Athonai sifathai tiftah
Ufee yagid emoonathai

You abused me
Without mercy
Seized every opportunity
To exert dominance and control
I risked everything
Dared
To save my soul
Put myself
Above everything
You put before me
And taught me
To bow down to
And self sacrifice
In worship
I reconfigured my brain
Devoted myself to
Healing and transformation
Harnessed my imagination
Living as-if
Until it became a reality
You meanwhile
Continued to be angry
That you failed
To destroy me
Break my spirit
Turn me into
Your slave
And even as my life
Was on the line
You played mind power and money games
While pointing accusing fingers at me
And crying out victim
And yet
Throughout it all
I held the vision of something
Beautiful Pure and Whole
Distilling the ssence of
The religion and values
That you preached but failed to practice
As I protected you
From yourself
From the world
Out of compassion
Because when I tell my story
I tell your story
Which is largely ugly
And shaming
But I gave you
Every opportunity
To change your narrative
Yet you kept making the same choices
To denigrate and attempt to annihilate me
Until after four decades
I had to accept
That maybe evil
Is not your foolish misguided uninformed choice
But an essential part
Of who you are

©2018 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author’s permission.

Wading through the sludge
Of your insanity
The heaviness and consequences
Of your obtuseness
Gravitation toward self-destruction
Grabbing hold to pull me down with you
In the twisted notion
And obsession
Of being my savior
So that ultimately
I have to release my hand
And allow you to fall
Into the jaws of the hungry shark
Whom you perceive
As the white knight
Who is eager to grab hold of you
In your rehabilitated form
And in the course of your mutual hysteria
Tear you to shreds
And eat you alive

©2018 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author’s permission.

Withdrawing from people
Withdrawing from life
Relinquishing both
Responsibility and possibility
I’ve been holding it all
For you
for me
Rising above going beyond
Repeatedly
But I’m exhausted now
Poignantly aware
That I’m a foreigner
In this stranger strange land
Where people choose
Sabotage
And self-defeat
Over devotion and discipline

©2018 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author’s permission.