No other can match my mirrored image...

No other can match my mirrored image
But even as I know this
I guiltily wish
To take you with me
Past slips presently
Beneath me
I tip toe so as not to disturb the memories
As I study their intricacies
Hoping to understand what they mean
When they echo those words I once believed
And as I approach to no avail
I wonder if waiting forms more questions
If hoping only causes the dust to settle among the fragments
And if crying only muddles the past
Which I want left alone •

I wrote this poem 10 years ago, at the age of 20. And I was filled with much anxiety for reasons. I had lived through many kinds of abuses exacted on my loved ones, homelessness, death, and various other atrocities. Finally, I was filled with 20-year old angst — which is just a step above teen angst, but not any better — during the second breakup of my life. You know young people love hard.
I was trying to move on from my past; to move on from the pain, without destroying the love that remained there. Life can be difficult to navigate when everything is new to you; when you have yet to collect enough wisdoms to guide you.

But time continues to move, and if you wait and take your own time, time will move you too. Understanding does not come all at once, but in hindsight. Eventually, if you are loving with yourself you will get through the pain, and time will have moved you so far from the past that you can view it objectively — separately, and apart from yourself. It is usually then that you will gain understanding of all that has happened, why, and what you have gained from it. And after the understanding, you can eventually leave the past behind you, where it belongs. •

Poem from Four Years in Chrysalis
© Aisha Tariqa Abdul Haqq Publishing
Follow @AishaTariqa for more original poems and inspiration •