3 a.m.
i wake up at 3 a.m. to nothing
only the still, hot air in my room
i am drenched in my grandmother’s words
they suffocate me like humidity
so that i have no choice but to rise.
The world is not worth our pain, she says in Egyptian-Arabic,
and in her blind eyes i see much regret,
i begin to carry that regret inside of me, like a baby,
sometimes i’m afraid to move for i may be consumed
and i am unsure whether it is feeding off of me or if i am feeding off of it
i rise,
the way we believe angels to rise on the evening of Laylet Al-Qadr
when our prayers go up to God
when my mother prays in the living room, i hear her whisper words of hope
she does not know i stand at the side, absorbing her
she does not think i study well, but i study her, so that i memorize her dreams and know her four different smiles and understand what she truly means when she says i should have been a teacher
i rise at 3 a.m., at 4, at 5
something is tugging at me to get up, start my day, continue my life
for perhaps it is not just my life but the lives of the many women who live inside of me
maybe i’ll devour a book or drown myself in thoughts of my future
anything to keep me from thinking about how you called me last night
and in a soft whisper told me that, at seventeen, you were engaged to be married.
- Nardine — Find me on Instagram here.


