Opening — Let Me Introduce Myself
The Introduction
So. I am a poet. An author. A mother. A wife. A cat owner.
And I want to be very transparent with you right from the beginning —
I do the absolute bare minimum required to keep all of this running.
— pause —
People hear "poet and author" and they imagine someone very disciplined. Very intentional. Journaling at dawn. Manifesting.
I wake up at dawn because my body has been trained to pray. That is the only reason. There is no manifesting. Just obligation. Blessed, beautiful obligation.
We will come back to that. That part is actually important. But first — the cats.
The Lazy Poet
My poems are emotional. Deep. Soulful. People say — SAM, how do you feel so much?
I feel everything about the same three things. On repeat. For fifteen years.
— pause —
I have written about longing approximately four hundred times. Same core feeling. Different metaphors.
Longing is a river. Longing is a closed door. Longing is a cup of chai going cold —
Look. Longing is very versatile. I regret nothing.
My editor once asked — do you have anything that is NOT about longing?
I said — I have one poem about grief.
She said — that is also about longing.
I submitted it anyway. It is in the book. People cried. We don't need to discuss this further.
● laughter ●
Middle — The Actual Life
At Work
At work I am actually good. Genuinely capable. I show up, I deliver, I am responsible and professional and reliable.
And then I close the laptop and I become a completely different person who cannot be relied upon to do anything at all.
— pause —
Outside of work hours — the attention span of a very distracted goldfish.
I start a project. I am ELECTRIC about it. I tell everyone. I buy things for it.
I lose interest by Tuesday.
I have three unfinished craft kits, a language learning app I opened twice, and a sewing machine I named and then quietly abandoned.
Her name was Khalida. I am sorry, Khalida. It was not personal. I just ran out of enthusiasm. This happens to everyone I get excited about.
● laughter ●
The Cats
I have cats. I love these cats with my entire heart. My whole soul is invested in these animals.
They want absolutely nothing to do with me.
— pause —
I do not mean they are shy. I do not mean they need warming up. I mean — they see me coming and they leave the room.
I walk in, they walk out. I sit down, they relocate. I call their names, they look at the wall. The wall is genuinely more interesting than me to them.
So I pick them up by force. This is the only way. I find them, I grab them, I squeeze them, I say — YOU ARE MY BABY AND I LOVE YOU —
— pause —
They look at me with the energy of someone who is being held against their will and is quietly planning their exit.
The second I put them down they are gone. Like they were never there. Like I imagined the whole relationship.
I write poems about unrequited love. I have cats who don't want me. My entire life is just one continuous poem and I am only now realising this.
● laughter ●
The Prayer Mat
I am very possessive. About everything.
My spot on the sofa. My corner of the bed. My cats who have made it clear they belong to no one.
But the thing I am most possessive about — my prayer mat.
Do not touch my prayer mat. Do not move my prayer mat. Do not even look at my prayer mat in a way that suggests you might one day think about using it.
— pause —
It is specific. It is mine. It is placed in a specific direction, folded a specific way, in a specific spot.
My husband once moved it — just moved it, not used it, just slightly relocated it —
— pause —
I did not say a word. I just looked at him.
He put it back.
He put it back exactly where it was, in exactly the right direction, with the fold facing the right way.
Twenty years of marriage. He has learned every rule. The prayer mat is sacred — and not just spiritually. Domestically sacred. Those are two different things and both are non-negotiable.
● laughter ●
Biryani & Chai
I love two things in this world with absolutely no ambivalence. No complicated feelings. Just pure, clean, uncomplicated joy.
Biryani. And chai.
— pause —
Everything else in my life is complicated. My feelings about myself — complicated. My feelings about most people — complicated. My relationship with productivity — don't even start.
But a good biryani from a good restaurant? That is the closest thing to peace I have ever known.
— pause —
I have opinions about biryani. Strong opinions. Detailed opinions. I can tell you within two bites which city it's from, whether the rice was soaked correctly, whether the dum was done properly.
I cannot tell you what I had for lunch three days ago. But biryani from 2019 in a specific restaurant in a specific city? I remember everything. Every grain. Every layer.
— pause —
And chai — chai is its own religion. I make chai a specific way. The right ratio, the right simmer, the right amount of time.
I write about chai in my poems. Chai going cold is practically a recurring character in my books.
Because chai going cold is grief. Chai going cold is time passing while you weren't paying attention. Chai going cold is — look, I have seven published poems about this. It's a whole thing.
My family knows not to offer me tea bags. Tea bags are not chai. Tea bags are warm coloured water in a cup and I will not be gaslit into thinking otherwise.
