Your Sweetness

Your sweetness
seizes my entirety

My heart's walls are taken down
without my consent

My heart reaches out to get a taste
For too long it's been craving
to feed off the hunger

It's willing to eat itself up
to stave it of
it might perish

It's willing to eat itself up
to not hear the rattle shakes of its walls
to not know of their fragility
and the hollowness within 

And I ventured in.

She has a corner stone of gold. A shining silver ground of unshaken boldness and confidence.
She is a super woman. A vision of steel, a mind sharp as blades, and a heart that’s seeded with potential, but parched.

She used to be unaware of herself, unseeing of what’s inside. And she was daring enough to think she didn’t need to.
She thought the mind can rule, and reasoning is all there is. As for this clump of muscle that lies in your chest, nah. Useless.

Her eyes used to be heavy and dry. Her tongue hot with words that were made of anger, they stung.
She’s angry simply because everyone else just doesn’t measure up to her. How the world simply isn’t convenient. Yes, she’s that audacious, and yes, it’s true. Because she is a genius, indeed.

And then we clashed.
I took her smugness, tore it apart, and smothered it in her face.
She was fabulously annoying. And I didn’t want to allow it to be played on me, too.
I used to laugh at the irony of the two of us put together, blades and cotton candy ? I used to see it that way.
But we both tugged at each other’s ends. We both changed each other.
A journey of hardness and softness, learning to cope with each other.

And I saw her the way she failed to see herself.
I saw her spikes, and with time I saw her softness, too, beneath all that sassy brag of strength.
And she’s beautiful. She’s so beautiful and she doesn’t even know it.

I saw within her seeds that needed nourishment. I knew I needed to help bring these to life.
I was like the mirror she never faced. I was like the path into her heart that she never took.
It was a struggle of following my own heart into hers. Of following my instincts and breaking through even when she doesn’t want me to.

“Your soul is inflamed. Good. Pay attention. Find water. Come inside”
I brought the water. And I ventured in.
And I was scared. I was scared to love her the way I wanted to. The way she needed to.
You see, it’s not easy to love someone who doesn’t know they need to be loved. Who doesn’t realize they want to be loved.
I needed to constantly remind myself of how her needs show only to those who can detect the unspoken requests. I saw them in her eyes.
Her nature wouldn’t allow it in any other direct statement.
And I learned to love that, too.

And along the way, I too, am learning to grow into the healer I wish to be. I’m learning to be myself, regardless of how much inadequate cotton candy is perceived.
I learn to carry my armor of good intentions, to look past the ego.
Because how can you be truly kind to those who truly need it if at the first clashing of kindness and ego, you stopped in your way and walked away.

As the years go by, I see her heart swell. The colors of love are growing, filling her chest and reflecting in her eyes. And reflecting in mine, too. And her radiance shines more and more with time.
And as the years go by, I, too, saw my own heart grow. Grow big enough to contain hers, to have the desire to take care of it it no matter how hard it can be. No matter how many times she pushed me. No matter how many times she tries to fool me with her cunning words of reason.

*Quote by Nayyirah Waheed*

The Colors of Her Mind.

Coming back home, I walk through the door. 
In the corner of my eye, I see her coming towards me. 
The colors blind me from seeing her pretty face or hear her voice as she talks to me. 
the colors of her mind and its thoughts: 

Murky green, red fire, and thick maroon; 
Arrogance, anger, and a child’s broken heart. 

She raises her voice but all I can focus is the hurt and desperation in her eyes.
“You owe yourself the validation of your heart’s pain.” I say, in my mind. 
The buzz of the white noise starts to rise in her head, getting louder with her agitation with me.
I walk away from it. 
As she follows me, her fire’s flames grow and grow. 

There’s no logic in dealing with someone who’s ripped up by the anger of the consciousness as it tries to silence the unconsciousness' crying, hurting child, stuck in the dusty corners of the mind, the dark shadows of the soul, shielded with ignorance. 
And everything else inside suffers from the flames instead. 

Anger cannot destroy the old pain.
I think to myself  "I’ll pray for you."

A letter to my future self.

