inkfulinsight

[inkfulinsight]

Inspired by Given (anime)

Song- Wildflower (Billie Eilish)

Love is easy.

I met you when I was young and I knew you your whole life. I knew you when I started to become aware of the world, I knew you when I started to understand a perfect family is a myth, I knew you when I started to differentiate what love was and wasn't.

I knew you when our team won the basketball game, I knew you when you broke down in tears when your pet fish died.

I knew you when the wind blew your hair, as you stuck your head put the window- worried me, I couldn't dare look away- but I saw the vast blue behind you, blurry and endless as the car tried to reach it's end. I knew the contentment on your face, eyes fluttered close.

I knew you. I knew you I knew you.

I knew you when you started to fall for me too. I knew you when you made aware that I had always loved you, because there was no one else l'd ever watch. Maybe that is why love was easy.

But now love is hard. You've gone away from sight, from my life, from this world and I still have all this love to give you.

What do I do with all this love?

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…

How could I explain that mentally, I was always there? In the mornings before class, I’d play on the lawn behind the white fence. Between classes, I’d run through the yellow corridor. At lunch, I’d sit alone at the center of the trauma, at that table. After school, I’d visit my mother’s library, and at night, I’d find myself in that too-bright room at the far end of the house with its barren furniture.

With very few belongings, none of which were ever really mine, leaving should have been easy. Yet I stayed—and even after my body escaped, I lingered a little longer.

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For the long long time we still had to live.

When I thought about it deeply, I guess I didn’t want him to know. It was the same with the parts of me that I kept hidden from him. Like I wanted to keep parts of me away from him. It was my subconscious way of detaching, teaching myself to be without him, even though he had stressed he was never going to leave. But, never was a loosely used word, for the long, long time we still had to live.

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I have loved you since I knew what feelings were

…

My eyes caught the drawing on the chair. “I’d hang her up with the others,” he followed my eyes to the chair, a look of shock on his face as I spoke. “I still have all of them in my room in the family house. I never took them off,” his eyes grew soft. “I couldn’t bring myself to. But why do you always give me all your drawings don’t you want to keep some?”

“Eventually, I’d keep one. I am hopeful,” I didn’t understand. “I never did ask why did you take up Art? To spend more time together?” He asked.

“Partly.” I responded and his brows furrowed. “But it was because of you. There is a sigh you make after every drawing, you did it today too. You always do, right before you hand a drawing to me. Like you are displeased with something but I always thought your drawings were very good, so I thought maybe if I understood art better, I’d begin to see it from the artistic lenses you use and help you solve the problem.”

He smiled, regardless of his chapped lips, hurting. “It is not really a problem, it is just more a me thing,” he confessed. “You know the only thing I ever draw voluntarily is you, Cezil. I have been drawing you since I could, and even till now, I fail to capture you on paper, the sigh is for that. It is like I am almost forbidden from putting you paper and it frustrates me always. But maybe I don’t have to. Then, it was so that I could find comfort in days of your absence, but I don’t need such anymore because when we marry, I’d belong to you and you’d belong to me. We’d belong to each other, and that place I needed to fill would be full,” he opened his arm, and gently I snuggled myself inside.

“You smell like Antiseptic,” I complained playfully.

“Bear with it,” he said wrapping his arms around me.

“I know; I put it on you,” I giggled mischievously.

I felt his head on mine. “I love you Cezil Dafa, and I have since I could tell what feelings were.”

…

(Extract from a longer work).

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This routine has become to monotonous.

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I tire myself out.

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Do you talk to the moon about me?

…

I wonder

When the day dies down, and you are no longer busy

Do you remember me?

When your friends all leave, and all there is left is the trash

Do you remember me with a waste bag in hand?

When you are brushing your teeth

And you catch sight of the space missing the other toothbrush

Do you remember me?

When you lay in bed, subconsciously shifting to the left

Do you remember me?

When you can’t fall asleep

And there is no one to hold

In solitude and longing

Do you remember me?

I am not asking to be remembered when your days are filled and happy

When you are laughing with your friends

And think, “Yeah, this is what life is really all about”

When you are having your favorite meal without having to wait in long queues

When it still slaps like you remember it

When you are on a trip in a foreign country with your adventure stretching miles and miles

Then I don’t expect you to remember me

But when it is quiet, and it is dark,

And the bed feels too large

And your phone is plugged in too far

And you catch a glimpse of the moon

I wonder, do you look up at it and say,

“I lost a pretty good one.”

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Life-cycle of a Chicken

…

The air felt nice, a little warmer. The sky was bright.

