HALIMA

Hummm her name sounds soft like a prayer whispered at dawn. The kind of name that feels like it was crafted with care, like it carries meaning even before you learn her story. Halima is a beautiful girl, beautiful in the kind of way that isn’t loud or demanding but settles into your chest and stays there. The type of beauty that doesn’t shout for attention, it just exists quietly pulling you in until you realize she has taken a piece of your mind without trying.

A Muslim girl with grace stitched into her steps, with warmth that feels like sunrise after a long night. She walks like someone who understands the weight of kindness and still chooses to give it freely. There is a certain aura around her, something almost sacred, like she is carrying peace in her pockets and letting it spill gently into the world and her smile, wallahi, that smile could calm a storm. It doesn’t just touch her lips, it reaches her eyes down to her voice. A smile that comes with its own gravity, pulling you closer to softness you didn’t know you were missing. It makes you wonder how a single expression can make the world feel less heavy, how one person can turn a moment of chaos into calm just by being present. There is plenty, I mean plenty softness in her voice, plenty peace in her presence, plenty magic in the way she says the simplest things and the way she calls me husband just gets me every time. Halima carries a kind of gentleness that the world doesn’t produce often anymore. She is the kind of girl who doesn’t need to speak loudly for you to hear her, her spirit does the talking, yes she is stubborn but her presence feels like shade in the heat, like cool water on a tired day. There is something rare about her, something that makes you pause, not because she asked for attention but because your heart gives it to her naturally. It is something you notice before you even try to explain it, something that reminds you that beauty isn’t always loud, it is that calm breath that makes everything else slow down.

For how she make me feel?

I’ve been walking through noise for a while and suddenly found quiet 'sigh', it is like my soul has been carrying weight and she somehow teaches it to rest without saying a word. I’ve been holding my breath for too long and someone finally told me it is okay to exhale. She is like a warm cup of tea on a cold morning, like a verse that finds you at the exact moment you need it, like a reminder that the world still has good people in it. She makes me feel seen without having to test my strength, understood without having to explain my scars, and valued without having to pretend. Being around her is like stepping into peace I didn’t know I was missing. It is like God tucked a little softness in human form and she was named Halima. 

And then there is the way she calls me husband, the word is sweet on its own, but when she says it in Yoruba "Oko-mi" it becomes something else entirely. Something warmer, deeper, almost intimate in a way that sinks into the bones. It carries a kind of innocence and promise at the same time. The sound rolls off her tongue with a softness that makes the world slow down for a moment. But it is the look in her eyes when she says it that gets me the most, the slight brightness, the playful warmth, the way her eyes soften like she is letting me see a part of her she doesn’t show just anyone. It feels like a door-way into the tenderness she tries to hide. then it leaves me wondering how a single glance can feel like a whole conversation, how two syllables from her mouth can feel like home. She says husband like she is not just joking, like she is accidentally telling the truth her heart hasn’t fully spoken yet and i feel it every time.

Unfortunately reality hits the part i never want to think about but can’t escape. it feels too good to be true because she is of the other faith and that alone makes everything feel like a forbidden blessing, like something God placed in my hands but told me not to close my fingers. We don’t mix, at least that is what they say, they say our worlds are too different, our paths too far apart, our beliefs too sacred to bend. They say love should stay in it lane, that our hearts should obey rules written long before we were born but how do I tell my chest to un-feel what it feels? How do I convince my heart to step away from something that feels this soft, this pure and true? How do I look at her, this gentle soul and pretend I don’t see something that looks like home standing right in front of me?

It scares me i won't lie, the thought that I might lose something this sacred because of something none of us chose at birth, something so warm but it is considered wrong, something so true that it is labeled impossible. It leaves me with questions that don’t sleep.

Why does fate bring two hearts together only to place a wall between them?

Why does something that feels so God-sent come with rules that say, don’t touch?

Why do we meet the right people at the wrong time, or in the wrong place, or under a different belief? 

Even with all this, every time she calls me husband, every time her eyes soften like her heart is confessing something her mouth won’t say, I feel it all over again, the sweetness, the fear, the longing, the questions and that quiet ache of wanting something I’m not sure I’m allowed to keep. She feels like a gift I’m scared to unwrap, a truth I’m scared to lose and a possibility I’m scared to even imagine but still on still, My HEART IMAGINES IT ANYWAY.