The Day I Was Let Go

 

The urge to run, yet to stay

Perhaps to run—where to stray?

To stay at home with mom,

Eat, laugh, and pray.

To stay in now,

Unfold into the moment, live the day.

But I keep losing myself,

Between the hazy tomorrow and the flaky yesterday 

Where am I, then?

At home? In bed? With a dream—and fray?

At the mall, shopping for a meaning?

A Sunday morning, at the café, 18th of May?

Or at the mosque—cry and bray,

Building an escape temple of hope and clay.

And waiting for a sign, an exit,

To let go—or be let go.

To be free, to be okay.

To search for the self, for her, for him, for them—

Who are they?

To challenge the doubts, to resist the urge,

Back to the same chair, table, and ashtray.

To catch the fleeing sense of being,

To push, to get out, breathe, and play.

To run with no direction—

Only the feel of the air and sunray.

To indulge in your own loss,

To embrace the unknown, then regress—and betray.

Betray the journey, the self.

Go back home. Call for mama, and sway.

I let you go; you come back.

You shut down. You obey.

And then again—

You fade, boil, explode…

And in the end, astray.

So once more—was it home?

The school? The job?

Or just you, all the time, in re-play?

Something within.

Fragments of you on a tray.

Oh god, what a cliché…

It's too late to be saved anyway—

From the world, from the self, from today.

But you are let go.

You are free to live and decay.

You are free to dismay.

To set free, smile, and lay.

 

Third Café,

Riyadh

May 18th, 2025

5:22 PM