I am wrinkled from all the times I’ve folded myself to fit into someone else she told me. I couldn’t convey to her how much I could relate, how grateful I was for her words that stood fearless and raw against the backdrop of societal shame, topics so taboo our community is adamant at avoiding discussion and dialogue. Don’t Muslim women have their hearts broken too? we wondered.

She told me she got in the cab, drunk and stumbling, to find that the cab driver was playing gentle Qu’ran recitations on his CD player. The beauty of it filled up her eyes with tears, bubbling from a disappointment in herself. The driver, an old Tunisian man with smile lines crowding his face comforted her ‘Allah is all forgiving, and we are all weak sometimes‘.

I keep looking up synonyms for memories, forgetting how I have managed to carve myself in, making space for the million people that I am inside. You’re good at compartmentalizing, he told me, although it didn’t sound much like a compliment. Sometimes, even I lose track.

**

Photo by Ben Blenner