Reader

“Love was a room that appeared when you stepped into it.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“This, I now know, is what is meant by grief, a word that sounds like something stolen, picked out of your pocket when you least expect it. It takes a long time to learn the meaning of a word, particularly a word like that, or perhaps all words, even ones as simple as “you” or “me.”
― Hisham Matar, My Friends

“The performance of certainty seemed to be at the root of so much grief. Everyone in America seemed to be afraid and hurting and angry, starving for a fight they could win. And more than that even, they seemed certain their natural state was to be happy, contented, and rich. The genesis of everyone’s pain had to be external, such was their certainty. And so legislators legislated, building border walls, barring citizens of there from entering here. “The pain we feel comes from them, not ourselves,” said the banners, and people cheered, certain of all the certainty. But the next day they’d wake up and find that what had hurt in them still hurt.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“My ideal man," Malak said ponderingly. "I'm not sure what that means. I don't want the ideal. I want complexity. I want passion. I want imperfection.

"My ideal man is not ideal. But," she said, leaning forward, "I'll tell you about him."

"I want him to have lunch at home. I want him to help me with my own mind. I want him to be bookish, wise, cunning, and exemplary. I want him to be a good storyteller, and always on my side."

"Yes, I want him to be near me. A good conversationalist, proud, not afraid of the lofty heights."

"I want him to be a singer, one who knows and loves a good song, can play an instrument, the oud or the ney, and preferably both. I want him to be a good mourner, know how to attend to the pain of others, a consoler who could assuage the grief I have for all those I loved and befriended and who are no longer here. I want him to be a healer, an expert in all that troubles me. I want him to be a fire that annihilates all danger that lies ahead and behind me and that which I have, somehow, without his help, found a way to avoid. I want him to be faithful---"

"Incapable of deception. I want him to be constant__"

"Constant in his love and in his prayers and, when those prayers are not answered, I want him to change reality with his own hands. I want him to be my lord-"

"For all the world to see. I want him to make me proud, to make vanish old and fresh longings, new and unremembered regrets. I want him to be vigilant-"

"To protect me from sorrows even once their great heights have passed. I want him to know how to deal with the past. I want him to be occasionally gripped by fear-"

"The fear of losing me. I want him to be patient, to help me to endure the injustices visited upon the houses of those I love. But I also want him to be impatient-"

"To lose all reason and hurry off, forgetting his shoes and hat, and ride-"

"His horse flanked by wings of angry dust, galloping, if need be, all night to find the traitorous, to change my fortunes and avenge me."

"And then I want him to return to me, to prosper by my side. I want to take him to the clearest stream, one only I know the way to, and there quench his thirst. I want him to look at me sometimes as if he does not know who I am. But I want to be forever recognized by him, come what may, to point me out in a crowd when, after the passage, we are reunited."


"I want him to see me when I cannot see myself.”
― Hisham Matar, My Friends