bright side

Are you becoming what you've always hated?

am I a writer or a yearner?

straddling his thighs with chests pressed against each other as his hands rest against your back. touching every possible surface, slipping under your shirt and playfully pulling at the elastic of your bra strap. you nuzzle your face against his chin and pepper tiny kisses along his jawline. he giggles from your ticklish actions, but doesn’t pull away. you flick your tongue over his soft flesh and he pinches at your side. you squirm, but he tightens his grip and holds you to him. your ribs knock against his and you pull your face back. staring deep into his eyes as he looks in yours. whirlpools. your noses brush at a centimeter apart. he tilts his head inquisitively. you take the opportunity to lean forward and press your lips together. just a gentle touch at the corner of his mouth before you move closer. breathing directly into his throat as he beckons you in. your lips wrap around his and push with gentle pressure. slotting plump between his desperate wanting. he immediately sucks and nips at your bottom lip. your body adjusts above him, lifting onto your palms to angle yourself better. his hand slides down to your waist and steadies you with a hand at hip. thumb rubbing soothing circles and dipping experimentally beneath the hem of your pants. your free hand travels up and cups the side of his face, pleading not to move. his body arches automatically off the bed to be closer to you and your breath halts from the increased contact. stomach filling with the most aggressive lovesick butterflies. your fingers tighten against his cheek, his eyes roll back in his head in bliss. you kiss and kiss and kiss until breathless. each burying yourselves in the other, gasping. humidity growing between helpless bodies. clawing at pieces of heaven.

Dear you,

I never said it. Not once. Not with words.

But I loved you.

I loved you in the way I remembered how you took your coffee. In the way I sat beside you in silence and never felt the need to fill it.

I loved you in the half-finished sentences. In the way I let you talk about other girls and smiled like it didn’t bruise.

I loved you when you didn’t text back, and I still hoped.

I loved you like a secret I didn’t trust the world to hold gently.

You were never mine. Not in the way that counts.

But still, I built altars from our almosts. Hung your name inside every maybe. Turned my own longing into poetry because I was too afraid to make it a question.

What if you said no? What if I lost the version of you I got to keep by never asking for more?

So I didn’t say it.

I just sat next to you in cars, laughed at all the right jokes, and let my heart speak in glances you never looked long enough to catch.

And maybe that was love too. The kind that doesn’t ask to be returned. The kind that lives in the quiet spaces— between texts, between seasons, between the words I never said.

If I had told you, maybe it would’ve changed everything.

Or maybe nothing.

I’ll never know.

But I loved you. That’s the truth.

And maybe that’s enough.

I hate this feeling. I hate that you gift me your blame and your shame—because I wear it well. I carry it well.

But one of those nights, the fever burned my body a little too much, and I lost my sense of self. I wanted an escape—desperately.

But what I’ve learned is: it’ll take a lot more to take me out— from myself, from this world, and from you, my love.

I will carry it well.

My guilt is my Achilles’ heel, and I’m an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist when it comes to truth and my own morality.

The river will flow once again to my garden of love.

Winter is inevitable.

And I’m forgiving myself, just as I’ve found it in myself to forgive you. There’s only love for you and hope for me.

I hope I’m not as evil and mad as you’re making me out to be.

I’m just a woman—a healer. But now my apothecary is burned to the ground.

You know.

You know why.

The wildfire in my heart will surely scorch these wounds until they no longer bleed.

There’s nothing evil in it— only necessity, and power.

That’s all I have.

I have nothing but my will. And I will always find my way back—to you, to my peace.

Don’t make me out to be evil just so you can sleep.

Don’t paint me as poison just so you can justify my pain.

All I am is a woman.

healing herself.

I would. I would follow you blindly. I love you enough, too much even, that if I thought you were intentionally leading me deeper into the maze, I’d scold myself for thinking so badly of you, and tell myself that the only way to escape was to go through.

You wouldn’t have to lead me anywhere, though. We walk, side by side.

All you’d have to do is tell me that everything is going to be okay, and as I always have, I’d believe you. Even if it was a lie. I’d still believe you.

there are so many things i wish i did differently, but i think in the end, things would have ended just the same. no matter how close or far i allowed myself to be, i feel the unworthiness of both options when it comes to me. you were meant to love and heal others, to inspire sight in the blind. i was meant to become the void, a great darkness, a black hole in which all things drift to me and cease to exist. you are a bringer of hope and i am nothing more than the empty space that takes it away.

do you remember what i was like? when i was shrouded by light and knew how to shine? when illuminating the world was as easy as a blink of an eye and the only thing stopping me from blinding the world was myself? i wish i remembered, because now i’m a shadow, filled with demons that hold their hands over my eyes and puppet my hands to do the same.

i say goodbye to you, far, far away and in my own little way. isolation reminds me of you, how you used to blanket me in your company and make things easy, all the while eating away at my insides until there was nothing left. even now, your devouring of me has long since passed, and i’ve regrown to once again be fruit that is eaten by pest and creature alike; i am as full and i am as empty as when we first met. only now i’m older, over ripened and with less excuses of why i’m still half-eaten, and clinging to the tree.

fatima aamer bilal, on ‘all my love is violence’.