A Letter to Bologna

I am ashamed. 

Shame for me is to fall in my own eyes. No one else has the right to set that standard for me but myself. 

I have always told myself: Don't do something if you're not proud of it. If you're doing something you're not proud of, stop doing it. If you're not doing something worth being proud of, then do it.

I cherish you and I thank God for a companion who can understand me. I feel challenged all day in and day out. As if my life were an illusion. Or no, rather as if my life were real and everyone else were in an illusion. Like the matrix (alas you haven't seen it)! And in a world of ideals and euphemisms and confusions and frustration, I hide myself from myself, shifting through a deck of cards, each card with a new façade for every occasion. But with you, I am myself. The self that refuses to hide and amazes me myself by coming up with such strength and confidence when it sees your sweet face. 

Now I'm crying.

My God has shown me miracles and testaments to hold my faith strong with them. You are the greatest one of them.

I would have shriveled into my own little realm of existence. The grain of sand on the palm of his hand with the universe inside, at the end of the day, is still a grain of sand. You give me the strength to believe in myself, to be able to see the universe within that grain. And not feel stupid, or ridiculous. And not think of what others might have to say. 

I can feel nature. I can feel God. In my veins. In the wind blowing in my face. He is my nature. And you are the most natural thing I have seen. When I first saw you, it wasn't you who did anything to me. It was God all around me conspiring to make me fall in love with my better half. Amaar, he said, this is it, find yourself, and me, here. Look into those eyes, they are as incomprehensible yet real as your own subtle realities. But thats the beautiful thing about nature you see. Its the Truth. The Truth is not against nature. So if we stop lying to ourselves in all the ways that we do, it is all that is left.

You are my Truth.

God says in His Book that He has created everything in pairs.

We know that.

I am ashamed. 

I never expect to be able to thank or return a single blessing in life or even to live up to them. To even pretend to deserve or achieve or return them would be to mock his Infinite Mercy and to fool myself.

You help me soar. Discover myself. Paint me on your canvas with your colours.

You have never let me feel deprived.

Yet, I failed miserably.

In one short minute, I undermined our balance. I upset the nature. I upset the Truth. I upset you. 

And I am ashamed.

I was not your greatest support in doing something so dear to you. 

I am ashamed.

Instead of becoming your wings, I became the clippers.

I am ashamed.

Instead of appreciating your splendor and beauty and testifying that nature shines through you, I criticised.

And not rightly so.

I am ashamed.

Where I should have been your front runner, I fell behind.

I do not forgive myself.

I lied. To myself. I used words and reasons to shadow a soul. How can darkness cover the light? It can't. It can't but only deceive itself. I am sorry for not being the one to hold you out and say this is my better half. I wouldnt be without her. This isnt her pride. Its mine.

I disappointed myself. Deeply.

I don't know why. 

I spent hours on that page of yours today, wondering why I reacted the way I did.

Yet the feeling still lingers. Saying, this is my temple, my place of worship. Don't disrespect my divinity. Not even unconsciously. Maybe its that cultural dogma of mine that I carry with me unknowingly. Of humility and secrecy of the body. Yet while I am ashamed of how i failed to be your champion when it was high time for me to carry you through, it scares me even more to experience these feelings of jealous protectiveness and possession that are simply unjustified. Such passionate love even when its sharp edge is aimed against you, scares me. 

I am ashamed to be inadequate here. 

I know He deconstructs me, breaks my ego with the sharp edged knife of your love. It sinks right through, cuts me open and leaves me to heal behind. 

Its like operating on a tumour.

I don't know how to cry.

My ignorance is what silences your wisdom. And I make you think something is wrong with you.

I am ashamed of all those times when my anger gets the better of me.

"Anger is disbelief"

I am ashamed.

I stand with my eyes down; head bent. Standing alone, crying before myself. Looking down at my own reflection, so disgusted.

Waiting for you to open your arms and hug me.

Not because I deserve it. Not least. 

But because I know that like the God who created you, you will show love regardless of how much i dont deserve it.

Yours only,

In joy and sorrow,

Forever and a day.

Islamabad