The Raving Poets - Safina Hussain

My Secret Self

It’s my hidden alter ego that I keep from you. It’s the part of me I’m the closest to, which I try to keep far from your eyes. The one far away, in another world, trapped in the bubble of my imagination where I go to live out my other karma, karma that doesn’t fit into this world. Lines in this dimension are too rigid and sharp. Everything in my other life bends; nothing is impossible and I am who I’m supposed to be. It’s dark there, and black. Nothing is right but nothing is out of place. No one would believe me; they could never guess who I really am. They see me as I look – my heart doesn’t match my face. I wonder sometimes if I’m really there, far away, living out my life. Then I hear that faint, hard guitar intro and I know I’m right where I’m supposed to be. It screams for me, nothing is calm. I love the pulsating noise around me, engulfing me, moving me to take grip of my perfect horrible world I wouldn’t leave for anything. The drums never stop. The bass matching my breath: slow and steady. Everything spins and everything echoes. That dark corner you thought you’d never see me in. It’s nothing that belongs in this world, nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s for my eyes only, that sacred spot I listen and rock and feel the music flowing through my blood into my heart, making it beat harder and faster. The people there don’t speak how you speak. It’s English and sounds the same but it’s different, it’s familiar. Every other word I hear is foreign. They know me there, know that they’re in my world, to live as aspects of my brutal, loud haven. I close my eyes here and I see that spot and hear whispers. I close my eyes there and hear ‘I know we are, we are the lucky ones’. Love is different there. All love is forbidden, but everyone lacks self-control. Everyone sacrifices love here. After love is core-deep and people are nothing without each other, they leave; misery is romantic and sexy. Everything is stronger, hearts break 100 times faster and harder there than in this world. Tears burn and sorrow stabs through the hopelessly in love. It pounds at my heart at all hours of the day. It’s always calling me back. It slows down in my dreams and I just breathe in my surroundings that constantly haunt me. You always think I’m in this world, living the role you see in my so-called fate. I don’t want to stay here. I don’t belong here. The other world is where I’m meant to be and you are not meant to understand, ever. I have everything there, and yet I have nothing at all. I go to sleep at night there and I hear ‘It doesn’t matter what I want, it doesn’t matter what I need. It doesn’t matter if I cry, doesn’t matter if I bleed’. You tell me to show you the real me, but the real me is too far to be found and too complex to comprehend. She’ll just stay hidden in the shadows, where she’s free. I’m always alone, but it’s more comfort than I feel here, suffocated with your presence. It’s my world, it’s nothing you would ever understand… and it’s my little secret.