واحدة جميلة

you don't have to cry. not today, not tonight. you are a soul carved from the finest of silk and a body built off of broken pieces and connecting points. I dare you to burn your gaze through mine and convince me that you will not fit within your own body. I dare you to free yourself of your shadows and seek beauty amongst the flower fields that glow with life. I dare you to trace your own reflection in your mirror and remind yourself that with opression comes freedom, with hardship, there is relief. envelope yourself in your love, and let your eyelashes wipe away your tears. let your smile brighten up your day and let your lungs sing a harmony with the deep breaths you take to fight off your fears.

you can't make fire feel afraid. you cannot be mass destruction when you bring forth with you light. you cannot freeze when you've licked across the water's surface; the only loss is in not trying.

you can be everyone you want to be, or be one person. caterpillar or butterfly, you are an imperfect soul with beauty that shovels past the surface.

- dina xx

breaking through brick barriers

swallowing darkness becomes a habit, not a choice because you are confined by walls that reach up towards the sky, that take away the only light left. you don't choose to be stripped of emotions and void of feeling but it is taken from you. you are left with thoughts that crash over you like tsunami waves and you are left wondering, 'how can you swim when you are drowning?' a highway with no exit, a room with no door. you are forced to trap yourself, forced to take refuge in the darkness that resides inside of you.

this isn't even a dream, this is the reality of loneliness.

these towers are brick barriers I am trying to break but it's hard to break free when people hold it together on the outside. they don't want to see your insides. they enjoy too much the murals, the pretty pictures intricately carved on the outside of the tower. the only reason Rapunzel let the prince in was so she wouldn't feel this emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole. but that meant having to hurt herself as he tugs on her hair to climb on upwards. to appreciate happiness, you must first understand pain. but I am all pain, all dark, all empty and I am starting to think that darkness is inevitable. and escape is impossible.

you can't be invincible when you are invisible.

- dina xx

the burn of sparking emotions

she's swathed in a jacket that wraps around her, tighter than a noose. the fire catches on where her skin meets surface and suddenly, it's not just her she's fighting with. there are too many battles for her to win all of them. sometimes we forget. sometimes we try. many times, we fall. and you watch her stroll across the hallways, and you wouldn't even know how hard she's fighting even when she's losing. all you read is her aura. her fire, her desire – to win. and you're gasping, feeding on every breath of oxygen, while she begs her lungs to find reason to carry on, carry her forward. she's balancing off the bridge that floats above waves of fiery thoughts and words, that transform into flames. flames she's falling into, flames that swallow her whole. and you ask for her heart to stop beating when her soul is already in flames. the irony is that yours is the one that's been charred black.

"the weight of a simple human emotion weighs me down..."

☺ don't ☺ be ☺ sad ☺

yaaaas?

- dina xx

everything no one really needs

maybe days are for the dreamers and nights are for the haunted. I can't bring myself to fully comprehend how this whole 'life' thing works. somehow I think I'm just convincing myself that I'll be out of this too soon to consider anything that could majorly affect anything in my life? I don't know. I guess I never really know and that sucks a little bit more than it usually does. but I know I've gotten tired of everyone's opinions.

but hey somewhere between desire, need and trash, I seem to fit. so go ahead. use me. use me till I have been sucked of all my worth and then chuck me aside. you never really needed me in the first place.

- dina xx

disillusioned

dreams are faded realities and after hours, you find yourself drinking off drunken whispers and choked sobs, feeding off the most convincing masks. how is it that we are not undefinable? and would that expose more beauty or more flaws? we are all broken pieces, gripping on the wrong sides of jagged edges, bleeding but pushing on. aren't full vases prettier than shattered pieces of the beauty it once was? and how do you hold yourself together if you were never whole? a factory damaged product, who are you? what is your purpose? and what is left to keep fighting for?

then flip that over. we must be bigger, stronger, bolder than our obstacles. our problems may define us, but don't let it become who you are. you may be built out of fire, but that doesn't license you to destroy. you are not a killing machine. you are a beautiful piece of art, you are light.

and you will shine.