Hello. 
Been a while since I posted something new.
So I signed up about a month ago to this online course lead by Tyler Knott (if you haven't heard of him, he's this lovely, authentic writer I know). It's name is Write Yourself Alive.
Basically, this course is about a challenge. He wants writers, whether amateurs or professionals, to set their writing as a priority, by completing a 30-day challenge of writing daily. 
So everyday, there's a different writing task, a different thing to write about. 
Each day they ask a question under the category "Dig Deeper", which are questions that aim to make you discover yourself more, and then they ask you to write about something related to that question. 
And I really am loving that I decided to join. Because not only do they know what questions to ask (they got me doing some deep digging, alright), they also have this way to show you what all the other members of the challenge wrote and answered to the same daily task. 
So it's pretty inspiring to see how everyone else sees the same thing so differently, or so similarly. 
And today, I decided to share with you some of the good things I got to write. 

Day 2: Write a letter to the person you think you should have been by now. Explain to them why you aren't them and offer them proof that who you are is better.

Dear future -God knows how long or short- Yasmine,
You might be fit, you might be more emotionally mature, you might know how to experience the world outside the scope of your emotions, you might be less caring, or not at all to what people have to say about the truth you find in you, and about how you see the world.
You might be more sharing of your writings, just putting yourself out there for the world to see, and knowing that what you write could change someone’s mind, somewhere, somehow.
You might be more accepting, of your own community and your country, and of your humanity and your weakness, and (most importantly) more accepting of the lack of acceptance of this world.
You might be more forgiving.
You might be more mind-speaking, more communicating, and confident while you do so, not fearing people’s disapproval.

And I can tell you that I wouldn’t love you more than I love myself right now.
Because I know that I’m trying my best now, just like I’ll be trying my best then.
I don’t envy you, or compare myself to you, and I’m not desperate to be you.
I know that being who I am now is how I could reach who you are then, and I’m grateful for every step on the way.
You see, being afraid to speak up lead me to learn the right reason for which one must speak up.
And being afraid to show myself up to the world might be the reason why I learned to love my OWN company first, before anyone else’s, and to validate the good in me to my own self, and to grow.
And experiencing the world through my emotions has helped me learn how to get to the origin the thoughts and perceptions of these emotions. And that has unveiled to me a dark, old, hiding place in my mind. A place heavy with loads of false and old perceptions about me. And that has set me free, and I was able to rise above that.
I learned how emotions are impatient, narcissistic, and love to be the center of attention, while thoughts are slow, patient and allow themselves to be doubted.
Being unloving to my body has taught me to appreciate health over shape, and mind over appearance.
Hating on my humanity has taught me to be humble, and it has brought me closer to God, because I learned that he’s the all-forgiving and merciful who does love us, humans, when we repent and seek his guidance, no matter how weak and sinful we can get.

So yes, who I am now is nothing less than you.
And each version of me is the best there is for the time and the situation she’s at.
Because I trust myself and love it enough to know she is doing her best.

رجلًا سلمًا لرجل.

•( ضَرَبَ اللَّهُ مَثَلا رَجُلا فِيهِ شُرَكَاءُ مُتَشَاكِسُونَ وَرَجُلا سَلَمًا لِرَجُلٍ 

هَلْ يَسْتَوِيَانِ مَثَلا 

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ..)•

In Jannah, the high of the rare moments of peace..will last forever. That high never lasts long in Dunya, because we're souls trapped inside desireful bodies, trapped inside a corrupt world.

The truth that leads us to where we came from, is actually crystal clear. 

We feel it in our hearts, we see it. 

But the burden of being human heavies our hearts, weakens our will and shortens our vision.

و الله لطيف بعباده. 

I read once that if we all learned what we were supposed to learn from the first time, we wouldn't need love at all. 

فالحمدلله الرحيم اللطيف. 

رجلًا سلمًا لرجل.

The centrality, the oneness, the solidarity from the endless paths in this creation. 

The home in us. The One and Only. 

The strength, the center, the core.

The peace it brings, this oneness, of heart and of mind, and the freedom, of people, of the world with all its temptations and all that it has to offer, of our own selves with its endless desires. Freedom.

ظنّي بالأساس الذي تقوم عليه القوة الحقّة لبشرٍ خُلِقَ ضعيفًا، أنها هي العبودية الحقّة لله. 

The chaos of my mind when I struggle to remind myself that it's the right thing is shushed by the peace at heart. 

This is home. 

His pleasure is above it all.

رضا الله و كفى. 

رجلا سلما لرجل.

الحمدلله. 