● laughter ●
The Snow
We live in New Jersey. It snows here every single year. I have lived here long enough to know this is coming every time.
Every single year the snow arrives and I react like it is a targeted personal attack.
— pause —
It is not even the cold. It is the EFFORT. Snow requires effort. Layers. Boots. Scraping the car. Going outside when you absolutely did not plan to.
I did not consent to this temperature. Nobody asked me.
— pause —
People say — but SAM, the snow is beautiful. Everything becomes so still and peaceful.
I can see it from the patio door. Patio chair. Chai in hand. That is the correct dose of snow. That is all anyone needs.
I have written zero poems about snow. Every other poet — snow is silence, snow is purity, snow is new beginnings.
I refuse to romanticise something that made me scrape my car in the dark at 7am. That is not poetry. That is a trauma response.
● laughter ●
The Ear Piercings
I have piercings. Multiple ear piercings. Which — fine, normal, many people have this.
I also pierced my monroe. Twice.
— pause —
For those who don't know — a monroe piercing is on your upper lip. Like a beauty mark. Like Marilyn Monroe. Very glamorous in theory.
I did it the first time and it was painful and I loved it and felt very edgy and interesting.
— pause —
Then I took it out. For reasons. Life reasons. Sensible adult reasons.
And then I did it again.
— pause —
The second time the piercer looked at me and said — didn't you already have one here?
I said yes.
He said — same spot?
I said yes.
He did not ask any more questions. He just pierced it. He has seen things. He is not here to judge. I respect that man enormously.
— pause —
My mother saw the first one and said nothing. Just looked at me for a long time.
She saw the second one and said — again?
I said — it's a different time, Ammi.
It was not a different time. It was the same time. I just got bored of not having it and forgot why I removed it. This is consistent with everything else about me.
I write poems about longing. I removed and re-pierced the same spot on my face. I am a woman of deep, repetitive feeling and I stand by all of it.
● laughter ●
The Friends
I am moody about conversations with most people. Very selective. If you catch me on the wrong day I would genuinely prefer to be left alone with my cats who also want to be left alone. We understand each other.
But I have a small group of boy friends — good ones, old ones — who call me. And I love those calls.
— pause —
We have talked through everything over the years. Big things. Deep things. All of life's actual material.
And recently... we have run out of things to say.
— pause —
Not because we've grown apart. Not because anything is wrong. We have just — covered everything. Done every topic.
Careers, relationships, faith, childhood, regrets, dreams, the meaning of life —
Now we just say "haan, sab theek" for twelve minutes and then hang up very warmly.
Last week one of them called and we talked about a road we both used to drive on. For twenty minutes. A road.
And it was actually lovely. Because it wasn't really about the road. It was — I just needed to hear your voice today. The road was an excuse.
That is what old friendship is. Running out of topics and calling anyway. Biryani and old friends — the two things that never need an explanation.
● quiet laughter ●
The Boredom Cycle
Here is exactly how I function with anything new. A hobby. A project. A phase.
Phase one — discovery. I am completely electric. I research everything. I tell everyone. I am fully, completely in.
Phase two — I am done. Just like that. Switch off. Bye.
— pause —
No gradual fade. No slow cooling. It just ends. I move on. The project sits there wondering what it did wrong.
Calligraphy, watercolour, Spanish, gardening, bread baking, the sewing machine —
Supplies for all. Skill in none. My home is a museum of things I was briefly, passionately certain about.
— pause —
The only thing that has held me for twenty years without one single moment of giving up — writing.
Which makes sense. Because in writing, repeating yourself is not a problem. It is the whole point. I have found my natural habitat.
Khalida the sewing machine has been in the corner for two years. Still in the box. She has more staying power than I do. I genuinely respect her for it.
● laughter ●
The Turn — Now We Get Honest
The Hijab
I wear hijab. And people — strangers, acquaintances, sometimes even well-meaning ones — have a lot of feelings about this. About my head. About this specific choice on my specific head.
The audacity. The sheer audacity of having opinions about my head when I have barely finished forming opinions about my own head.
— pause —
Some people see hijab and immediately think — restricted. Controlled. Silenced.
And then they find out I write poetry, run a website, perform on stage, have published five books, and pierced my monroe twice.
— pause —
I am standing here right now talking about my cats and my prayer mat and my snow rage to an entire room of people.
Does this look like silence to you?
— pause —
Here is what hijab actually is for me. Every morning when I put it on it is a decision. Conscious. Deliberate. Mine.
I am going out into this world today as exactly who I am. No performance. No apology. No adjusting the parts of me that make some people uncomfortable.
