When I was 5 years old,
I was a reclusive kid.
My entire life revolved around my home,
My father,
My mother,
And my siblings,
Whose names I was still mixing up.
I liked to sleep next to my parents in bed.
I’d hug my mother for a while,
Then turn over,
And hug my father.

One day, my father didn’t come home.
I stayed up all night waiting for him.
A couple of days later,
I heard he got married.
At the time,
I didn’t understand how a man could marry two women.
How can there be another mama?
Every day was a struggle.
My father would hit my mother,
And she would leave the house.
This all came as a shock to me.

After some time,
When I was in fourth grade,
My mother wanted to aggravate my father,
So she left the house,
And took me with her during my exams.
She didn’t let me go to my exams.
I was such an innocent kid,
To the extent that I didn’t know that I’d fail,
If I didn’t attend my exams.
I was happy to be spared the whole period of exams.

When I went back the following year,
All my friends weren’t there,
And I was retaking the same classes as the previous year.
It took me some time to realize that I had failed.
I had just learned what “failing” meant.
“Fuck my mother,” I thought to myself.
She who was treating me as a tool in her ploy,
And made me repeat a year,
Just to annoy her husband.
My father didn’t even care.
“To hell with you and your son.”

I tried to overcome this trauma,
By bonding with my siblings.
I have 7 brothers,
And 3 sisters.
I’m the youngest among the boys.
But I failed to bond with them.
My brothers rejected me completely,
Even though I never hurt them.
They saw me as a child,
And didn’t like spending time with me.
They’d always go out and leave me alone.
My sisters were affected by the whole situation just as I was,
So we couldn’t help each other.

To hell with my father, mother,
And all of my siblings,
I thought to myself.
I’ve got my friends.
Starting any kind of relationship with anyone was difficult for me,
Because I used to be all alone
I got to know Ahmad and Hassan,
And they became my closest friends.
I loved them more than I loved my siblings.
I used to spend more time with them than with my own my family.
My life was slowly getting better.

Then I fell in love with a girl,
And for the first time in a long time,
I was happy.
The word “love” was not enough to describe how I felt towards her.
But we started to experience some problems with each other,
With my friends,
And with her family.
There was a lot of drama.
I had to end my friendship with Ahmad and Hassan for her.
They made me choose between her and them.
Making that choice was as difficult as choosing to keep either your arms or legs.
I couldn’t live without any of them,
Regardless of what made them give me an ultimatum.
I chose her,
Because she meant more to me than my friends,
Who already meant the world to me.
She eventually changed,
And we drifted apart.

I’ve been in the same place for a long time now.
I’ve hit rock bottom.
I live there now.
I’m not even trying to get out.
That’s because I’m a coward,
Or because I’m too weak to try to get out,
And get attached to someone or something again,
I’m too weak to put any effort into something that could destroy me again.