“Finally at peace”, the last bullet will let you fly high in the sky

You have a gun in your hand,
You are tempted to pull the trigger
You have three bullets,
You have three chances not to fuck it up
You hear the bullets, they are begging you to free them, to let them out
Your body is shaking, your heart is aching

You hear this sound in the back of your head, this voice that was always with you every step of the way, and it says
“Do it you have nothing to lose one push of a trigger and it’s all over
YOU CAN DO IT STOP BEING  ‘YOU’ AND DO IT” the voice shouts
at this moment the reality sets in
You are falling apart, you are losing the pieces that you have worked so hard to keep… You are crying… No you are leaking and you are going to sink in fear… You pushed the trigger… But you missed.

The voice is back again
“I KNEW YOU WERE A COWARD, don’t disappoint me kid, don’t disappoint me like how you have disappointed them, how you HAVE disappointed yourself… BUT IT’S OKAY! YOU HAVE TWO MORE CHANCES JUST DO IT! SO YOU CAN BE AT PEACE JUST FUCKING DO IT” it screamed

You are trying to pull the trigger but your hand won’t move… You hear people shouting, yelling words behind your door but you can’t seem to understand what they’re saying
You try to pull it again and it worked but you missed AGAIN… the yelling got louder… you got weaker you are trembling with anxiety
You’re close to the bottom of your own ocean of fear, floating down to it.

The voice comes again this time it’s just laughing
“You know? You should give it to someone who can ACTUALLY do it for you… I mean that  IS what you are good at, that IS what you have been doing your whole lousy life… all you—“.

You cut the voice off
“JUST SHUT UP  SHUT UP SHUT. UP.” You say
“THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT IF YOU JUST HAD LEFT ME ALONE, IF YOU HAD JUST STOPPED NAGGING ME, IF YOU HAD JUST STOPPED NIBBLING ON ME LIKE I’M SOME SORT OF BREAD WE COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER… I could have been better SO JUST SHUT THE HELL UP” you say…

And for the first time it all went quite… The voice finally stopped… The voice is not there anymore. The voice is not there to encourage you anymore.
You feel a sudden wave of coldness running down your face
you touch it you, realize its blood…
You fall on your knees, the ground never felt more welcoming, never felt ever so soft, almost like a pile of feathers…

“I did it “, you thought
When you where shouting you freed the last bullet by accident
“It’s funny ” you say as your body is getting weaker by the second
“Who would have thought that the peace I was looking for was just a push away” you say as you finally hit the bottom of your ocean. And realized something, it wasn’t fear that was stopping you; it was the adrenaline of excitement.

You where found dead in your room, with a smile on your pale face
they buried you under the ground but you were flying in the sky, finally at peace.

******

Courtesy of the author

Link to the Italian translation

Reem Yasir was born and raised in Sudan, and she is currently working as an assistant business analyst.

Being a Sudanese woman means to her  a lot of things. It means loving her culture and hating it at the same time, to compromise between who you actually are and who you have to be, it’s being scared of walking the street, it’s being scared that one of your loved ones dying because of this current political situation. It’s knowing when to push and when to pull back without letting yourself be walked over by the conditioned sexism. It’s really hard to love this country but we are  trying.

Her poetry and writing has always been a way to put her  feelings and thoughts in one place, to freely express oneself without the fear of speaking to someone about them. She writes for herself and if during that process it somehow manages to reach someone out there and makes them feel something not matter how small, then it’s the cherry on top.