i am unfolding, meet me where i am

tie your camel

"Even though everything we say or write, there are still things in the heart that are too big to be said" Mahmoud Darwish

what made this pomegranate so sweet is that is was served from my mothers hands alhamdulillah, i love this photo and it matches the poem/internal monologue below

lately i have been thinking, perhaps overthinking. after leaving conversations more lonely than when they started, i thought why don’t you want to know all of me. the real me, not just the easy parts. i’ve learned to curate my thoughts, suppress parts of the inescapable existence of being me, just enough to know if somebody would want to know a bit more, but they never do, not completely. they just say they do for the art of a continuing conversation, to have my presence in theirs. some people give energy, others only like receive, i am of the former of the two options. energy vampires. but i don’t want to talk to those who only love that what is easy, that only know how to consume what others spill. scrolling through writing prompts and poems on instagram and i came across a poem called ‘meet me where i am’ :

'meet me where i am,

i know i change direction

but life doesn’t always make sense

theres no road to perfection' - @zarapinkpoetry

perfection. direction. two things, two words that make me wobble. i thought how can i ask others to meet me where i am, if i can't even meet me where i am? i’m struggling to make new friends but not in the sense of hello or conversation, but rather, how can i sit before someone and not really tell them who i am? what i have been through. how can i call somebody a friend who does not know me at all? why am i not brave enough, comfortable enough, in my own skin to say exactly who i am anymore? my life sometimes feels like the truman show, my emotions become different scenes at play, my dissociation the director and my masquerading laughter but the mere final credits.

i have an incurable home sickness for a feeling of stillness, that i crave but will not chase. because in stillness i worry i am never doing enough. what am i running away from? i don't judge others the same way i sit at the panel to my own thoughts. rather i listen with an open heart because others showing me they are human always had a careful way of enveloping my heart and sealing my thoughts with the soft warm touch of a wax stamp.

i ask the readers here, how do you make yourself comfortable speaking again when you have been shut down? when you have found yourself in the face of what could be confused as the devil in human form, casting self doubt on who you are. who am i readers, if i can't seem to shake the whispers of them from my inner thoughts. where i sip a drink seated on the floor, but then question if i enjoyed it because my existence became a mirror of their words. words that were hateful, words that grew fingers just to point in the direction of me.

before i ever ask somebody to meet me where i am, do i need to meet me there first? can't i ask for both at the same time? is not asking you to meet me there whilst i find my way on the uncertain path, a perfect picture of exactly the meaning of meet me where i am?

as always my inner thoughts are met with my internal poetic narrator, one who sometimes follows no rules, where poems turn into monologues or letters of some sort… but i promise you there is a rhythm in my head to all of these words, i hope you can hear it too

meet me there

will i ever be worth the mess?
does a pomegranate taste less sweet
because it’s wrapped in a beige, broken shell?
have i ever questioned the sweetness of a tangerine
just because its peel was too bitter, too tough to touch?

has conversation ever been perfected,
or is it only art once the words leave another’s lips?
if the darkest berries hold the sweetest juice,
does that make my soul the sweetest of them all?

will my soul ever be worthy of an army halting,
to search for my necklace amidst war,
even if the war is only within myself?
A tainted soul, perhaps,
bound to the bruise of their bitterness

does the sky lose its blue
as the clouds roll across its face,
or does the soil thank the shade
for a day under the guarded grey?

is it possible that another’s harshness
can tempt fate,
draining all desire from this life?
or am i just crafting excuses
to defeat my own state?

hands caress the light switch, a soft touch.
i gaze into the mirror, an epiphany
no reflection exists without light.
in the absence of such grace,
what shape does my soul begin to take?

dear God, grant me the strength to tie my camel,
to meet myself where i am.
i am torn between past and future,
oh dear God,
show me how to feel worthy of love.
help me (please) to meet myself where i am,
allow the new pieces of me
to blend with the best parts of the old.
dear God, i love You
can You show me how to love myself?

only then will i find the meeting place
where the present truly resides,
and my camels, with all their faces,
all their stories,
and their pastimes,
are gently and uniquely tied.

only then would i be ready to meet You

jerilee xo

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when writing this i realised how grateful i am i have come so far. i know if you have been reading my stuff you know that i reverted in 2022. but i never found the chance and perhaps in the future i will gain the courage to explain why my first years after reverting were ones in a place i would not wish on anybody. however, i am growing from it and i am realising now that perhaps, i had to experience such harshness to bring me closer to Him. i recognise that Allah (Swt) will always test me, and even when i am broken beyond what i can imagine, that test will have a positive outcome.

i learned Allah (Swt) has not only drawn me closer to him. but closer to my family, to my mum who for the first time after birthing me twenty something years ago watched me break down and cry. maybe i needed that pain to finally open up. and if im being honest with myself i would go through that pain again just to experience the sweetness of being able to be a little bit more open to my mother, and to let my family see i am human too.

i think of all the things that broke me before and i kept asking myself, why? why does this keep happening to me, my life started to feel like lemony snicket’s series of unfortunate events. i think now i understand. i needed to be pushed to a breaking point where i would open up, so that the above could carefully piece together. i am the only muslim in my family and this final break has been good dawwah for them, to see me in my most fragile moments, and see how Allah (Swt) has pulled me through. for me to be brave enough to finally show them parts of who i am, and why i cry.

i think now perhaps then if i start reminding myself of these things daily, i will find myself soon inshaAllah accepting where i am at and finally meeting myself there. heres a few notes from an islamic talk i went to recently, a few reminders that ties closely with what i was feeling writing this post. because again without Islam, i am nothing.

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my notes: (they might be a bit messy, forgive me, and please do correct the dua if it is written wrong in my notes)

light upon light talk ‘be a friend of Allah (Swt)’ 04/05/2025

• Chapter 26 Ibrahim (AS) dua: ‘My lord grant me authority, and join me with the righteous and grant me the reputation of honour in later generations of Allah and make me of those who inherit paradise and do not disgrace me in the say of ressurection’. Ibrahim (AS) will be the first to be clothed on the day of judgement.

• We will all slip in moments of shame but keep saying Astaghfirullah

• The greatest blessing is not to exist but to be a muslim

• you can come out one of two people from trauma; the one that traumatises or compassionate

• self note:realised i made dua to always be as great as my mum and i couldn’t be without these tests, i thank Allah (Swt) even though i hate the pain

• Self note: think about for your writing the butterfly effect and how people speak about it so often without mentioning all these small flutters and motions are precisely the plan of Allah (Swt) and that’s far more beautiful than a simple butterfly effect. both are beautiful but remember that its Allah (Swt) who made it possible

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thank you if you got this far it means the world to me and i hope you enjoyed reading this and perhaps feel closer to Allah (Swt) everytime i share a dua, a reminder, or simply just a piece of me to you. inshaAllah.

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wadi shehah september 2022. the mountains are one of the signs from Allah (Swt) Himself, to us, His creation. this was a month before i reverted. a few months before i became a hijabi. my first solo trip to a different country. a reminder that Allah (Swt) has written me a beautiful journey that i should be proud and grateful for always, alhamdulillah

dubai 2022. love this photo i took. i happened to find a box park in the middle of dubai haha and thought ‘i need to check this out’. i just love the contrast of red to white in this photo and also that the rose is placed delicately within a glass container, the fragile encasing the fragile, quite beautiful.

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