Bint el Nas: Distance and Belonging

What is the distance between night and day? For me, it can be enormous. Miles and miles long. Some of the things I experienced as a child have no place in the day-to-day workings of my mind. So I hide those experiences -- those truths -- under cover of darkness, and believe that I am somehow thus kept safe. Here I am writing incest, but I could just as easily be writing queer, or Arab, or sex, or some other transgressive thing kept secret. The thing itself may be valued as positive, negative, or neutral. It's the secret that does us in.

This piece is a thank you and a promise to the one who once, for a moment, bridged the gap between night and day, held and protected me.

This is about waking up in the night with terror.
This is about my most terrifying, most authentic moments; this is about my most real truth.
This is about hundreds of nights of waking up with terror, alone. Whether someone lay next to me or not.

Have I told you that my truth comes out at night? That during the night I know everything that has ever happened to me? That on rare occasions I wake up early enough to hear my mind tell my self to forget it all? That getting through the days has meant forgetting the knowledge of the night? That in waking up with terror I feel as if my very life depends upon going back to sleep?

This is about the power of love.
This is about sheer and complete nakedness before you, exposure unlike any other.
This is about the power of love.

This is about the power of love, and this is a promise:
Wherever your foot steps in this world, you will be loved by me.
Wherever this life takes you or me or us, you will be loved by me.
Wherever you move in the world, go with the knowledge that a woman exists who loves you.
Know that while this love may not keep you safe, this love will protect you.

You were God incarnate for me that night. And in return I love you.