Lily

“They came and they left.
You cried, but you stood your ground.
You stayed tethered to hope as well as
committed to dignified dreams
and little victories of day-to-day life.

You felt different.
Then you started to change.
Your smile returned with reticence
before completely taking over your face.

Today, you are no longer afraid to let that smile be there,
and now you understand it was not about them.
It was never about anyone else.
This was about you from the day you were born.
This was about you learning to love yourself—
not letting the inferiority of the external corrupt
the piety of the internal.

This was your personal revolution.
This was the uprising of your lifetime.

And you won.”
― Akif Kichloo, The Feeling May Remain

“Love me like my demons do.”
― Akif Kichloo

“She is a woman. No matter how hard you think she has grown, she always has her softer parts. Feel her there.”
― Akif Kichloo

“The tragedy of love is in its ending,
the blessing—everything else.

No love ever deserves to end.”
― Akif Kichloo, The Feeling May Remain