Runaway

Bismillah.

I have so many words that I wish to say, I pray that I’ll be able to say them as they feel in my heart.

Today, I feel confused and alone. I know that I’m not alone, because Allah is with me. I know that I’m confused because of many reasons. Mainly, I think, a lot of it has to do with shaitan and the evil of my own nafs. I feel trapped in a prison of my own making, one of habitual giving in to my desires, feeling defeated and unable to overcome them. This prison is compounded, at my weakest point, by information overload. Mindlessly staring and scrolling. Numbing physically, mentally, emotionally. I have become a body, a husk, just dragging itself along to the next point in time. This scares me.

I’m unsure of how I got to this point. I try and find answers but always come up short. Who do I blame? Myself? The West? This era of time? The devil? All of the above and then more? Yes, I could do that. I could point the blame solely at myself, too, but that wouldn’t help me too much.

I’m already in a tenuous relationship with myself as it. Every day is different, but for the most part, my emotional reserves of self-empathy are pretty much always nonexistent.

That is a slick way of saying that I very often despise myself. I’m always self-critical and it takes a lot of work to pull myself out of that trap.

I guess it’s easier to hate myself than it is to consistently work towards loving myself.

I guess it’s easier to numb than it is to feel as I feel, which is so much, how I feel, all the time.

It’s easier to cry in the shower after being glued to my bed staring at a screen for 12 hours straight, acrid film of unbrushed teeth clogging up my mouth. 

It’s easier to let the warm water flow over my body, hugging me, helping to bring some warmth to my cold, cold heart.

It’s easier to let my tears mix with the shower water and watch them flow down my body.

Watch them circle the drain, unable to tell them apart.

Sometimes I feel like my life is just one big circling of the drain.

I wish I could show you how I feel. Wish you could feel how I feel. I wish I could make you feel how I feel, maybe then you would have some sympathy? But I don’t want your pity, reader, even though it sounds like that. I just want someone to acknowledge that what I feel is valid and ok and not my fault (even though parts of it are). I cause myself a lot of pain but my pain is largely inescapable. I’ve lived with it my entire life. How could I be making this up?

And I promise I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I really don’t. I just want you to see me.

I wish I was a stronger man, wish I had more courage. But I’ve been beaten down. Beaten. And I continue to beat myself, into the ground, into pulp, into nothing. My thoughts circle the drain. My thoughts signal the vastness of pain within. My thoughts refract themselves and increase in intensity. I feel so very alone. I know that Allah is with me. But I still feel this empty aching loneliness within me. Like I’ll never be enough, or whole.

How can I make you feel this? I wish you could see me at my lowest. I wish you knew what it was like to be me.Please don’t feel sorry for me. This is my test in life, and we each have one. 

Don’t cry for me, I promise I’ve done enough for the both of us.

I wish this life was a little bit easier for me. But wishes don’t fill oil wells. And this life wasn’t meant to be heaven.

I wish I could see past my own pain to see the pain of others, especially when I cause that pain. But as it stands, all I can feel is the burden of my blight. To be born borderline, ah. If only I could show you with a flashlight.

I’m not complaining, I promise. I know it sounds like it. I’m not upset with Allah, I promise I’m not. On the darkest days, He is my only hope to keep going. How could I ever lose hope in Allah, even when I so often lose hope in my own ability to see myself as someone worth loving? I could never. Allah is my only hope.

To all those who I love and feel the brunt of my pain, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you with the words that come from me. They come from a place of reaction to all the indescribable pain I am always in.

I wish I could show you how it feels. Truth be told, the only way I live with this pain is to constantly make myself forget about it. I fool myself into thinking I’m just like you. But I am not. I am a broken man limping through this broken world, pretending to be whole. 

But whole men don’t avoid looking themselves in the mirror for fear of what they’ll see. Broken men avoid looking at their own reflection for fear that all they’ll see is one big pile of broken. 

I am broken.

Imagine, how much strength it must take me to pull myself out of these holes. I often feel jealous of people with a stable sense of self, who know who they are, inside and out. I feel jealous of people who can smile and wear suits every day without feeling like it’s all fake. I feel jealous of people who don’t feel fake or unreal, as I so often do. But how can I explain any of this to you?

All that matters is I broke your heart, yet again, and I don’t even know how. Just by being myself. How can I ever expect anyone to love someone who doesn’t love themselves? Who feels like he is incapable of loving himself? I told you before, friend, I am broken. Run, run with the wind. Run while you still can. Because all someone like me can bring you is heartache and sorrow. And you don’t want to hitch your wagon to this set of broken wheels.

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