I spared the big blue sky a glance, and it was so endless, I felt so small and so insignificant in its grandness. Meaning if I were so tiny, just a spec, then my problems must have been as well.

A lot occurs in my head, everything of what I feel, see, perceive of the world. How I react to the world, the people in it and the people by me.

In my head, it is almost like there is a war, almost always. Sometimes my body joins in and then it becomes too much, and I feel the pain physically. The mental torment drags itself from within the walls of my head to my physical reality, and then I start to feel it all, emotions in volumes that I didn’t know were humanly possible.

I don’t feel tiredness; I feel utter exhaustion.

They are not just panic attacks; they are like assassinations. My chest gets heavy, and the breath feels like pushing stone in and out of my lungs, and I just know any instance I am going to fall and collapse to my death. I don’t treat it, though; I enable it.

I don’t have a thought or two of my end; I often fantasize about it, that what if one day they woke and poof I was gone. Who would cry more, who would cry less, who would take my stuff, who would move on first? How long would it take to forget me?

Sometimes, I am overwhelmed by a pain, an inexplicable wild aching in my chest, whose origins I cannot decipher, a pain I am certain would destroy me, a pain urging me to give in but I find myself clinging on to hope with burning hands on the rope I am slipping from. No, I am always clinging on to hope because even when the darkness surrounds me and I see not a single light around me, I become the light for myself dragging myself from that place I put myself. The irony; it’s no wonder I can get me out, I put me there.

Sometimes, I bargain, with myself, to release me from the clutches of the self inflicted pain. I try gaining control, a pep talk, endless days of sleeping, a numbing of my emotions- if I pretended they weren’t there then it couldn’t hurt me. But I have found my pain is like a toddler the more it is ignored the more agitated it becomes, so you have to give in, you have to do something to appease the child, so I got creative. I started redirecting the pain.

A loud ringing in my head and I may freeze or burn myself in the shower, depending on which dial I turned first.

Crying because the weight of the world seems too just to heavy, I find myself hurled over the toilet, expelling not just the content of my stomach, but my shame and weakness with it. The shame is persistent though, he lingers around me for the next couple of days and I don’t know if he is there because I was weak or because of my reaction to that fact.

I won’t dwell on the rest, you already know how these rituals go, some of which I don’t think I’d even grow confident to put on paper. There is no cause for alarm however, I never do me too much damage.

Unfortunately, it is a cycle, this way of living, like the birth of a chicken, a never-ending exhaustive cycle. However, today — yesterday even and the day before — wasn’t one of the days. Today all of those parts of me — those despicable, detestable parts of me — were so tiny, tinier than myself in that grand sky.

…

(Extract from my book Coffee Talks)

[inkfulinsight]

To be loved is to be seen

…

I never liked my body. It didn’t matter how much weight I lost or how often I went to the gym. It didn’t matter how I apportioned weight to suit each place. It didn’t matter how toned my arms got, how flat my belly became, or how much fatter my ass got.

When I bared myself in front of the mirror, I didn’t like what I saw.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked a few parts of my body: my nails, my face occasionally. My hair? Maybe. But holistically, I didn’t like my body very much.

"You should love yourself first," they always said. "That’s how you avoid the wrong relationships because if you can’t love yourself, how can you expect someone else to love you?"

So, I went for the safe middle ground. I loved no one. No one, until I met him.

He’d compliment me on the most random things, like the little mole on my left big toe, just at the bend. He said it looked like a smiley face. I never saw it; I always hated that mole. I planned to have it surgically removed soon.

He’d compliment me on my barely visible back dimples, on the way I scrunched my nose, on how far forward my hair grew, or the faint line of hair that grew up from my navel.

He’d compliment me on my thumb that could pop out of its socket—he called it a magic trick, saying it was the kind of talent AGT was looking for. He’d compliment me on being left-handed, saying it was a rarity to be applauded. There were many of us; being left-handed wasn’t important.

One day over breakfast, I asked him why he’d compliment me on the most random things. Why didn’t he say something as simple as my looks or my smile? He looked up at me, his brilliant, dazzling smile competing with the sun, and said, “A smile that gorgeous, babe, you must get a compliment or two from strangers every day. I’d rather compliment you on the things people don’t get to see. So you know I know you beyond the surface.”

To be loved is to be known.

[inkfulinsight]

Forgotten Girl

…

There was a time I felt like the latest girl; I knew all the right things, I had all the right tools. Things were just happening around me and for me. Life was buzzing, hectic, and good.

