Mirage (Mirage, #1)

by Somaiya Daud

He is invisible in a sea of invisible faces.

He has heard the stories, knows that these things are often twisted through the telling. But his life, the lives of his siblings and neighbors, bear witness to some truth. The occupation is cruel. Its heirs crueler still.

“I was running from love,” she said. “Your father, to be specific. I saw in my own heart my father’s capacity to lose himself in another person, and it frightened me.”

I wanted all of us to remember what we’d been, how strong we were. And endurance was strength, to be sure, but even a rock wore away to nothing if asked to endure enough rain.

I could imagine the pain of the writer, could feel it like a bruise on my heart as my soul looked over its shoulder, leaving something treasured behind.

And this, poetry like this, was all we had to preserve our stories, our music, our history.

He would risk his life in the name of an idea rather than live to fight another day.

that fear taught you endurance—you could let its unwavering presence wear you down, or you could learn to stand up despite it.

I’d been stripped of all things that were meant to be mine, that Dihya had blessed me with, and now— How could I keep myself, preserve myself, if I had none of myself left?

I felt the words shoot through me like lightning.

She had a fire in her, an unquenchable flame that would devour all that stood in her path.

“It means she—you are not defined by the men in your life, no matter how powerful. You lived before them and you shall live after them. You can’t let them determine your path.”