- dina xx

hunter and the haunted

Her fingers danced across the contours of his face, tracing the curve of his cheek, brushing against his defined jawbone. Her lips curled into a lingering smile as she leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. A soft giggle bubbled from her throat as she stroked his hair and lay her head on his chest.

Yes, she loved this man. She loved that he could show her love. She loved that he could make her feel. She loved that he assured her of his constant, undying loved. She traced her fingers down his sculpted torso, her fingers meeting the sticky red. She did not contain the laughter that clawed it's way out of her throat this time. She pushed herself off of his unmoving body as her hand reached out to slap his face. Another laugh tumbled out of her mouth as her already bruised knuckles contacted his broken nose. Her nails scraped across the bloody gashes across his chest as her hands were coated in the blood of the man she once loved.

She slipped off the high, king-sized bed pulling off her bloodstained robe, exposing her soft silk shorts and her fitting ice blue tank top, tie-dyed with the darkest, most sinister shade of red. More than that, as she appraised herself in front of the mirror, she could see beneath the dried blood of her husband where her creamy skin had been marked. The black and blue tattooed into her skin, in some places a darker shade, a raw shade and a repelling shade of aged yellow, like faded love. These were the patches of black and blue and black and blue that branded her as his.

She still remembered the fear that would build up as he rattled the key in the lock right before he stepped in. She remembered her little five year old Henry tracing the dark finger-like patterns up her throat asking, does daddy love you, mommy? She remembered the way the answer got lodged in her throat as she struggled with herself to answer the question. Does he? Did he?

She brushed the memory away carelessly, now, as she gripped the bloodied knife blade in her hand, her palm oozing with her own blood as her fingers told her to hold on tighter. She screamed as the back of her free hand dragged along her wet eyes, mixing blood, mascara and tears.

She had killed him She had killed him, his desire to kill her irregardless. She had killed her husband. Her hands shook as she fell to her knees in a pool of blood. She had killed him. In tying to kill the monster she thought her husband was, she had become the monster. Like energy, it cannot be destroyed. She was a manifestation of his evil.

And if he didn't deserve to live...neither did she.

Epilogue:

They passed Henry amongst themselves, pressing kisses to his tear stained face. Henry did not know the prayers they mumbled under their breath, but they knew exactly what they cursed at his parents

But his parents promised that they loved each other. Maybe Daddy loved Mommy so much that he thought he would show her. Maybe every night, Mommy cried because she was so happy that Daddy loved her. Maybe this was the adult love, the kind Mommy never let him watch on the TV.

Fifteen years later, it was still the only kind of love he knew.

♡♡ irdina suleiman ♡♡

holding on till may – why am i crying?

you let it's chords wrap around you, the sound of melting honey drawing you closer and eventually you're gone. cocooned up in the voices that lure you to a happier place and suddenly it's okay again. it's okay that everything hurts, it's okay that your thoughts are too loud in your head. and what you feel is stripped away and romanticized. and it's okay. you're okay; they can hear you. your mangled, silent sobs begging to be heard, your wordless thoughts. they know that the only reason your eyes are still as shiny is because of the film of tears that sat behind it and the only way you're still smiling is because somehow you've convinced yourself that it'll be okay. and you're enveloped in hands tighter than a hug even though they brush across your skin in tiny cold touches, your body reacting in a way opposite to what you feel.

and it's okay. it's just music. the most beautiful version of poetry and expression. and they're right. you're okay. you're okay. you're okay.

- Dina x

wreck/wreak

I am a warped convulsion of a thousand different thoughts, emotions. and I am far from everything you think that I am. I am a wreck. like the anxiety that wreaks havoc in the deep aching pit of your belly, I am built-up, a thousand seconds of pent up emotions. and I'm not sure, not comfortable with this level of uncertainty. I am laced with frustration, that will destroy this city. and I am a hundred different people and I sometimes wonder if I kill myself, is that suicide or homicide? what makes me think such thoughts and dream such nightmares?

what am I made for? to wreak havoc? to destroy, to pursue, to kill? or am I a clot of soil built on numerous insecurities – an inadequate, painful, messy wreck.

what am I?

- Dina x