Now, I feel like the forgotten girl. I am the girl who always remains. You come into town, you’re a little bored, so you remember me. You think, "She must be around, she is always around." So you hit me up, and because I am always around, I pick up. The forgotten girl.

I feel like a last resort. It is nobody’s fault; it is just me. I feel permanently placed in a place I don’t want to be. Time is passing, the seasons are changing, I am changing, but I am not moving. The forgotten girl.

I wish I wasn’t always the forgotten girl, like a single piece you didn’t know you left in your backpack, like the second earring you could no longer wear, like a watch that could no longer tell the time. I am just stored away. Always there, visible but not in use, and very much forgotten. Me, the forgotten girl.

I know this, and I know only vaguely how to change. I have changed myself a dozen times, but my feet seem to remain rooted to this place of 'forgottenness'. I don’t like it because, soon, I’ll become too blended into this place, becoming the forever etched forgotten girl 💔.

— Inkful Insight

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I long to be found. Still, I hide

…

"What is your greatest fear?" He asks back.

"I think my greatest fear is to never be found-

I don't why but I have a deep longing to be searched for and be found. To be embraced with that desperate hug after the daunting search."

He pulls me into himself, in a warm embrace-Somthing like saying ‘I am not letting go'- and in my ear he whispers, "I was looking everywhere for you."

- Inkful Insight

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Maybe I am reading to pass the time, to keep from thinking of you.

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I won’t text you though. I don’t want to.

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I want to love him but I shouldn’t…

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Oxygen - Winona Oak

I felt it. An intense desire to be with you, have you, whatever I used to describe it, the end was I was with you. It was how I knew I couldn’t have you. 

[inkfulinsight]

Coffee Talks

Chapter 3

There was always something about Sunday service that made me genuinely happy. It was like all my problems were dropped at the door and I was light as a bird jamming my hands to my favorite praise songs and getting lost in the music of the worships songs I didn’t know. I’d listen to the preacher as much as I could but in this world of technology I’d be tempted to check if I got a message or two at some point during the sermon. To be entirely honest sometimes the message hit me right in the heart and I felt as though I was living the same life with the person up at the podium other times it went over my head, and I just nodded without really soaking much of it. The church, I admit, just being there gave me great joy. Unfortunately, though, I had the habit of picking back up the problems I had left at the door earlier. It is like removing your dirty shoes when you enter a clean house and then I go right back and wear them out because you of course couldn’t leave without your shoes. That was how I carried my baggage with me, and which is why my smile was fading off my face the farther I got away from the church doors. Maybe I should just bury myself in there and never come out. Maybe I should become a nun- it seems easy to say but I think I’d fail at it to be entirely honest.

I pass by an old man sitting on a bench, he has birds around him. I think he is feeding them but that it is not what is so mesmerizing him but rather the contentment on his face from doing this mundane activity. I wonder if I could sit by him and ask him what contentment meant to him and how I could be satisfied with the things in my life and the pace of my life.

Contrary to how I paint it, established that I am a bit of a drama queen my life isn’t as bad as I make it seem. A lot of my problems that have me down are based on what ifs. I dwell on these ‘what ifs’ to the point my energy is completely expended. Another problem I have is existing on my own, this should not be misinterpreted for needing to be involved with someone. The issue is that I am unable to entertain myself, even as a child I never could. I need to be around people in that way I matched their energy and I could act on their excitement and interests by myself I don’t think I had much energy or much excitement for anything else. When I was physically away from said people, I’d spend alarming hours on facetime talking to these same people. I went a whole day once on face time from one call to the other. It was that night I took a notice of this co-dependency on others as a problem and how dangerous it can get if left untamed.

On days when no calls come in or my calls go into voicemail, I watch my favourite drama or cartoon or I look at memes for several hours. It is enough to distract me and for time to pass by before I know what’s happening the sky has turned dark and it is time to sleep. On those days I am not really living, not in the moment at least – not like this old man enjoying his time with the birds. I see a small bird different from the pigeons around him, climb on his shoulder. The man’s smile gets wider as he tries to follow the bird playing on his shoulder with his eyes. He scoops up some bird seeds in his palm and opens both palm the bird swoops down, eating from the man’s palm and the man remains there watching it with great adoration. He seems very satisfied, living in the moment- living. He was living and then there was me. I was just slipping by with time. My 20s were going and most of my days are like this; me contemplating about the life I had barely lived. Soon I’d be married and have kids and that would be it for myself, I’d have to start someone’s life-my kids. These kinds of thoughts really sealed the deal for me that time was in fact slipping and I may just as well allow it. Or not, I catch the bird man again and I have the urge to wave goodbye, as though bye to little comfort he gave me watching him satisfied by the simpler things. I didn’t wave instead I crossed the street, without no interaction whatsoever with him.

