Letter To Habibi

It was wonderful to think you believed in me, and I appreciated how you saw the value in my survival’s ingenuity.

You seemed to not judge that I shopped at thrift stores, because one can find quality clothing there from all over at better prices than you’d find if you looked for the same items in many towns.

You rode beside me, checking in, through all these hardships of unemployment and moving to a town where our family would not have fit in, nor would have been accepted.

You fought to come back to me, everytime you were sideswiped by your culture and family for wanting to be with a woman older than you, who was an open-minded American.

But, you left me, in the end – and I’m left to feel shame all around.

Shame for the position I keep getting put into.

Shame for the way other supposed business “professionals” treat me without common decency.

And I look back at the life I offered you, where we would have had deep happiness between us – but it would have been pounded on by these hardships of financial insecurity, and people’s bias against our union.

It is one thing to say that we could have been like Khadija and Muhammad, sharing a love so rare and true.

It’s another thing in this modern materialism for you to be content with less because I cannot provide for you.

I am worn out by the constant struggle, and realize I would have carried this burden now for three people – not just two.

And once you had arrived here, the local masjid would have called you in and further indoctrinated you.

I see now that there was never a real chance for me and you because my spirit doesn’t give up – nor bow to hypocritical belief systems.

I dig for the truth and endure against societal brainwashing’s persistence, unsatisfied until I break through.

I cannot expect – nor further ask – the same of you.