Tag: romance

  • To give up silently

    To give up silently

    “When you give up on something, it becomes a weighty silence that you carry within you for the rest of your life.

    It’s a quiet acceptance that what once was the centre of your being will never be a part of your being again.

    The silence is the only gesture that will honour such loss, such surrender.

    And when anyone asks, if they even know to ask, all you can muster as a response is a sheepish grin and an involuntary shrug, hoping to appear nonchalant enough to hide the pain and the shame that you struggled with in the tortured darkness all those lonely, distraught nights.

    That’s how the light fades, and the dullness replaces the enthusiasm that once defined your spirit.

    Only, there’s no one looking close enough to notice. So your shame remains safe, and your heart, incomplete.”

    Another excerpt from the manuscript threatening to bleed out of my heart and onto the keyboard.

    From the sequel to my novel, this is a piece that may make it into my next novel titled, Taqdeer: A dance with destiny.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Sometimes, our struggles need us

    Sometimes, our struggles need us

    A line that might make it into the final draft of my new novel.

    “And I think you’ll realise that the struggles of your life were not simply struggles intended for you, they were moments that were in need of only what you were capable of offering to make them better than they were.”

    This is from a scene where Zayd, the main character, tries to comfort someone he deeply admires, and loves, after she has been through a horribly abusive relationship.

    Will his ineptitude at human connections and emotional expression fail him yet again? You’ll have to read the sequel to find out.

    In the meantime, if you haven’t read the first part of this series, you can order your copy now from my website at zaidismail.com or via Amazon or Kindle.

    Taqdeer: A dance with destiny, follows on from An Incomplete Love Story, revealing the struggles of life in a dystopian culture, distorted by classism and the caste system.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Rocks don’t bleed

    Rocks don’t bleed

    Sometimes your tears are a mourning of what was, and at other times it’s a yearning for what could have been.

    More than this, it’s a path to the gentleness of your soul that is oppressed by the trials of life.

    When your heart stops yearning for what was, or what you wish could be different, your tears begin to forge a new path. A path towards the hope that you struggle to subdue.

    Just like rocks do not bleed, a hardened heart cannot cry. Beloved, take joy from the gentleness that you still possess despite the horrors of your past.

    Any bitterness that we court denies us the joy that we deserve, and any joy that we court denies them the bitterness that they hoped to share.

    Their bitterness is their heritage of a trial that is not yours to bear.

    Breathe, beloved. Breathe. And know that your tears, if shed for them, holds no value for a hardened heart.

    If tears must flow, let it flow to forge new paths of joy to replace the failed hopes of the past. But celebrate your tears as testament to the beauty of your soul, and not as regrets for having invested in a heart that was closed to joy.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • The broken cup

    The broken cup

    Too often, our focus is on how empty is our own cup.

    Sometimes it takes a while before we realise that we’re not taking care of ourselves as we lose ourselves in our concern for others.

    So we begin to focus on filling our cup so that the emotional fatigue can finally be overcome.

    Sadly, we don’t stop to consider if we’re capable of filling our cup because we don’t realise that it may be broken.

    Wounds from the past leave cracks and breaks in spaces that we hope others will mend, not realising that only we hold the key towards mending those cracks.

    Sometimes, we don’t realise that someone we love may have a broken cup, and we exhaust ourselves in trying to fill their cup, believing ourselves to be inadequate in our efforts to make them feel loved enough to want to love us in return.

    That’s why it’s important to heal before you try to find a home for your heart.

    And equally important is the realisation that sometimes it’s not your inadequacy that makes it difficult for them to love you back, but rather their belief in not being worthy of your love that prevents them from embracing you.

    Breathe, beloved…slow, rhythmic, deep breaths that fill those spaces left by the calloused hands that handled the most fragile parts of you.

    Breathe. Be whole. And then return to love.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Prisms of beauty

    Prisms of beauty

    If you keep chasing rainbows, you won’t find the time to notice that you’re the prism creating the beauty that you so desperately court.

    Breathe beloved, and pause for long enough to appreciate the beauty of you, despite the ugly of them.

    (From the sequel to An Incomplete Love Story that may never be written)

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • Dancing with destiny

    Dancing with destiny

    A snippet of a thought from the sequel to my novel, An Incomplete Love Story.

    We’re living in such uncertain times, and the uncertainty seems to be seeping into my thought processes.

    “Whether we were cut from the same cloth before time began, or we were shaped by life to be perfectly matched, it doesn’t matter. Destiny doesn’t always win. Sometimes, we avert destiny because we prefer the familiarity of our fears rather than the uncertainty of hope.”

    This, if ever it is written, will be central to the theme of my next novel, Taqdeer: A dance with destiny.

    Tell me what you think. Should I write the sequel, or should this be one of those love stories that should forever remain incomplete?

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock

  • A gentle neglect

    A gentle neglect

    It is better to die of violence, swift and decisive, than to die of a gentle neglect, slow and painful.

    The violent episode holds the promise of a quickened relief from the anguish of life, while being abandoned offers a view of our decaying spirit, while tortured by hope.

    Living with hope is a curse when immersed in a reality of hopelessness.

    Hopelessness is a convenience that spurns love, and embraces the cold comfort of solitude.

    It is the absence of risk, but also the absence of joy.

    Nonetheless, it carries with it the promise of not being betrayed…again.

    Again, because hopelessness only sets in when we’ve been viciously abandoned before, making the hope of being cherished too painful to consider.

    We nourish the cruelty of the world that kills our spirit, when we abandon what we love in favour of holding on to the familiarity of what we loathe.

    Thus, we destroy the very remedy for which we’ve been praying to heal our broken soul.

    Our eyes reveal the hollow in the light of day, and the stinging brutality in the quiet of night, knowing that none look close enough during the daylight hours, while praying that the one who sees everything takes pity on our souls in the tortured darkness.

    Breathe, beloved…just breathe…hopelessness has no home in a cherished heart.

  • A life beyond being

    A life beyond being

    Without experiencing the joy of living, life will remain a dutiful encounter.

    Similarly, without experiencing the sweetness of true love, love will feel like a need to serve and to be served.

    It is only in connecting with an experience beyond what we imagined to be the limits of what is possible, that we begin to pursue the impossible.

    But such an experience cannot be taught, nor can it be studied to be appreciated.

    Intellectualising it makes it a dream, while experiencing it makes it the only acceptable outcome.

    But…fear…

    Fear destroys dreams and replaces it with complacency.

    Because the fear of losing what we deeply yearn for, is more daunting than living our dream.

    So we protect our dreams from abandoning us, or us abandoning them, by convincing ourselves that such romantic aspirations are not for this world.

    Because what was birthed in heaven, cannot be sustained on earth.

    Faith is all that stands between a life worth living, and an existence worth protecting.

    Have faith, beloved… And just breathe…