الحمدلله.

لك الحمد، الحكيم العليم اللطيف. 

رضيت بالله ربا. رضيت. 

Never Land Exists (?)

On July 22nd, 2014, my mind, for the first time, acknowledged the fact that heaven actually, truly, technically,  legitimately exists.
I, for the first time, realized that all this time my mind never actually saw it as a reality.
I discovered something that shook my grounds, and changed how I view my life, forever.

I realized how we treat Jannah as sighed upon wish, a far away dream, not really as something that
we reach for.

Pursuing my own dreams throughout life has taught me that the mere change of thought from wish to goal can change everything.
And I wondered why do we treat Jannah the way we do.
Why isn't it a goal ?

An easy example here; when someone wants to lose weight, you can 90% guess if they'll be able to do it or not from the way they speak of it, and consequently view it in their minds, true?
If you noticed they were speaking of it as something in the far far future, or something that they still don't quite figure out how they'll reach it, you kinda get an idea about how serious they are about it (which isn't so serious).
But when someone else views it in a series of steps to be taken, hardships to be met, resources of perseverance and motivation that are needed to be found, you know then that it's on with that person.
Same concept.

That realization freaked me out a little.
I went through an existential crises for a couple of months or so.
Life seemed so different. And although everything was fine, nothing felt right.
I couldn't treat life the same anymore.
And nothing had a taste, and there was so much anxiety.
It was as if I knew I was in a transitional area, yet I was completely blind, not knowing where I was going.
I then realized I'd be needing to make my mind used to the fact that, just like with any other goal, there must be trust. Trusting the end result.
And there must be bravery. Any goal you stick to needs bravery.
To face yourself and others.
To say no when you need to. To explain why you said it, even though you'll be seen as a weirdo.
To be aware that you might be alone on the path you've chosen.
And finally acceptance.
That you'll chicken out sometimes.
That you'll get hurt.
And that it might never get easier.
And as they say, it never gets easier, you just get stronger.

Medicine: the horrible things in books are real

So 2 weeks ago I finished my internal medicine rotation, which is the time where I had to learn how to know what's wrong with someone by asking them the right questions and using my hands and cool doctor tools.
Everyone said it's the most important part of med school.

It was the first time where we actually saw everything we have been studying for two years.
First time where we dealt with souls.
I found it fascinating for some reason to actually see what I had studied in books, to see it real in front of me, to touch it and examine it, to discuss it with my friends and to tell everyone about how amazing it is.
I remember the first time I saw splenomegaly (a large spleen), I almost flew with excitement.

This act of finding out with your mind and your hands and cool tools (the cool tools are the best part) how to help someone go back to their normal life, it's beautiful.
Every day felt like an adventure. Everyday was new and exciting and full of amusement and wonder.
My days were made by signs I saw for the first time.
Hearing, seeing, or feeling abnormalities made me happy, which is twisted actually.
To be so thrilled when finding an abnormality in a person.. that's not very nice. But I just couldn't help it!
I found it hard at first to hide the thrill in me in front of the poor patient.

And I think it's either I got too thrilled or too stressed, or a mix of both, to a point where it overwhelmed me.
I wasn't aware of almost anything around me, my whole concentration being on what I had to do with patients and what I had study about what I saw in these patients.
Everything else was a haze.
No really. Looking back, everything seems hazy.
I was so unaware that I unintentionally allowed a gap to grow between me and a close friend.
And it still surprises me how I let that happen, how I was too busy to notice such a thing.
As exciting as it was, it was the most stressful and hectic time of my entire life.
So hectic that I basically turned myself into a machine without even knowing it.
I let the pressure of having to excel medicine push me beyond my limits.
I reached a point where I couldn't sleep. Never has that happened in my entire life.

I remember in the nights when I couldn't sleep, the only thing that kept me sane was the acceptance.
The acceptance that I was human, that I was weaker than I imagine, and that it's okay for things to go out of control.
Whenever my mind would start to panic about how screwed my situation was, I would remind myself of that, and that's how I managed not to lose my mind.
I noticed the hours before fajr pass quickly.
And I noticed how easy it is to forget how helpless we really are.

So this was about my first step into the clinical life.
Do I regret it ?
Not really.
Mistakes are important to teach us things that we would never forget.
And plus, maybe this insane stress was what I needed to fuel my way through.