Dearest,
Your heart is so big and generous. You are a pioneer for questioning the cult’s beliefs. This leads us into a dark and hideous place. I urge you not to urge you go into the shadows, I can heal you; I believe in you. You will learn to create healthy boundaries so you won’t be passive-aggressive. You are brave for wearing that hideous chaddar, which you are free of now, and get to be yourself. Also, you no longer get sister zoned. You probably know more French than I do. Linkin Park is our gateway for our love of rock and metal music, you have great taste in movies and TV shows, and they will help you integrate into California. No one said it was easy but here we are blaming our failure on the other, Here we are ready to depart for California. Every step you take leads to being free and a better version; keep pushing. Grades aren’t everything, what is now an F in Mathematics will be an A. Treasure our friends some of whom we still keep in touch with and still consider our best friend. Keep going to the library it is our sanctuary and will keep your mind sharp. Even though we are bullied, I love that you still stand up for your friends. I admire that you kept learning after high school. All these pieces created a better version of ourselves; and for that, I thank you and I love you.
 
With lots of love, 
Your future self.

Dear Superhero,
Do you remember when you would tie a makeshift cape to your neck sporting another kid’s underwear as a mask? You thought the bravest thing anyone could do was be a superhero. You were convicted that with enough imagination, you could be a real life superhero. Do you remember how you used to find wounded bugs and animals in nature? How you would take them home, nurse them back to health and mourn them when they left? I fiercely love that your love has no bounds in form either. To you, the spider is of equal importance to the fly. You’ve always had a profound connection to nature simply through your own unconditional love but you would never place judgment on an act of Nature. Honestly though, you are my superhero. I’ve never met anyone else who could walk through hellfire and still love the ones who put them through it. Your super power was loving everyone and everything even in the depths of quicksand or calving glaciers. I won’t lie, there were many times I thought you wouldn’t prevail. Just like a superhero you always came out on top, smiling victoriously despite brushing against all consuming darkness. To this day, I’ve never seen someone have the audacity to stand up for innocent people simply just because they were people. It didn’t matter who they were, where they came from, how they dressed, how much money they had, you always took a stand. “Tiny but Mighty,” is what they called you, because even though you were a small girl, you always managed to come up swinging any time you were down.Your superpower was alchemizing demons and turning them into sweet symphonies. Every trial and tribulation was a testament of the perseverance of your heart, and instead of being angry or upset you found ways to love even the darkest circumstances. I remember the boy in class that the teacher would always be cast doubt on, making the whole class burst into condescending giggles. You didn’t even know this girl, but you still stood up in such a way that they backed down. Do you remember when two girls pinned you to a brick wall because you told them not to pick on that kid? I don’t even remember the kid, but I remember your passion and your kindness. Or the boy who was being bullied by a group of grown men and you intervened? Better yet, you did that for everyone you saw no matter how small, because you had the strongest moral compass I’ve ever seen. Further yet, I’ve never met someone who always chooses compassionate truth, even when it meant losing everything. I’ve never met someone who cared enough about people, to love them in all their flaws and all their nooks and crannies but still cared enough to try and pull them out of the fire. So many times you were told you were too forgiving, too compassionate, too caring, but real superheroes are the ones who stand in the face of adversity and rise up through it rather than letting it pull them down. I know that if you could heal every broken heart, every scrape and bruise in the entire world that you would, even if it meant revisiting the flames. You don’t know how to give up, and I love the fact that even though you knew you had the choice, that you’d choose it again. I admire that every time life told you to bend or to break, that you had the audacity to stand in your own aliveness. You are the best superhero I’ve ever been blessed to meet; you are unbreakable, you love unconditionally, you are a healer, an alchemist, and a love story that the world desperately needs to hear. I admire how you never placed your narrative on another being. You knew your own pain and would listen to the broken hearts of lost friends with the most exquisite compassion. While Spiderman, Clark Kent, and Wonder Woman might not exist, you do and you continue to have the audacity to choose to be a superhero even when you don’t feel like you are. I love you more than any words on any paper can ever say. I know I put you through your own version of hellfire as a coping mechanism, but trust me when I say I will treat your body as a temple, your mind as a sanctuary, and your soul as a portal to universal love, because that’s what every superhero needs. I know you’ve still been hiding behind the mask of pretend and play, never wanting to take credit or cause too much attention….but the world is ready for you, I am ready for you. You can take off your mask, because it’s okay and because I will protect you and love you just as you do for others. I will do everything in my super power tool box to do what I couldn’t do then, protect and cherish you more than anything in the world. You deserve at least that. Thank you, for being my superhero and continuing to inspire everything that I do. I wouldn’t have made it without you.

Love,
Me

My innocent smile of childhood
Is what I miss most from long gone
Days where naivety, fun fumbles, were good
For a laugh with family, friends, undone

By the simplicity of the life of a child
As you went about cheerfully hopping
From one daydream to another, a hidden bard, flipping,
Hiding in plain sight, forgiven for being a child.

Never let your smile drift into the sky,
Let it balance your mood, don’t brood.
As you smile, cheer will surround
Your every move as you inspire joy that’ll fly,

Flinging your dreams into reality
As your positivity you embraced,
Will endow you with being graced
By happiness, a comforting embrace.

©️Malak Kalmoni Chehab ©️

All you’ve ever wanted was to be understood
But the forces of evil and the forces of good
Were born within the people who claimed
“I love you”

Which wasn’t true,
Because to be loved isn’t to be used
Or be turned black and blue
Your skin doesn’t deserve a single bruise
Yet the lies that lied in the home you grew up in
Called you
“A punishment”

And it does hurt, doesn’t it?
When the ones you pray for at night
Laugh at your existence?
Your life feels like a curse
And it is,
Every second felt like a nightmare
And it was,
You continued to pray for a God up above
To save you from a horror show that some call
“life”

You don’t know which day it is
Unless it’s Sunday and Mom’s away
You call for her as if she is near
And the animals say
“Mom isn’t here”
And you want to go home
Yet the only home that you’ve ever known
Was a cage and the animals prod you with sticks
Ignorance truly is bliss
The realization that life shouldn’t be lived like this
Will hit you like a ton of bricks

The thing is-
Those animals don’t love you
All they do is to drain all the blood from your neck
And laugh while you scream,
And love when you’re weak,
And buying you scissors then cutting your wings-
You have potential that animals can’t see
They want to see your castle crumble
I know that it’s hard now
But you have a mind of titanium,
And the strength of a lion,
And the tongue of a nail that will lock his dark coffin-
And you’re not the problem,
Ellie, I love you and can’t thank you enough
For staying on earth
And not going home.

Little hands, little feet
So shy and quite, when you first meet
Big blue eyes, but behind them hid
Pain and fear, but we can open the lid
For the longest time stuffed down inside
Thats where endless cycles, of toxic behaviors reside

Just a little girl, but like a bull you were strong
Those who said different, they were wrong
You suffered through so much pain
Still ran outside to play in the rain
A little free spirit, connected to earth
Always a wild child, rebeling since birth

As everyone left you, by death, or by choice
Along the way, you lost you voice
You learned to suffer, by yourself, in silence
The amount of days, you daydreamed of violence
But you’ve always had you, you’ve always been there
You shouldn’t have had to be that strong, I know its not fair

I’m here with you, in the shadows now
I’m setting you free, I know how
I thought I was stuffing down all of the pain
But, it was the little girl, who danced in the rain
I stuffed you down, so I didn’t have to feel
Come out my darling, its time to heal