In Sanity

The same way you tell tales, so do they. They talk behind your back, y’know. I know I’m talked about when I’m not there. Everyone does it. My room mates, I can see them now. They are sitting in a bar with friends. They’ve had their standard 2 beers and halfway through the third they begin to talk about their roommates past and present.

"She made this whole pan of eggplant parmesan. It was 10:30 Wednesday night and There She Was. I swear to God. It was so bizarre. This huge eggplant and she fried the whole thing. A whole pan. Eggplant."

Then they begin to laugh and get joined in their laughter since no one really ever wants to feel left out.

My boyfriend to his next girlfriend. Post coitally he’ll stroke her hair, more likely, she’ll be stroking his and he’ll say:

God, the way she gave me head, so loving, so gentle, no one has ever taken me that way before. She used to just love giving me head. Used to tear at my pants and sigh peacefully once she had me in her mouth.

He’ll grin to himself, rub his tummy, lost in lala land, not realizing that how much his girlfriend will at that moment begin to hate me and will think of me and compare herself to me each time she takes him in her mouth. Imagine having to follow an act like mine. Poor thing.

My women ‘friends’ to my other women ‘friends’: -(I don’t think I want to know what they say about me when I’m not there…I can’t begin to imagine, I shudder to imagine).

My Amee to my Abbu: Bechari ka kya karengay? Abbu to Amee: Shadi. Amee to Abbu: Be serious. Abbu to Amee: Shadi.

The man I slept with last week in lieu of my boyfriend to our mutual friend will say:

She’s insane and very confused. Started crying when we had sex. Wanted to talk instead. Asked me the meaning of life and what I wanted. Wanted to then talk about her boyfriend. Kinda kinky but it turned her on. Wasn’t all that drunk, knew what she doing. She should leave him. She and I have a mutual attraction. We look good together, don’t you think?

And what do I say behind your back?

I don’t tell tales.

Hah!

--

I am about to kill myself.

I’m staring at the ceiling. I’m lying flat on my back. My arms are to my sides, my palms pointing up to the sky. I am floating on my blue eiderdown bedspread. I’m wearing the new shirt I bought yesterday. I’m trying it on again, to make sure I love it just as much today as I had yesterday. It’s back less, so it makes me look more delicate than I am. My shoulder blades are rounded, not pointy. Makes all the difference. The soft light filtered though the Oguchi lampshade makes me look beautiful. I know, I’ve seen myself. All the right shadows, the planes of my face are highlighted and softened. Never tube lights on desi skin. I turn my eyes to the side. I will my head to not follow but once my eyes reach my temples, the ache is too much. My boyfriend smiles at me. I remember taking that picture. He’s not flirting with the camera, it’s me he sees. He came close to loving me that day. Today he hates me. No, he’s confused. He doesn’t trust himself to feel. He’s afraid of what he can or cannot feel. Hate is too easy. I blow him a kiss and look back up at the ceiling, I have homework to do, some reading I’ve been putting off. I didn’t miss class. That feels good. I’ve been here before, staring at another ceiling but this time I went to class.

Have you ever said it out loud? I haven’t, not yet. I’m only thinking this, I’ve only written it down: I’m going to kill myself. Whisper it if you dare.

Why would anyone? It’s fun, isn’t it to imagine how much they’ll all miss you once you’re gone? How sorry they’ll all be? In my case puzzled. Such a wonderful girl, always smiling. Such potential, such energy, such life. She was going places, she was making something of her life. They’ll talk; my room mates, boyfriend, women, my parents. Well, let’s not think about what they will go through. They may just fall apart. Makes it a little harder.

I wish I could have some cookie dough ice cream before I go. But there will always be something I’ll want. I can either stop or keep alive wanting. Fitting that I die deprived. A Pakistani Shia’a woman. It is only fitting. A tribute to self.

Is anything the matter with me?

The matter is the homeless man I saw on the subway. He smelt so bad I had to change cars since his stench was choking me. The matter is the little prom queens sitting next to me in French Roast. He said to her, she said to him, but he and his estate are worth this much and my god, those children from the Bronx on the train. There’s a reason WHY certain People have a bad name, you know.

The matter is I’m not an American and I am an American so you can take your foreign ideas out of here. You know nothing of our people and our lives. You aren’t one of us.

The matter is that crap writers get published and others are asked to ghostwrite.

The matter is the men I loved and those that loved me. We coordinated it all wrong.

The matter is that I was born Muslim and never got to decide. At 23 its past the age of decision. If I leave now, they’ll kill me. So I get to be a hypocrite and it makes all parties happy. Not me. I want out.

No, these aren’t the reasons. They are just some general shikveh and gilay I have with the world, with God. There are probably a hundred millions idiots thinking the same thoughts but not one of us is doing a damn thing about it.

Then perhaps, that is the problem. Must there be one? A problem, I mean? Can I not just feel like it? A whim, a passing fancy? People get cravings all the time. I’m impregnated with listlessness and a recurring dissatisfaction. Why all the intellectual justifications? A product of consumer society, I want to just do it.

I’ve painted my toenails red. I like it. They look sexy. My mother will try hard to take it all off though before sending me off to God. Red never comes off properly. She’ll pray fervently for my soul since I have sinned. Suicide is a big no no. Maybe it’ll inspire, drive her over the edge to do the same. God knows, she’s wanted to for such a long time now. She hasn’t for my sake. The depth of my ingratitude is endless, abysmal. All she’s done for me, the pains I’ve taken to do the opposite, yet she loves and prays for me. God bless her. Her life now basically, will have been a waste. Another point proved. I am nothing of what she’s dreamed since I was born. What was the point, Amee? I couldn’t have asked you to stop dreaming. I wish I could have but you didn’t have much more other than what could be, now what could have been. I don’t know if I’m sorry.

I find the smell of my sweat, the sight of Madhuri dancing, Nusrat singing and the feel of a lover’s or my mother’s hands so very very comforting. I’ll miss warmth. Today, it’s what I cherish the most. It’s intimate. Someone sharing that with you, their space, letting you in that close. Will I start to panic as I start to get cold? Will I try to get up in a hurry thinking, shit, I’ve made a mistake, not today, not now, oh god, not now. Will it be too late or will I make sure I can be saved? I tried once to catch pneumonia when I was 7years old by standing in the freezer in just my underware. I wanted to catch pneumonia and DIE I told myself. I knew my mother would save me. She was an emergency physician, she could save anyone. They would all ooh and aah over me and my mother would forever keep me at her side. My ayah found me shivering in the freezer after a minute and pulled me out. I was howling when she wrapped me in a hundred blankets. She had assumed that I had gone in there to play with myself and told me that if I promised to never touch myself there again she wouldn’t tell Amee I was naked in the freezer. No one ever knew of my brush with death, so no one cared. My ayah began to put mirchi on my fingers before I went to bed.

Well, there’s no ayah here today and no mirchi. And I hear your love is better than ice cream.

I invite all my lovers one by one to invade me, my senses, my memories, one last time. Inhale softly. I love the way I smell. It’s something I point out, hey, don’t I smell great? My scent hovers in the air. It’s comforting, familiar. Honest. There are no moments of clarity and I wonder if I’m serious. My heart jumps for a second. My nose ring sparkles in the soft light as I shudder. I feel warm. But the blood is ruining the new beautiful shirt I bought yesterday.