Crossing the street of the campus ground I arrived at my second comfort place- ‘Just coffee!’. The too pink atmosphere and the smell of coffee greet me upon my entrance almost as though saying ‘welcome home’. I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I walk over to the counter. The waiter from last time is the one behind the counter. “Welcome back,” he says smiling awkwardly and I can see in his baby blue eyes he recalls what happened the last time. I have the overwhelming urge to turn around and walk right out the door and never comeback but where would I go?

“Hi!” I reply, raising my left hand, half of my palm is covered by my caramel-colored over- sized wool sweater that was worn over the straight knee length dark brown dress I wore to church. My shoes were the same brown as my sweater and on my ears were pearl earrings and a pearl necklace to match on my neck. They weren’t real pearls though; I got these off amazons for 15 dollars. I had worn them just today and I was counting down already to when they’d start peeling and I’d have to dispose of them.

“Ma’am?” I saw a pale hand waving in my face. I refocused my eyes on slightly worried blue ones.

“Sorry, I got lost in thought,” I say to him.

“Your usual?” he asks, and I look at him a little confused.

“Lemon cake and coffee,” he elaborates, and I smile a little at the fact he remembers. Though it was his job it was nice to know I was memorable enough- that scene we made here should have been enough to keep one memorable-to be remembered. I nodded my head. He punched it into the computer, I gave him my card and then I proceeded to the tray to grab some sugar and milk sachets.

“I knew I’d find you here,” I hear in a familiar thick accent as I am selecting between brown and white sugar. I whip around to see my friend Joshua, sitting with his laptop in front of him and a half-eaten croissant and a bottle of untouched water. His dark hair has been tied into a little bun on top his head with many left running wild and the light from his screen is reflecting blue on his glasses.

“Hey,” I say my smile growing, “when did you get back?” I ask picking both sugars and a sachet of evaporated milk and sliding into the sit in front of him. His light brown eyes follow my every movement. “I missed you,” I said reaching for his hand across the table. He takes my hand and looking at our hands joined together I was still amazed the contrast of my black ones in his white hands. “How was home?” I asked.

“Which one shall I answer?” he said flashing me a smile and I realized something different. “Your braces, they came off,” I said in shock.

“They had to at some point,” he said flashing me a smile of his white perfectly aligned teeth. “Ahh it is blinding,” I say covering my eyes with my hands and at this he starts laughing.

“You are a character,” he says when his laughing subdues and gently, I separate my fingers on my face, so I am peeking between them. “Stop it,” he scolds playfully, and I drop my hand from my face a grin plastered to my face. “I have missed your nonsense,” he says still smiling at me. Joshua is one of the few people that makes me genuinely happy. He used to be my easiest friend to be around but our history kind of removed that aspect of our friendship. However, times like this where I pretend, and he pretends those memories don’t exist. I am reminded of why I like to be around him so much. With Joshua I can be completely myself and he accepts me for it. To be honest I think I am goofier around him than anyone else and because he laughs so easily, I am encouraged to remain goofy. Everything I do is somewhat amusing to him and he constantly tells me I am the funniest person he ever met which I find rather strange because he only ever makes this statement in my time of crises. When I am around him, I’d usually be laughing to the point of tears either from a skit we saw online, or I’d just happy listening to our ‘weird’ music genres. Unfortunately, things I’d rather not think about and people and then a whole continent separated us. He had gone back home to Switzerland for the Christmas break. In those 3 weeks I could have used a good laugh, but the distance was good for us, him especially and I was happy couldn’t reach him because he went to visit his great grandparents in some very remote village where signal was inexistent. If I knew could reach him and I had called, I was sure I’d have further complicated something that was finally unknotting itself and becoming straight again.

“Where is your second?” he asked as the waiter dropped brought my tray to our table, I took it from him mouthing thank you and then I caught sight of his blonde mullet as he walked away.

“What second?” I asked Joshua pretending to be confused.

“Where’s Miwa? Y’all don’t go anywhere without each other,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Kira probably,” I said with a shrug deciding on adding the brown sugar to my coffee. “You don’t sound so happy about that,” I turned around and Samantha was behind me.

