a muslim girl's diary

welcome! 🤗 slightly horse-obsessed, slightly vain barbie stan. practicing poet. just me ranting about life

[floatinghijabi]

sometimes when i hear the quiet at night

aside from the hum of the air conditioning

i think about what my life would have been like if i did what i wanted to instead of what i must do

i compare my life to those who have seemingly lived theirs to its fullest

i grieve the person i never got the chance to become

[floatinghijabi]

my mind

actions speak louder than stares

if he wanted to he would

carry on

[melonwah]

[floatinghijabi]

to be known

a silent yearning to be known

and yet i cannot stay with you for long

before i feel i’ll be torn asunder

through the deep ivory canopy

falling too deep into love,

with no return.

and i don’t know how to stop this carousel

when to get off, will i still be able to stand?

to walk in a straight line?

hold me close, and perhaps i’ll stay on a little longer.

[floatinghijabi]

caretaker

i still remember that day when i was in 9th grade,

how you towered over me with your familial shadow enclosing me

i had sat down and the

pockets of my pants opened up and coins and

cash fell out.

i was so embarrassed.

you looked away and later sat with me

and asked if i had anything to eat while i was with food on my plate.

your glasses like two windows bringing in warm sun rays.

and i wanted to stay there forever.

you smiled in a way i hadn’t grown up with.

but you had sat too close to me and

a sinking feeling has trickled down to the depths of my heart,

the sounds of your words ringing sharply in my ears,

like my coins fell to the ground,

ever since

that day

[floatinghijabi]

Trump Tower Fairies

you gave me nothing

i poured myself over

i wish you’d try to see my world

as i’d try to see yours

trying to enter your body and touch your experiences

wanting to live your life though i was not there

i wish you’d wanted to be me the same.

when i liked antiques, and you liked modernism,

i’d try to warp myself to a version

more clean,

less loud,

more serious,

for you.

on the river, you told me you liked the little lights in the Trump Tower windows,

they seemed like little fairies when you showed them to me,

and i was afraid to tell you what i saw.

[simena]

Füsun Ürkün

[floatinghijabi]

realization

to see from another’s eyes your own life

has haunted me since.

when i cannot feel my hands, arms, or legs,

losing agency over a body i once thought was mine,

floating above myself

is there even a self?

and how does one know for sure?

[floatinghijabi]

to take life

the amber light

makes my mind glow as if i was

exposed to her,

a violent fury ball of life.

and i will bask in his night of heavy headed

musings and weights of words unspoken

or gashes kept under wraps for your sake.

and i feel i can control the way you live

with a glance given or taken,

a loud sigh or furrowed brow.

it makes me so disturbed,

like a humid early morning,

to wield this sword over you,

though i only ever wanted to be

fought for.

[floatinghijabi]

from the poet’s muse

i’m not your savior

i’m not your muse

i’m not the woman who will renew you

i’m just a girl

a shell of myself

i need deeply for a man

who keeps me off of his shelf.

and i don’t know how to stop it,

this energy coming to me,

these boys,

asking for love and begging for it, please?

i cannot please you,

you cannot please me.

so why does it never end?

is it something in me?

[floatinghijabi]

to her:

i know you wrote me that poem,

the lines of love never lie,

even if you decide your heart was not true.

but i’m not sure how that would change things

to him:

i know you looked at me with a spark,

so small a spark but still alight,

bright enough to peel me open and

leave me burning.

why do you never walk to me though

i run to you,

yet you had stood at my door while

i was waiting?

[floatinghijabi]

4/29/2025

I give the love I’d like to receive, but some people think it’s only for them, and that I don’t need anything from them.

[floatinghijabi]

4/28/25

life has taught me that a man can stare at you as if you’re the first woman he’s ever seen, and he still won’t have deep feelings for you.

[floatinghijabi]

to my future husband (revised)

as i lie in the thick breath of summer heat,

sleepless, beneath the hush of midnight walls,

i imagine you—

the one who will quiet the tremble in my hands,

and press rest gently onto my eyelids,

until my worry lines forget their shape.

i hope you ask nothing more than what i can give,

and recognize the weight of what i offer:

love that’s been unstitched and sewn again,

threadbare, but honest.

if you receive it with steady arms—

the kind that hold without conquest—

know that took more courage than i had to spare.

i don’t know you yet,

but if you let me speak without shrinking,

and listen when my voice stumbles in the dark,

if i can unravel beside you, word by word,

without fearing your departure—

then understand:

you will have touched something holy in me.

i’ve never handed myself over, not fully—

not the rooms where old grief sleeps,

not the corners where i hide the softest versions of myself.

but if you aid me in stilling the storms that churn inside my skull,

and walk me ashore with you,

i will not leave your side.

if you love me with tenderness, not possession—

like a knight who loves his beloved

not for her crown,

but for the way she whispers in sleep—

then know i will be forever grateful to God,

that someone has finally cherished

the softness in me.

i only hope to become

what you will have been to me.

all that i hope you will be.

[floatinghijabi]

to my future husband

as i lay here in suffocating heat,

unable to rest my hollowed eyes,

i hope you are the one that douses cool sleep over me,

and lifts my worried lines.

i hope you will not expect more than what i can give,

and i hope you know how profoundly i love you.

i don’t know you yet,

but if i give my heart to you, with all its sorrows and lost loves,

and you accept it with safe, caring arms,

and i can ramble on to you for hours,

with no fear of abandonment,

then know how difficult that was for me.

my whole life, i have never given myself to anyone

if you tame my tempest seas of overthinking,

and guide me ashore with you,

i will never leave your side.

if you love me tenderly and without fear,

like a knight loves his princess,

while the whole world sees a queen,

then know i will be forever grateful to God,

that someone has finally cherished the softness in me

i hope to be all that you will be to me,

all that i hope you will be.

[floatinghijabi]

4/7/25

always the muse, never the love

[floatinghijabi]

unspoken words

i fear i will never know true love

because every small interest in me is crushed so quickly

when they see me, they build me up,

and likewise, i build them up,

until reality comes crashing down on them,

and their words remain unspoken.

and i don’t know if i can control it, i wish i could

i can’t change how they think of me,

who they see

but i can change how i feel of me

and in this moment,

i feel i can piece together my future

one haphazard, misshapen mosaic of

my pasts, whether real or imagined,

my dreams, whether in reach or seas away,

and my futures, whether inevitable or unwritten,

and i see that the end will be me, alone,

and God

no one else can save me, and i cannot save anyone