Five days without a phone
not by choice,
but by decree.
A number lost somewhere
between renewal and return,
a quiet disconnection.
I still touch the internet
at home, at work
but everywhere else
there is nothing.
And SubḥānAllāh,
I didn’t know absence
could feel like this.
No buzzing pocket.
No call pulling me
out of my own thoughts.
No urge to scroll my way
out of stillness.
The road is just a road again.
The journey, a journey.
My mind walks beside me
instead of wandering elsewhere.
I am unreachable
and in that,
unexpectedly free.
Free to think.
Free to notice.
Free to sit with myself
without performing,
without responding.
It feels like old times
before attention was traded away,
before the heart was crowded
with noise, it never invited.
There is mercy in this quiet.
A loosening of the grip.
Space for remembrance.
Space to breathe.
They say my line will return soon.
They’re working on it.
But I’m not rushing.
Some gifts arrive
disguised as inconvenience,
and some silences
are worth keeping
a little longer.