“Where did you come from?” I asked and she pointed to the bathroom door. “And you have the audacity to judge me,” I said to Joshua. He and Samantha or as I liked to call her by her Ghanian name Maame- as she was half Canadian and half Ghanaian- had been dating since the start of the Winter semester of our third year. This created a panic in our friendship group of course as the rest of us felt that we might end up pairing ourselves and we weren’t half as excited as Joshua and Maame. For one I got paired with Tom which felt very wrong for reasons unknown to me and Park Won sook who went by his English name Justin got paired with Hala. They took it ever worse than Tom and I because they did in fact date in their first year and it ended very abruptly and in a cold war for several months before they reconciled.

“I heard, you broke up with Jack boring,” Samantha said sitting by Joshua who took her hand in his and put both their hands into his grey coat pocket. Ugh they made me sick, but it was also so cute!

“I like how y’all are now badmouthing him, now that I have separated from him, especially you Maame, who was all praises for him a month ago,” I said dryly.

“Nobody was more annoyed than Miwa,” Joshua said.

“He is an attention sucking vacuum,” I began bringing a piece of cake to my mouth then washed it down with the coffee. I had decided against the milk and just drank it black with some sugar. “Whenever something took attention from him, he instantly disliked the thing or in this case a person,” I finished, eating more cake. I tapped my phone on the table the time read 12:01pm. I guess this was lunch then.

“You mean whenever something took YOUR attention from him,” Samantha said, emphasis on the ‘your’. I just shrugged.

“Hala’s not back yet,” I said shifting the conversation from whatever rabbit whole Samantha wanted to go down this afternoon. My afternoon was on 70% good, and I’d like to keep it that

way. By following Sam down that rabbit hole, I was certain it was going to deflate to about 20% and today I’d like to be happy.

“Probably left Paris and should be back home in Lebanon now. Remember her older brother is getting married,” Joshua said.

“To be a rich kid. I heard she flew business class,” Samantha said loosening her light brown curls and bunching them back up in a bun on top of her head. Her light brows drawn together, and the bottom pink lip pulled into a pout as she focused on ensuring she got all her curls. “I wonder how that would go though, given she’s converted you know,” she added her hazel eyes shining with excitement and something else. She pulled an orange band from her wrist, though it was a blue one she had taken out of her hair, but she wore so many on her left wrist of the same type it didn’t matter which she used to tie her hair. It mattered to me though but rather than complain, I minded my business reminding myself they were all the same type. She tied her hair once then rolled the curls into a messy donut and added another band- a white one. I guess the blue one would be used at the next hair re-tie.

“That would be interesting,” I said, and Sam nodded in agreement. Joshua shook his head at the both of us.

“I don’t think so, a strict Muslim family finding out their daughter went abroad and became Christian. Hmmm,” he said.

“I didn’t mean interesting for her, of course not, I meant for us who would listen to the story,” I clarified. Sam nodded again and then she added.

“I do hope she is okay,” Joshua said worried.

“They are her family, plus she is not even the focus. If she keeps her head down, she’d be fine. They don’t even wear the hijab,” I say to them spouting out things from my mouth like I have knowledge on the workings of a Muslim household because I have one very distant cousin

who I had never met that was Muslim. Realizing that I had very little knowledge on this I reserved the rest of my comments and ended with “she’s going to be okay.”

“So, Miwa got back with Kira,” Sam said dragging us back to her rabbit hole she was interested in throwing us into. I nodded and so did Joshua who was typing something on his laptop might have been an assignment, might have been the superhero comic he was working on. It was about a speedster; I like to call it Flash 2.0 due to the similar plot, but his drawings were very impressive, so I gave him a thumbs up regardless of the bland story line. He looked serious his back hunched slightly over his laptop, his favorite black beaded necklace sitting on his neck and on top of a black shirt that had a print of Lana Del Rey in black and white. He brought his hand to scratch the bush on his chin he called a beard and then he got to typing again. “Given they were apart for 2 weeks, I thought it was over for good,” Sam added on seeing no one added to her first statement.

“She is saved with a red heart,” I blurted out and the news was so shocking Joshua looked up from his laptop and Samantha dropped my fork with a piece of lemon cake she was trying to steal from me.

“That serious hun,” Joshua said once his shock wore off and I raised up my head and brought it down slowly. Like predicted the red heart was in fact that important, just as she was to him. I had a feeling that I was going to have to develop a habit of sharing Tom and not just for a little while but for the long haul this time. I leaned back in my chair sipping on the coffee as Enya’s ‘my heart would go on,’ played through the speakers. Another reason I liked coming here, whoever controlled the speakers understood my taste in music. I could see Sam finishing up my lemon cake, but I didn’t mind, I didn’t want it anymore. In fact, I didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.

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I didn’t sleep well, I cared more than I liked to admit. He won and I-

you know this already. Don’t make me admit it.