fatal error

To conjure the image of this child self, that hurt little girl, and hear her voice - it's easier than you might think now. I can take her tiny hands in our own, our other parts, older siblings to guide her and protect her and wipe away her tears. We can make her smile and show her she's loved. She never has to grow up, because we can do that for her; all she needs to do is be herself, to be a kid.

Oskar Zwintscher (1870–1916), “Grief”, 1898

– Noor Unnahar, Instagram account "noor_unnahar"

And God, if you are listening, I do worry. God, if you are listening, I count the miles between my body and the body of the person I love and I worry about each of them. God, I worry about the planes we take to each other and the sky that might not hold them. God, I wear seatbelts and visit the graves of my friends in spring to kick away the dirt from winter. God, it is just us talking now, and I worry about everything I can't control. God, can you tell me how much longer I'll get to be alive and in love. God, I am sorry for the times I didn't want to stick around. God, there is a scroll of things I have taken for granted in order to survive this long, and it is endless.

And it is maybe too late to want to live forever after everything I've seen and done. But there are freeways between me and the person I love, God. And I don't have enough time to travel all of them. I worry that I can't bend them all into a giant circle from where I begin to where she begins. God, I don't know what I believe in except the shrinking of distance. God, do you worry about the things you can control? I am enough in love to worry about everything that might cast a shadow over it.

God, I have touched the living face of a person I love with the same hands I have touched the dying face of someone I love and none of that seems fair.