This Desire to Flee From
People I Cherish to a Strange
World Is a Form of Brain
Disease I’d Be Lying to Say I
Comprehend

A battle is going on between my īmān

& the voices in my head. I try to make

sense of it, but my therapist told me 

not everything has to make sense 

to make sense. I locked myself in the 

room because this horniness is 

threatening to throw my soul in the

fire of jahannam. I asked my friend 

what being bipolar feels like, & he

told me it renders him numb—like a                                                                                                

cadaver. An acquaintance informed

me she self-harms to feel alive. Because 

when the demons sneak in, her body 

feels lifeless, she craves for a proof 

that she, too, like other humans, has

blood streaming in her veins. Tell 

me, will I swim in the waters of 

hellfire if this insanity has a hand 

in me putting a full stop to my life? 

My Mu’allim said the ink is lifted off 

a man living on the mat of madness. 

There is a body in my body telling

me suicide is selfish; had our

lives belong to us alone, Allaah

wouldn’t intertwine our hearts with

others’. I’d be lying

to say I comprehend my desire

to flee the people I love

& enter a strange world. There 

is a hole in my brain that devours 

every single atom of happiness that 

falls on my body. But anguish, loss,

trauma, torment & everything devoid

of joy feasts between my breasts. 

A critic asked why every poem I craft

walks through the gates of grief. & I 

said: because my poems are a haven

where men like me—whose headspace 

are never free of noise—come to enjoy 

the therapy in knowing they aren’t alone.