خلخال

There are voices in our heads, telling us what to do, and where to go and what to wear. There is a little Zainab inside of me whom I come to when I am hurting and when I know I have left her defenseless and bare. The voices quarrel and the most bitter wins. What has brought me here and how does one get out? In the middle of the voices is the voice that pushes to dream of space. Openness. White-washed walls which I have chosen. A bed I will make. Or not. A bed. A space of a bed. A window. And curtains. And yet I cannot go beyond past the first few pages of her book. Mrs. Woolf. Who wanted a room of her own. Perhaps I take this lack of a room as an excuse to bury myself behind all that might seem so vital which has come to feel so loose, like trying to catch the grain – it isn't even a grain – of dust that bothered your eye. And yet I yearn to catch it. To follow it. To hide my smallness behind it and to make it bigger and bigger so that it can cover me who...