by Najwa Zebian
but
I will tell you that
I would not trade all of the waiting
and all of the pain
for the beauty that these two moments
spilled in my heart
when I felt them.
You will feel like
your heart
was lifted
from the depth of this
heavy ocean,
and on your wings
that you thought were broken,
your heart will fly and,
in a new sky,
build a home.
OceanofPDF.com
I ran to the moon
and knelt to the ground.
Out of breath, I gasped.
I cried
and cried and cried.
You told me that just like you shined in the night,
my hope should shine in my sky.
I listened to you.
So I loved.
And my heart was broken.
I trusted.
And my trust was betrayed.
I befriended.
And my secrets were exposed.
I gave.
And I was punished for giving.
I dreamt.
And the night fell into my dreams.
So tell me.
Do I swear off love?
Do I keep my lips sealed and bury my secrets in silence?
Do I lock the treasures in my heart and build walls around
them?
And do I dream my dreams out of my soul?
Tell me.
Do I hate whom I loved?
And betray their trust as they did mine?
Do I tell their secrets as they told mine?
And do I start taking more than I give?
Do I tell my dreams to stop singing me to sleep?
Tell me.
The moon looked at me and said:
“The clouds conceal me every night.
Does that make me stop believing that there is
an earth beyond them?”
OceanofPDF.com
Asking me to understand why
you no longer love me
is like asking me to understand why
I am no longer worthy of being loved.
I am confident, and
my self-esteem is resilient, but
asking a soul to accept that
the love it once had
is no longer there
is like
telling a bird that
the sky
that it’s used to flying in
no longer wants it to fly.
Every bird loves to fly
in its sky, and
every soul loves
to be loved
by the one that it loves.
OceanofPDF.com
You promised not to walk away
so I built a home for you
inside my heart.
Your voice,
your promises and
your laugh
filled it with life
and love.
And now all I hear when I enter is
the echo of
your anger and
your deafening silence
that I never deserved.
So I fall to my knees and
I crumble in the corner where
I once dreamt you'd hold me.
And I choke on the dust of the
butterflies
that fell from my stomach for you
and the tears that
hailed
from my eyes for you.
OceanofPDF.com
When I was struggling with letting you
go,
I wish someone had told me:
I know that you’re struggling,
and I know that it’s hard.
Believe me when I tell you that
I know why you put up that guard.
Perhaps they ignore you.
Perhaps they don’t care.
Perhaps they won’t tell you
how it is that they feel.
Perhaps they abandoned you,
or little by little are letting go of you.
Perhaps you even have no one
to relate this poem to.
I can’t tell you that it will get better,
because that’s probably what they all say.
What I can tell you is that I understand you
and I think that you deserve better.
Don’t force yourself into places where
you don’t belong.
Don’t force yourself to believe what
you know is not true.
I know that you’re struggling,
and I know that it’s hard.
I promise to stand by you
and help you take down
that guard.
OceanofPDF.com
You were my home
for so long.
Now I realize that humans
cannot
be homes.
If homes can leave,
then they are not
homes.
Homes stay,
but you walked
away.
OceanofPDF.com
A weakness within me has shattered the walls I've built within myself, against myself.
I may have been successful at giving,
but I never know when to stop.
I worked so hard to break down others' walls that
I forgot to break down my own.
I worked so hard to understand others' silence,
but I forgot to understand my own.
I lifted, with every bit of me,
the weight off of so many people's shoulders and hearts, but I forgot about my own burdens.
My bones have been bruised by the burdens I've accumulated.
My heart has been beating slower and slower.
My thoughts cannot bear the chaos in my mind.
So I decided to surrender.
I give up.
And if I were to hide my wings and bundle myself
back up into my cocoon, would you then try to take what I give,
understand my silence, or lift the weight off my shoulders?
Feeling like you will give up
does not mean that you
have to
give up.
OceanofPDF.com
To a Narcissist Who Moved On
I hope she knows better
and gets out of your venomous
throat
before you poison her
soul
like you poisoned mine.
I hope she has the strength
to deal with you
leaving
after you strip
the life out of her body,
the color out of her eyes,
and the love out of her heart.
I hope she does not define her self-worth
through your eyes that see
women as objects to satisfy
the lust of your hollow soul.
It irritates me to write such
strong and heartless
words, but
I’ve seen pain
that led a fire to ignite
in my veins.
OceanofPDF.com
Take your memories with all your pain.
Take it all.
I want to be free.
It was not your love that you chained me with,
but your wanting of me.
I used to think that happiness was not possible
before I see you regretting
walking away from me.
But now I know that if a man like you
had the heart to walk away from a woman like me,
what is the use of having you regret
leaving me?
I have been dwelling in a dark place,
thinking that if
you
left me,
&nbs
p; then something must be wrong
with me.
OceanofPDF.com
The day we decided it’s best to part ways:
My tears silently streamed
down my face.
You raised your hand
to wipe my tears but
put it back down when
you realized that could
hurt us both.
You told me:
“I don’t want you to be sad.”
