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A post shared by M U H A M M E D S A L A H (@muhammedsalah_) on Mar 18, 2020 at 7:47am PDT

I remember thinking we were soul mates, we would be best friends, and we would travel the world together.

We would endlessly explore France. Road trips, the sun, lightness, adventure, and you.

I also remember thinking that now that I was with you, you would be my joy—and that I was saved, and that I would be happy, because now I was with you.

You see, I was used to plenty of space, freedom, and autonomy as a single woman. But when we started to dive deeper as a couple, I think I started to lose this: I started to need you.

Love is fanciful, as attachment is.

I was starting to make promises to myself through you.

I was starting to feel better, not because of myself, but because of you.

It is an illusion to think that people heal us.

Men are not there to fill voids, in truth.

It is a princess dream to think that one day, a knight on a white horse will come for rescue.

It was a maiden mistake to think that a man can truly change a woman’s life, and that woman can be fed through man.

So I have stopped needing you. And I think this is for the best.

You rarely talk, and I wonder why I am here. In your garden, in your life. Why we eat together if you choose to not talk to me about trees and stars and love anymore.

I’m getting little needle pains in the chest when this is what you do.

I wonder why we share a life if it is to not share words and thoughts. If it is to not be with you.

I wonder what it exactly means to be a couple with two beings on their respective individual journeys. What it signifies—if we are tangible, real. How does that work? And what does it mean when we are so autonomous and free that we never meet?

I remember feeling a little frozen, on some evenings, when I understood I should not be talking to you, that you didn’t want it. It was summer, but I felt cold. So I heard my grandmother’s voice, still fresh and alive in my ears: Don’t shed too many tears for a man.

They all say that people need space in love. So, I’m giving that space to you.

I have stopped expecting anything from you.

The way you were looking at my work, admiring it even, some days—I don’t need it anymore.

Your views of the world, your thoughts on what I did or what I do—I listen as an observer, as somebody who has an open mind, but I don’t let it sink in any longer.

I have stopped merging with you.

I go to bed earlier or later than you, but I learn to not care.

I watch you moving without looking directly, so that it doesn’t feel that I’m chasing you.

You are willing to communicate or not, and I remember: you need to give him space. He will talk when the stars align.

Sometimes you are sitting in the room just next to where I am, and I wonder if you’ll come to say hello. So I look at the sun, at the fig tree’s leaves playing gracefully in the morning and I remember—I don’t need a man, even him.

My belly hurts.

It’s the fear of losing you.

I miss our first weeks, our first months. I thought I would always be protected because I would always fall asleep with you.

Your arms were a shelter. Your skin was a nest.

Something was wrong there: I became enamoured to the protector in you. The lost little girl in me found a man to care for her, nurture her, give her more breaths. This may be why you are older too.

In truth, I was too attached to you.

There is a party, a Sinatra love song playing in the living room right now. We could dance: it will be your call to choose if you desire to join.

I want to see if you are still there.

On my end, I will take the easy road: I’ll let you come. I need to know if I still matter to you.

The truth is, if I’m honest, you look at me sometimes as well. You bought me a dress yesterday. You still remember our songs. Sometimes you smile—and you talk, too. You said we would go out next Friday, if we had time, and that maybe we’d take some bicycles too.

You may be busy, or you may be gone.

It is hard to know.

Or maybe I’m growing, too.

Maturing, I would say.

Maybe I needed too much attention.

At least now, the maiden within me doesn’t need rescue.

~

“And in the end, we were all just humans, drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.” ~ Christopher Poindexter