Nostalgia

By Ameera Essabar

A desire to go back,

Before all colour drained away, and all I saw was black.

A desire for the past,

To arrive at the moment in which I saw you last.

 

A refusal to move on,

For I do not want to remain in this world for very long.

A refusal to let go,

As if sunshine never was my friend, and I have only known the gelid snow.

 

As if you had never existed,

As if I am not slowly dying each day, feeling this growing distance.

As if your love had not once encompassed me,

As if my heart has not been cut and cut and cut, and I am continuing to bleed.

 

As if I have become numb to pain,

As if the blood does not leak profusely, becoming a gruesome stain.

 

…

 

I remember sitting across from you,

Feeling the light, tasting the blue.

Always chasing you from afar,

As everything else seemed achingly subpar.

Timidly following you from behind,

Because no one else in this world was ever as sublime.

 

Strip me of my nafs,

Strip me of my skin,

Strip me of all physicality,

Strip me from within.

 

O Allah, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim, strip me of my nafs,

Take me back to Him.

 

Ameera Essabar and I am an undergrad student at the University of Toronto pursuing a Double Major in English and Peace, Conflict & Justice, and a Minor in Writing & Rhetoric.