Hujurat

Eds. Note: We’re celebrating the stories and perspectives of Muslim youth between the ages of 18-25 this month! Tune in on Twitter to join the #MYRising conversations and check out our sister sites Muslimah Montage, Coming of Faith and Muslim ARC for more #MYRising features.

In my culture, love is a fairytale.

It exists in Bollywood movies and mothers’ wombs; both places where magic occurs.

So when he tells me we have to talk

I already know the dust has settled and all that glitters is not gold

because despite never saying “you owe me”

the lights in our sky were dim

despite how many tribes we’ve known

my parents only believed in one

I wish I could tell him that I was never taught how to love

So when he tells me about his father coming home and hugging his mother from behind

I listen, I smile

I wonder if this is when I should tell him I’m not sure how my parents love

(I didn’t)

I hug him from behind as he cracks open eggs over easy for breakfast

As if osmosis would tell him I could be like his father

So now as he’s telling me my refusal to communicate has pushed him away

I’m screaming inside that I’ve never known how to share my feelings

My father only tells me he loves me when he boards a plane

Now that I’m older, I just give him a nod, no need for theatrics

Despite the fact that both of us fear the unknown

Sometimes I wonder if the anxiety was nature or nurture?

I’ve never been validated before so what good was it that he wanted to call me his

The last time I belonged to someone, they put me on the shelf

I sat there for years gathering dust, so,

I know not the value of such titles

The tenderness he claimed it held was given to a mind already warped

I should have warned him

My parents are never satisfied.

I learned to settle by myself, for myself

I don’t know how long this resentment will last

They should have prevented the notion that there was such thing as settling for yourself,

why didn’t they do that?

So no matter how much he cares

Inherently I find myself unworthy

So why not demand more?

You really love me, prove it!

Prove it again.

Liar!

How could he love something that which does not love itself?

Didn’t he know better?

I wasn’t loveable

I was a fake

Who knows who I am?

Sometimes I’m Muslim

Sometimes I’m not

Sometimes I’m American

Sometimes I’m an underrepresented South Asian woman of color with enough bitterness to turn mangoes sour

Did he love all these parts of me?

My parents didn’t seem to.

“I don’t know who you are,” my mother says after a night of coming home too late

I secretly ask her, “have you ever asked?”

Anything she does not agree with, she dismisses

Any part of me she does not agree with, she dismisses

As if my parts are worth more than my whole

Men, too

have told me my parts are worth more than my whole

I will not apologize for expecting the world after I have given you all of mine

I eat my tongue

I muster apologies and explanations that both of us don’t want to hear

But if we could do it over again..

One day I pray these words will leap out of my throat instead of this page

But until then

Here are the words I don’t know how to articulate.

Here are the feelings I can’t communicate.

Here is your love poem.

—

Noureen R. was born and raised in New York City and is currently in her last year of law school. She enjoys slam poetry, soymilk in her chai and 90’s hip hop.