Leaping Back and Forth

Safe haven is but an illusion,
a matrix of heaven and hell.
At the age of 38, I took a leap,
but not of faith.
A leap out of the cave.
I saw a light.
Now I can recognize the dark.
I can't go back.

Home is no longer 'home'.
My time ended there.
I was no longer welcomed there.
Every breath was a protest.
All tightened up against my eyes.
All felt small.

It was just the time to search for a new place.
I packed up and hit the road,
seeking refuge in foreign lands,
alien world.
 But I had no other choice.
The life I was building was bombed off:
a castle in the air.
It was time, to change places,
 seek new heavens.
The old paradise turned to new hell. 

When I came here, great expectations filled the air.
Great in stature and great in multitude.
I thought the sky was the limit,
but it turned to be my head scarf!
I will always be the foreigner,
I will  always be that Muslim girl!
I can't take it off;
I won't be me.
I will feel strange.
I won't recognize my reflection in their eyes.
Keeping it alienates me back
toward the 'home' I left,
captivates me in my foreignness.
I still wear the scarf.
It is my way back, when I lose direction. 

Back home, no one dreams of tomorrow.
Tomorrow is a prisoner of fear.
Back home, life is born of agony,
immature, stillborn.
Life ends before it begins and other ghosts survive:
long live the tribe! or is it, long live Islam?
or probably, the state?
Does our God needs cheering as well?
Long live Allah?!
It doesn't make sense. 

Back home, we lost our ways to sanity,
but found it toward sainthood:
we gaze at heaven, but feed the flames of hell.
Long live the Imam.
Isn't he alive for centuries now?
isn't he bored with this life?
At 38, I still search for a resting place,
Yet, he's survived!
Wars, floods, famine, and all earth's angry moves.
He just survived!
Does he watch, waiting for the right moment to make an entrance,
when all the world will hail him the savior?
He is probably wandering unaware of voices getting louder everyday:
long live the Imam!! 

Home feels hundred of years away.
I came and took the leap of time,
left the matrix of heaven and hell.
I jumped to a reality, unknown.
Foreign lands.
They still alienate me back home, but I refuse to leap back.
I refuse to submit again.
I am out of the cave, at last!