When is it easy

I’ve watched her

Walk through the flames

“It never gets easy”. Yet

She wakes up and smiles

Through tears, she has just shed

*

I’ve watched her

She, a metaphor for strength

And I’m her daughter

Learning to climb

Falling to climb again

*

I was but a spectator

Blindsided by the details

I’ve watched her crumble

She, a dune of sand

Yet a mountain

A lesson about rising again

*

Does it ever end

The fear of losing it all

The fear of never having it

The fear of moving on. Yet

There is love above it all

*

It’s a sunset to welcome a sunrise

The hands that wiped our tears

Are now ours. And,

We’re sentenced to be loved

By those whose love,

We forget

*

With the little knowledge

That we deem grand

We part ways

To a dead end

*

“Dear one,” she says

It is looking at your reflection

And reaching to hold your hand

It is going to sleep

With the trust of living again

“It never ends”

*

She says,

Your story has only begun

And you’re the warrior

Even if it is hard to see

“It doesn’t get easy”

Yet, it never ends.

-Imane Ben

___________________________________________________________________

Author’s Note:

I wish you a blissful summer.

with love,

Mother’s Daughter was originally published in Wordsmith Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Visitors

Here we go again,

Forcing a smile again

Forgot to close the gate again

A gate whose password I reset

Over and over again

*

Feeble attempts of change

Get stuck between the lines

Of uninvited guests, who

Creep their way inside

My mind…

Chamber of light

*

Chamber of darkness

Whose light is dim

Flickering between thoughts

Of hope and despair

“Help” is but a whisper, yet

Smacks against nothingness

Now, I feel…

Broken beyond repair

*

Trying to change the show

Laughing in the mirror

Perhaps these thoughts go

If only my smile got wider

Bigger.

Like I mean it. “Try harder”

Always harder

Perhaps faster

For recovery takes time

And time is my currency

Their asset, if they overstay

*

What’s next?

Questions of “why” fill my head

Why now, why me, why here

Disheartened by my own fear

Always looking for “better”

Settling for ‘good’? never

Falling in love with the pressure

Sometimes, hating each other

*

Here I go again

Forcing a smile again

Welcoming my visitors again

Changing my show again

Over and over again

Resistent no more, gently

Letting them go again

-Imane Ben

Visitors was originally published in Wordsmith Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

it is the distance that hurts,
not so much that you left.
it is more the unspoken words
than all the promises not kept.

there was never a doubt in my eyes
that you’d be the one to stay.
i wished your warmth to linger by
not to be missing you this way.

it is unfair how these things work.
how one hurts while the other’s unaware.
it isn’t fair how the feelings still lurk
in a mind that doesn’t want to care.

it is frustrating how after all this time
it is enough to make me restless.
even after convincing myself I’m fine
my heart still turns reckless.

the distance won’t go away
but I hope your memories do.
because I know I’ll hurt each day
trying not to love you.

distance was originally published in Wordsmith Library on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.