To the person I have loved the most—-

They say it is better to have “loved and lost” than to never have loved at all.

 I disagree.

I lost myself in you.

I almost lost myself TO you, literally.

You killed me once.

 The problem, you see, is that I followed faithfully in your footsteps.

I chose to stay.

I chose to retell, repeat, and relive the tormenting narrative you created for me.

I chose to kill myself, slowly—arduously—painfully—every single day—for decades.

Until now.

For as long as I can remember–my life, both figuratively and literally, has been in your hands.

As I sit here, sifting through the decades of dejection, I can wholeheartedly tell you that no person is worth sacrificing your sanity.

Day one or “one day…”?

Its finally day one.

Today is the day I finally let go.

I am shakily, and finally choosing differently.

& do you know the most pathetic part?

I am so scared.

Believing the delusion that your violence might have been “love” is far easier than accepting the fact that the “love” I romanticized was never there at all.   

I am so deathly afraid to let you go—

—even though you have been the most toxic, unhelpful relationship in my life…

I feel fear.

& it’s not because of the alternating black eyes, hushed bruises, or broken bones…

Those heal.

I’ve watched too many of them fade from my body like mirages on a hot day.

I trace my fingers over the ever-so-familiar, black-blue spots I’ve, now, come to find disturbing comfort in.

But they’re gone—

All that remains is the eerie echoes of your query whispers.

“If you looked like (her) _____, or carried yourself like (her)_______, then I wouldn’t be beating you…” you echo menacingly through time, “the reason I’m doing this is because there is something INHERENTLY wrong with you. You deserve this.”

Your words ring in my brain– taunting me, haunting me— till the singular motivation becomes about escape—

I must outrun the crippling hatred erupting relentlessly within me.  

And over decades of deterioration…I have tried to “escape”.

But I have no room to talk. You were right–

 I couldn’t even succeed at the one thing you’ve told me I should have always done.

The truth is, as you say, I am a coward.

I am spineless, identity-less, and lower than the scum on the bottom of the pond..

I couldn’t do it successfully. I came very close.

But “almost” doesn’t cut it.

Who expected a service dog to lounging silently on a neighbor’s porch on a freezing December night?

2020—

I ran 5 miles at my fastest pace–

My avid runners–ya’ll would be so proud of my splits!!!

I even beat my PR (personal [best] record)

& after approaching fatigue…I looked around to double check that no one was within sight.

& in the deafening silence of the night…

I carefully wrapped the ankle weights I use for strength training around my weary legs…

And I….jumped…into the deepest pond I had scouted out a few weeks before.

The clock had struck midnight—it was finally my birth “day”…December 4th.

The paralyzing pressure of the water, the languish in my legs, and the curling coldness enveloped me as I was unable to swim to the surface.

And the last thought I remember thinking, as I sank slowly to the bottom

—was tragically about you.

I thought about your cruel words.

“If you want to do the world a favor, Maham…”, you snarled in my slowing brain “just go ahead and do what is needed to be done”

And…. I couldn’t do it.

But I tried.

That damn service dog had alerted his owner with his incessant barking–causing a complete stranger to walk out–and see what was happening. 911.

“Just do it! kill yourself.” I heard under the murky, dark water.

My arms, naturally, fought to try to get to the surface.

But I couldn’t.

It was getting harder and harder to breathe.

I could feel my my lungs give out.

…and I fought—when it came down to it–I FOUGHT to try to get back up to the surface….

Until I heard the final echo of your voice that night….

“Everything you touch turns to misery anyway.”

I heard those last demeaning words…and I stopped fighting.

In that moment, I made the decision to let go.

I let flailing arms fall to my side and closed my eyes as I sunk towards the bottom.

& that was my last thought before losing consciousness.

The next thing I remember is waking up on the grass, on a stretcher, surrounded by EMTs pressing on me—and there it was—OUCH!!!!

All of a sudden, I was yanked back into reality—

–I was choking on the water that was, then, fervently flooding out of my mouth and nose at an unbearable pressure.

I have a momentary snapshot of me wrapped in a bright silver insulating blanket.

& I lost consciousness again…

I was struggling with hypothermia…[as I would come to find out later’

And finally…

I awoke in the ER..

I looked around, absolutely bewildered and puzzled.

& before I could fully become aware of what had happened, a deeper realization struck a chord so deep in my heart.

‘I am a failure’–I thought to myself. And I was. And I may still be. I was a failure in every sense of the word—.

I couldn’t even kill myself “right”.

But neither could YOU.

“I wish he had taken away your life when he ‘allegedly’ took your virginity,” I hear you screaming in my mind.

If anything, you have made it painfully clear that your life (and the lives of many others) would be a lot “bit brighter” without my presence.

“If you weren’t such a whore…then maybe you wouldn’t have gotten raped,”…

–at 14 years old—-with a knife–

Yes. The knife was utilized to “pop” my cherry.

To you, however, that’s irrelevant. It’s impertinent.

It is always my fault.

It has to be.

If I want to keep you in my life, I must always “dim” my light so you can shine brighter.

and so it begins…yet again…

An assortment of your agonizing remarks cycle through my head—at a merciless speed—

—over and over again—

My brain gets stuck on repeat like a broken record playing the same few tunes repetitively.

The tunes of my record are the stuff of nightmares.

The torment of your insidious insults continues till I want to rip my own head out of my body.

HELP!!!!!!

No human can stay immune to the missiles of such fiery self-hatred forever…

So what does one do when that unrelenting, merciless abuse starts to come from their own brain?

& just like that–

—I find myself thrust into the 9th circle of hell from Dante’s Inferno.

& so…I do what I’ve always done…

I dissociate.

 I leave my body.

and for a few fleeting moments, everything…feels… a little bit ‘lighter’—a little bit further.

As your ridiculing remarks become more muffled and harder to decipher,

the ominous panic boiling inside of me steadily slows to a soft, sufferable simmer.

and there “I” am…soaring…above it “all”.

There I am– simply watching a homosapien named “Maham” go through some not-so-cute stuff.

I watch my body curiously as it floats above me—

and “I” become lifeless.

& just like that—

All the pieces of my fragile psyche shatter into sharp, serrated fragments once again–

But

–at least–

I finally feel cold amidst the fire.