The Depths of Myself

By Asma Al-Masyabi

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A look at what I hide, even from those closest to me, and why.

The Depths of Myself by Asma Al-Masyabi

In the scene, she realized that he only showed her his smile and he only said what he thought she wanted to hear. He didn’t share his aspirations or his thoughts. He only listened to hers.

How can I know you? She asked. How can I love you?

How do you tell people things? It’s a great mystery. To share what you want in the future, what a crap day you had, your darkest fears and anxieties. You don’t drop them by your plate at breakfast, and just wait for someone to pick them up. You don’t slip it into conversation when wondering whether to bring an umbrella or a raincoat. You can’t just lean forward, finding the eyes of the people you love, and admit it to them. Right?

When someone asks me what I think, I’ll stay silent. It’s not really that simple, is it? Every opinion has many edges and even more sides. I may pick one, but I see them all. How can you put that into words?

I’ve made a habit of hiding myself. It’s a bad habit, one I’m trying to break. My siblings like to talk to me. I like to listen. Things that happen in their lives, their friends, their homework, their struggles, their passions. I take it all in. I nod. I respond. I try to reciprocate.

I try — I tell my siblings about the show I’m watching, the second season that I’m just praying that they’ll make, the book I can’t wait to buy. Maybe I’ll mention a paper due the next day that I haven’t started yet. When one of my poems gets published in a literary magazine, I read the email, smile, and continue with my day. The joy is mine for a while. And then I share the news.

But so much of it feels transactional. Like money passing hands. I try to say just enough about myself to comfort the people around me, give them enough information to contextualize my existence. Lead them to the conclusions I want them to reach.

She is happy. She is busy. She is successful.

I try to remind myself that it goes like this: I love you and I value you and I know you would want to know, so here it is.

But here is another thing: when I share a true part of myself, it almost feels like losing it.

That by speaking the words of how I feel what I want, what is hurting,

those things lose value, become less real.

The thing is, no one’s story is important as your own. And in this selfish way, I am making sure that no one can brush me off. That the things that I am dealing with will remain the most important to everyone who knows about them, and at the end of the day, that leaves only me.

When someone doesn’t know something about you, they can’t hurt you with it. I can’t remember a time when this happened to me. But it feels like an instinct, sharpened and waiting, warning me back.

I don’t know how to change.

Outside of my family, I am even worse. I don’t even understand what I am holding back. I find that in any situation, I find a script and follow it. When I run out of lines, my mind goes blank — as if there is nothing left to say.

If something comes up that is not in the script, I freeze.

Wonder, what is supposed to be said?

I respond, respond, respond.

Q&A.

Walk between the lines I set for myself.

Glass cages. What does fresh air taste of? What does it mean to just be?

I don’t mean to be too dramatic about this.

I don’t think keeping to myself is the worst affliction. It can mean being alone is enough. I can keep myself company, entertain my thoughts, plan kingdoms in the air while looking up from the floorboards.

In poems I write myself onto roofs at midnight, fresh strawberries bursting in my mouth as the moon watches from above. An empty house. Fields of swaying grass and bobbing wildflowers.

A list of things I’ve told no one:

I watch sad movies alone so I can ugly-cry without worrying what anyone else thinks, bent forward over my desk, fully invested in the characters.

When I am afraid of something, I avoid thinking about it. I just stop giving it room in my brain. I distract myself and waste time until I have no choice but to face it head on. A terrible strategy.

I want to make everyone proud. To be successful that I don’t worry whether or not I’ve made it. To just know.

I like the color black. It reminds me of the night sky by the seaside, an endless nothing. Things always look brighter in the dark.

I’m nearly always terrified. Like Hulk in the first avenger movie, where he says he’s always angry. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s true. When something really scares me, I know I can still take it on. Because fear always lives inside me.

I hate the taste of beets. They’re the only vegetable I can think of that I don’t like, other than radishes. I’ve tried them once canned and another time fresh. I don’t think they’re for me.

Process

For this piece, I really tried to understand what the theme “underground” meant to me. When I thought of underground, it made me think of those things that are hidden beneath the surface, and the things that I hide or keep to myself. This project began with a free write with my mentor Katie, where I was able to write out the first draft. Over a number of weeks I would visit the text to tweak it, add onto it, and edit it until it felt balanced and conveyed what I wanted to say. I then moved onto formatting the text the way I wanted to see it represented on paper, which I did in Photoshop. Afterward, I printed it onto the smooth side of watercolor paper. Although the paper did not take to the printer ink very well, and some of the words would smudge or fade when touched, I was happy with it. I then moved onto using a variety of blue watercolors to paint around the words. I tried to make the designs on each page correspond to their themes. After that was done, I took photographs of the papers and finalized them in Photoshop.