I looked at you when
I did not want to and
I told you:
“There will always be
sadness
when it comes to you
because
you will always be the one
I want to be with
but
fate will never
destine that for us.”
OceanofPDF.com
I do not hate you,
but I hate that I allowed
your hate
to make me
hate me.
Even if you came begging for me,
I do not want your love
because
I finally learned
that I don’t need you
to love
me.
OceanofPDF.com
Just because I loved you,
and just because you hurt me,
I will not be ashamed to say that I loved you.
Because I really did love you.
I loved the loving person that
you were.
I do not love the cold person that you are now.
I loved the considerate person that
you were.
I do not love the inconsiderate person that you are now.
I loved the thoughtful person that
you were.
I do not love the deaf-hearted person that you are now.
You see, you once asked me what I loved about you.
And that is what I loved.
If you ask me today what I love about you,
I will tell you this:
I love the memory of the person that you
used to be.
I love that you allowed me to feel
the love that my heart can
contain.
I love the love that you showed me I can give.
I love the happiness that you showed me I could feel.
I love that you walked away.
I love that you did not stay.
I would have suffered if you stayed,
because of the person that you are
today.
OceanofPDF.com
I asked you what I meant to you,
with my heart beating out of my chest.
I was afraid of losing you
if you did not pass this test.
I told you that I was tired
of reading between the lines.
I asked you to tell me
if you could see the spark in my eyes.
I told you that I was ready to walk away
and never speak to you after this day.
If you could just tell me
if you wanted me to stay.
You asked me what I wanted,
your honesty, confidence, loyalty, or perhaps more?
I told you that I wanted it all,
with some love and a spark in your eyes that I’d
forever
adore.
I told you that I wanted you
to try harder.
You promised me to do so,
but, oh, how I wish I was smarter.
Now I realize that when you ask for love,
it’s not as true as when it comes your way.
And when the lines are blurred,
your search for love may have gone too far
astray.
OceanofPDF.com
Do You Know?
-Part 1-
Do you know what it feels like to be put on a race track and told to run
and run and run
with no end in sight?
Do you know what it feels like to continue on a road that you know has no destination,
just because you are afraid of not having any other road if you left the one that you’re on?
Do you know what it feels like to be forced to jump
off a cliff
knowing that you have no wings
to lift you?
Do you know what it feels like to shout
and scream
and yell
your heart out,
knowing that everyone is listening
but pretending not to hear?
I do.
OceanofPDF.com
-Part 2-
Do you know what it feels like to believe
that you are a mistake
and that feeling pain
means that you have no control of your feelings?
Do you know what it feels like to be given the shovel
to dig deeper and deeper
only to find out when it’s too late
that it’s for yourself
and that there’s no one waiting
to lift you out of the hole?
Do you know what it feels like to fight a battle
with no possible pain inflicted upon anyone
but yourself?
Do you know what it feels like to be wounded
and told that you caused the
wound to yourself by choosing to be where
the harm landed?
Do you know what choking on
injustice
feels like?
Do you know what it feels like to know that silence
is your best choice
when your words can no longer
be held inside of you as a
hostage?
I hope you never know that feeling,
because that is how you made me feel.
And I would never wish this kind of
pain
upon anyone.
OceanofPDF.com
Darling.
There are those who will light up your sky
and those whose sky you will light up.
There are those who will love you for who you are and those who you will crave being yourself around.
There are those who will dive into your ocean
and those whose depth you will want to drown in.
There are those who will make your heart flutter with happiness
and those whose hearts will flutter at your sight.
There are those whom you will love
and those who will love you.
And if the ones you love
love you back,
darling, you will forever see joy.
But if they feel the same way you feel about them towards someone else,
darling, that will be a disaster.
You may be a disaster for a day,
a month,
or a year.
Just don't be a disaster forever.
Find the harbor of safety.
And find the one who feels about you
the same way you feel about them.
I wrote this to myself and
to every broken soul
out there.
OceanofPDF.com
To my first love.
One day, you will ask for my forgiveness.
And I will tell you this.
Where were your sweet words when your lies tainted my soul? Where was your loyalty when your broken promises broke my heart?
Where were your tears when my eyes choked on mine?
Where was your heart when my beats fainted in my chest?
Where was your pain when mine ran through my veins?
Where was your love when mine for you lit through my eyes?
Where was your light when you captured the moon from my night?
Where was your depth when you took the pearls from my ocean?
Can you remove the
darkness that you shed from my soul?
Can you mend the promises that you broke?
Can you cry my tears back into smiles?
Can you beat the beats back into my heart?
Can you cleanse the pain from my veins?
Or can you weave my love for you back into my eyes?
Can you put the moon back into my night?
Can I trust you with an ocean
that you’ve already stolen?
OceanofPDF.com
If it’s my forgiveness that you want,
take it.
It is not for you,
but for me.
Take it and walk away,
but don’t you wait for more.
The doors you closed have been welded shut.
And the keys have been thrown into the seventh sky.
OceanofPDF.com
