ǵhu-tó-m

What you wanted was an image of God. Your speech was thick; spun with words marred by years of believing; a belief without conviction. Believing without ever really knowing why you had to put it all in one place. You seized devotion like it was a threadbare rag, and with it you tried to wipe me clean.

"It's okay. It's okay. It's okay."


And so it continued; all of your careful little nuances gently stockpiled in the corners where we sat, on soil patches sullied by our footprints, behind that worried sigh you let out when I lost my way. Did you tell Him about my gritty fingers? Go on, tell Him. 

You looked at me like I was a revelation brought down to you in complete darkness. I was as curved as the Arabic scriptures you grew up singing; rhythmic liberation. We traded worldly verses in the prickly heat and you lost yourself in its familiarity. I tried to love you.

But faith isn't etched on rib cages. Divine intercessions come to me through other means - through sculptures, portraits of those long dead and gone, that first hesitant touch, melodic whispers of my qarin; through freedom. My hair exposes my follies as it cascades down my back, tumbling like wisps of weed. It bears a warning: I will leave you behind as I have done many others, in my blind chase for free will. This is why I cannot love you.