This is me. Entirely, visibly, unapologetically me. Take it or leave it — I am not negotiating.
— pause —
That is not a cage. That is the opposite of a cage.
That is armour. Beautifully coordinated armour. I always coordinate. Even on lazy days. Especially on lazy days.
The cats have no opinion on the hijab. The cats have no opinion on anything I do. But if they could speak I imagine they would say — yes, wear exactly what makes you feel like yourself. Now please put me down.
● warm applause ●
Salah
I pray five times a day. Five times — the day is completely structured around it whether I plan anything or not.
Which is honestly the best thing that has ever happened to someone with my level of personal discipline.
— pause —
Left to myself I would forget to eat, forget to stop, disappear into something and not come up for air until I burn out completely.
But five times a day — everything stops. Whether the work is done or not. Whether the chaos is resolved or not. Stop. Be still. Remember what you actually are.
— pause —
My favourite is Fajr. The dawn prayer. Before the world wakes up. Before the emails. Before anyone needs anything from me.
Just dark and quiet and me and something much bigger than me. And in that space I am not a lazy poet or a possessive prayer mat owner or someone who hates snow.
I am just a person. Standing. Grateful. Here.
— pause —
People spend a lot of money trying to find that feeling. Retreats, apps, wellness programmes —
Five times a day, for free, it just arrives. Like someone scheduled peace into my calendar whether I asked for it or not.
— pause —
I was not always consistent with it. There were years I rushed it, skipped it, treated it as a box to tick rather than a door to walk through.
And then one very ordinary Tuesday, in the middle of a very ordinary Asr —
Something settled in me. Like — oh. This is not a task. This is the whole point. This is the thing that holds everything else together.
My best lines come from that quiet. My clearest decisions come from that stillness. On days when everything feels like too much — those five stops are the reason I find my way back.
And the prayer mat — that possessive, specific, do-not-touch-it prayer mat — is not just fabric on a floor. It is the most important piece of ground I stand on.
Now you understand why no one is allowed near it.
● quiet applause ●
The Homebody Realisation
I used to dream about being away. Always somewhere else. I genuinely believed the good life was constantly moving, constantly new, never staying anywhere too long.
And somewhere along the way I became someone who considers sitting on the patio with chai a full outdoor experience.
— pause —
For a while I felt embarrassed about this. Like I had shrunk. Like the girl with the wanderlust had quietly stopped believing in herself.
And then one evening — patio chair, chai in hand, my cats visible through the glass door giving me their usual look of complete indifference —
I realised. I was not shrinking. I had finally found somewhere worth staying.
— pause —
All that restlessness — it was not really about the places. It was about searching for something I couldn't name.
And it turned out the thing I was looking for was just — this. This ordinary, imperfect, cats-who-don't-want-me, chai-going-cold, prayer-mat-on-the-floor this.
I still want to travel. I still want the biryani in a city I've never been to, the unfamiliar sky, the adventure of somewhere new.
But I also want to come back now. That is the new thing. That is the whole difference. The wanderer did not disappear. She just got a home worth returning to.
● quiet ●
Closing — The Last Line
The Ending
So. This is me. A lazy poet who writes about the same three things forever. Gets obsessed quickly and bored just as fast. Has a sewing machine she named and never used. Loves biryani and chai with a seriousness that is frankly disproportionate.
Hates snow. Hates small talk. Picks up cats by force and calls it love. Has friends she talks to about roads. Pierced the same spot on her face twice. Owns a prayer mat nobody is allowed to touch.
And I am — completely, genuinely, unreservedly — fine.
— pause —
Because here is what I have learned from all of this —
You do not have to be everything. You just have to be honest about the thing you actually are.
— pause —
I am a woman who feels the same things deeply, over and over, and writes it down so other people know they are not alone in feeling it too.
Who stops five times a day to be reminded she is more than her chaos.
Who shows up as herself — visibly, honestly, unapologetically herself — every single day.
— pause —
That is enough. That is more than enough. That is actually everything.
— pause —
The cats will be waiting when I get home. They will see me walk in and immediately leave the room.
And I will find them and pick them up anyway. And they will endure it. And I will say — I love you — and mean it completely and without condition.
And that is the whole poem. Loving things that don't always love you back the way you expect. Showing up anyway. Staying anyway.
Five times a day, remembering why.
— pause —
Thank you. Go eat some really good biryani tonight.
And if it is snowing outside — I am deeply, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart sorry. You did not deserve that. Nobody does.
● applause ●
"You do not have to be everything.
You just have to show up
as the thing you honestly are."
SAM Ruh · sam-ruh.com