Treating Silence
Dear BearVault,
I can’t hear anything by Chase Shakur without thinking of my ex husband.
You know that pain like first degree
Like, are you even feelin' me nowadays?
Red Pep and I moved to a new country together. About one month into our time there, we were driving down the highway and I suggested to make baked pasta for dinner. He loved lasagne.
"Why the fuck would you bake pasta, that's disgusting."
“...Isn’t lasagne baked pasta?”
“But lasagne is supposed to be baked. What, you’re just going to bake normal fucking pasta? That’s fucking stupid.”
"Oh, just a suggestion. I can make something else."
"And you can't even take criticism! You're such a typical fucking woman. Who fucking cares if I don't want what you suggested, just fucking take it."
"So you want me to make baked pasta, even if you don't want it?"
"Jesus fucking Christ, do whatever the fuck you want. I just don't fucking get why I can't call something disgusting. Why the fuck are you acting offended? Wallah I swear to fucking God--"
"STOP IT."
He was driving. He can't drive with women being too loud. He jerked the car over to the barely-there shoulder and got out. He flagged down a taxi. I screamed something visceral, something that would rise above the high speed traffic, something that probably didn’t sound like me, but I hadn’t heard myself in a long time. I ran across the highway, blurry eyes and all, praying a car would hit me, but I hope I was praying the opposite. I dropped to my knees on gravelly highway backwash. Hand on top of the taxi, leaned over, he glanced between me and the taxi a few times before waving off the taxi. “Thank you brother, nevermind,” hand over his heart. I watched him walk past me. I begged his eyes for contact.
“Get in the back seat and don’t fucking say a word.”
'Cause you play with me all the time
Don't know if you gon' stay with me all the time
“Actually I don’t fucking trust you in the back. Get up front. I swear to God I will take a taxi home if you say anything.”
He didn't talk to me for three days. When he found out I had called the mental health emergency line to talk me down, he forced me to hang up.
"If you're going to kill yourself, then fucking kill yourself, but just don't get me involved with that shit."
__
Can I outwit nostalgia? There’s no call to prayer that wakes me up anymore.
I still listen to Saint Levant. I was worried that simply hearing Arabic would send me into a panic attack. But when I’m biking too fast and I know it, I say chwiya habibti chwiya and I end sentences with s7a7? I still say lah.
On s'éloigne
Et tu reviens pas, okay, okay
On s'fait mal
On s'éloigne
I pulled my djellaba out of my suitcase. I haven’t worn it.
W'Allahi there's nobody like you
When I meet someone new and I say, “Lovely to meet you,” my hand automatically goes over my heart.
Tuya ahora y siempre / dyalk daba w dima,
Osali
