[Please donate to the Milwaukee Freedom Fund if you are able] This is an update more than it is an actual, cohesive blog post. As far as summers go, this has been one for the books. I don't need to reinvent the wheel: we have seen the culmination of so much, this year, and the … Continue reading Short note: Tired(s)
*gasp* A poem? On WaxesPoetic? "But Neiha," I hear you say, "I thought you said you wouldn't be-" Yes. I know. But exceptions prove the rule, and I was very sweetly asked to share this poem somewhere on social media more than once today, and - most importantly - it's a poem about Laylat-ul-Qadr, my … Continue reading Ghazal for Laylat-Ul-Qadr
One of my best and oldest friends died two days after I got engaged. I had known her for 12 years, since I was about 13 and she was 14. We met the way a lot of people increasingly meet now - online, in silly circumstances that don't require recounting now that I'm in my … Continue reading Grief
Sometime in my last semester of college, I found myself crying on my therapist's couch. Okay, this is vague - I spent a lot of my last semester of college crying on my therapist's couch. In retrospect, I was genuinely in the throes of an existential crisis, but a major perk of being incredibly high-functioning … Continue reading On being mentored
Many, many years ago, when I was far more active on this blog than I am today, I used to write music reviews, book reviews, day-to-day updates, anything that I wanted to just get down and out there. A part of me misses the lack of self-consciousness with which I treated my own writing. The … Continue reading Revisiting rejections
This guide was requested by a friend but in all honesty, this is something I've been thinking about writing for a while. This is no replacement for actual honest to god therapy, so please do seek a counselor if you struggle with some of the issues I vaguely allude to! Also, naturally, content warning for … Continue reading An unqualified guide to bullet journaling for mental health
I have always been hyper-aware of my ambition, to the point that I am constantly appraising myself vis a vis others' accomplishments. I wish I could say with confidence that it is benign appreciation, and a desire to better myself. I've recently started accepting it for what COULD be: envy, a truly exhausting emotion to … Continue reading Short Note: Isolation Abroad
I was not excited for this Eid. For all that I was grateful to have relatives nearby in the Netherlands, I really felt the absence of all that was familiar to me. My first Eid in Boston had its bitterness undercut with new friends, an Islamic community to go to the Masjid with, and options … Continue reading Short note: Eid blues and how to fix them
UPDATE: A few weeks after this post, I did, in fact, get ten inches shorn off my hair and donated to a good cause. I cried a significant amount of tears and went through a brief, frantic existential crisis, but it's been a few months and my hair is steadily growing back. One of my … Continue reading Hair, or how this blog post turned out to be longer than I expected. Like my hair.
The thing about bombings and terrorist attacks is that, after a little while, it’s too easy to divorce an atrocity from the monotony of the day. The horror sits heavy on your skin like a too-thick cocoa-butter moisturizer, and it’s hard to let it sink in. But, with enough time and distraction, you get used … Continue reading The day of and those after
