of the hand holding relationship you had. Of the kisses you sneaked onto my forehead. You wouldn't want your pious intelligent sister to know of the shameful way you met a girl you claimed to want to marry. You wouldn't want her to know what you had probably planned with the person you wanted to knock at your door.

A feeling of entrapment, a cold claw around my heart, burning cheeks and pinched eyes. Your phone was sounding every time you sent me another message. Sitting outside my door you must have felt so right, like a hero from a movie, but you made me feel like I was trapped inside by a dragon. A demon. A devil.

How had I been so stupid to go to your home? You had shamelessly taken my hand in public, kissed my forehead, and taken me to places that made me feel so sad and pointless. How could I believe you wanted to meet me just to talk. That you ever really loved me?

Had I gone inside I would have been trapped forever. And when you finally left ten minutes later and the anxiety faded away I began pulling out the memories. The nightmares.

And today that Garbage truck is driving away, and my heart is feeling a little cleaner. Perhaps the shame saved me, or maybe it was praying. Whatever it was, it was the devil's plot, and I was so twisted inside that I was almost permanently marked. Almost permanently lost in your smoky sticky world that filled me with anxiety and shame.

I changed my number by the way. Your unlimited text plan was getting incessant.

And now my home phone is ringing. It's my mom. I finally won't be so alone. Home is where the heart is. And my heart will never be yours.