However it goes, it ends in pain.

Chapter 11

I don't think enough people understand what heartbreak means. It is not a word used to explain a feeling, rather an action. The process of heartbreak is as physical as breaking any bone in your body, only that it hurts far more intensely.

When Ahmad was no longer in my life, I had moments where a wave of sadness of overcame me, so painful, so strong that my chest would feel like bursting. The best way to describe it is to compare it with bustling happiness, that feeling in your chest that makes you feel so full, that your cheeks hurt because of too much smiling, or anxiety, that heaviness, only more painful and fuller. That sadness to me, felt like I had eaten so much food that all I wanted to do was throw up, yet I couldn't.

So, it was stuck inside, and I'd lie in a curl in bed, attempting to pull at my heart from outside, my long nails grazing at my chest, creating marks, pulling at my hair, sometimes I'd rock myself in bed, attempting to feel anything.

It started as pulling at my heart with the tips of my fingers, I just wanted it out of my body, for a few minutes, I didn't want to be so full, so consumed by pain. Then, I began grazing at my heart, with my nails, and soon, I was actively scratching my skin, biting down on my lips, as if doing these things would somehow help the lump in my throat escape, and the burning in my eyes ease.

It didn't work, and I kept biting harder, pulling at the roots of my hair harder, and scratching at my heart. And today, when you look down at the space between my breasts, there are marks, so carelessly created, but so deep, like the pain, how deep and care-less it was.

Today is one of those days where I think about Ahmad, where I listen to music about him, where I feel him, the good, the bad, when I see him in everything, I am consumed by him. It's one of the days I don't want to eat, because I feel so full with pain and anger, that I don't want to add anything else into my body.

I fall into a memory; I am quick to allow myself to daydream about my past, because I remember little about times in my life, this is the coping mechanism I've developed, forgetting things.

The day I realized I was in love.

It was a Friday afternoon, my mother wanted to pick something up from my aunt's office (my dad's sister).

We'd just finished the Friday prayer and as we got into the car, my mom said to the driver 'Aliyu, take us NIPAC' I was sitting in the passenger seat, and my mother was at the back. She was typing away on her iPad, something business related I assume. I on the other hand, was playing with the radio. I hadn't owned a phone then, so I was getting quite restless. I opened the seat compartment, where I found a pen. I took it out and twirled it around.

I can't seem to remember what it felt like to compose the poem I created that day, but I know I did it in my head before quickly scribbling it down on a tissue paper from the Kleenex box my mom usually keeps in her car.

His curly brown hair, swings in the air,

While I stand and watch him stare,

He doesn't see me, but he knows I'm there,

I quickly look down, when I meet his gaze,

He doesn't stop looking, Till I leave the place.

Five stanzas. I read the poem over and over in my head, I felt so powerful. The ability to so clearly articulate my feelings, my thoughts, to share my memory was a powerful feeling for me. That may also have been the moment I knew I was going to write forever.

When we got home that evening, my mother had said to me, 'I hope you prayed for me and your father during Juma'a, we always put our loved ones in prayer.'