a true reader
an avid admirer of words
would never claim a book to themselves
if it were the last one on the shelf
unless they knew they would appreciate it
just as much — if not more — as the other potential reader

it requires both boldness and gentleness
to buy the last copy of a book in a bookstore

some days
i enjoy solitude
amongst a room full of people

and other days
i need to be in a deafeningly soundless vacuum
to feel at home in my own being

either way
solitude is the oxygen i breathe

it was fleeting encounters with love
that softened my nails and
allowed my skin to heal
and fade away those
scars of my darkest
nights

never try to recreate past experiences
for they would only feel like desperate replicas
of the lived and gone past

just allow life to flow as it wills
for there are always
wonderful new experiences
waiting to manifest
if you only gave yourself
the chance to allow them into your world

i feel like i’m a bundle of dwindling potential

for i have all these ideas and all these dreams

without a single clue on how to go about

bringing them to life

i feel as though i am nothing but a shadow

of the life i could be creating for myself

there’s something
about those
dark early morning
moments
that makes me feel
like the whole world
is okay
that there’s no one here
but me
and it’s not lonely
at all

i wish it was in my own language that i befriended words
i wish it was in my mother tongue that poetry flowed through me
i wish, with deep anguish and shame, that i didn’t lose myself and stray away from the greatest language of all that i so happened to be luckily born into

photos by the incredibly talented Noor Al Ali