Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Self-loathing quickly escalates to a disillusioned perception of the world. When the self fails the self, the rest of the world crumbles. Everything falls short.

But these all stem from very lucid, very deliberate decisions. Recognizing the wrong, embracing it, executing it with full knowledge; choosing it.

Self-struggle is an endless war. A war of many defeats and not enough victories.
Too great of an esteem for fiction. Too indulgent in its enjoyment. Too much affinity for convoluted sentiments.

Trouble is, fiction is vacuum. It is fictive.

I should go for a walk today. See the beach tomorrow. Something. Do something real.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Spellbound

The unutterable dark rankles within. Self-censure is my mantra. I wage war with a phantom knight who deigns to tear down this empire of stillness I have built. A fortress built from white ash. Whatever is left after cycles upon cycles of razed sentiments. What wounds this unknown knight inflicts does not terrify me. Oh but it hurts. It hurts. 

Allow me this reprieve: My heart shivers still. And it always will when visions prey on my mind. But the spell is broken regardless. So I walk the halls of my fortress of ashes.


Thursday, February 13, 2014

The Antagonist

I will do everything in my power to avoid confrontations. I would rather smile and simper and let feelings bury themselves than disagree. Especially if the encounter or acquaintance is to be brief. I would let the other person be domineering and myself be dismissed than contest myself to their views. As long as the subject matter is not something I deem important, I swallow my heart. Perhaps too often, God knows.

And then I observe said person interact with someone much less inhibited than I, and I see them relent. They yield, they listen. And I wonder. And I realize, just how terrified I really am of the world. So much so that I am most of the time... removed. I withdraw, recoil, evade.

But really, I would rather be loved than respected. I accept such expressions as; "I'm glad I got you as my partner rather than some annoying person." to which I reply, "I feel the same way."  I prefer to be companionable than interesting. 

And I understand now, just how decidedly uncommunicative this method of mine is. It is my own fault and nobody else's. To be so afraid. To be so slighted.

Sometimes though, I put my foot down. I become adamant out of the blue. Simply because I am the kind who bottles up. Sometimes I lose it. Sometimes I disappoint. Yet, confrontations and disappointments are inevitable after all. I am not a particularly patient person, or a reasonable one even. I try to be but I know I am not.

In the end, the aftermath of such interactions has only one outcome: Guilt. The weight of guilt crushes me absolutely. Because I feel, I know that I must always be the one who understands. The one who yields. And because I reflect, I become even more affected by it all. And when I fail to be the one who makes compromises, the guilt is ever more devastating.

I am terrified of emotions. Of people. So I write. I write senseless poems. I pen my anguish, unresolved sentiments. I look upon the world as one unrequited. I am the antagonist with no adversary. I am invisible with love indivisible.

.

Am I to be moved
by such violent disaffect?
      Or am I to be soothed?
To which way do I sway?
      Do I leave, do I stay?
Incendiary, you rule 
       This ready fool
Your tyranny, my constancy 
        While I stand in waiting
In this pyre, burning
        Still you, far-removed
 Ever-still, stood perfect.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Orion's belt

I went to take the trash out. Dragging three hefty yellow bin bags in my sore hands. When I was done, I stopped in the parking lot. I was alone, so I stood and lifted my face to the heavens. Soft winds kissing my face, my friend, the winds greeting me. The night sky is clear. Blue velvet. Another one of my silent companion, the moon is present. Brilliant, perfect with its circlet of lunar rainbow. What is most beautiful in the expanse of clear darkness though, was Orion. The three aligned stars of the belt seem wondrously impossible to me. I gaze at the other sparse stars dimmed in Orion's commanding presence, spotting a deceptive airplane gliding effortless out of my view. Betelgeuse shone the brightest tonight. The air is cool. Such a relief after the past Summer nights.

A car came into the parking lot, breaching my precious solitariness. I sulk and made for my apartment.
And I above all else, desire meaning.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Reliance

I don't keep a journal anymore. I just write poems in them. 

The thing with challenging situations, I find myself remembering where my reliance is always on; the kindness of other people. People that ease your way through God's mercy.

Invoking God in the heart when facing difficulties calms anxieties. When I am able to remove myself from whatever seemingly impossible obstacles by remembering the real goals of doing anything in life, burdens lighten and it becomes ibadah (inshallah) because it brings remembrance of God.

My mother says that the elders used to like to say that the journey to a destination feels longer than the journey back because all the leaves give you salaam. And then all those ayahs in the Quran that goes 'All that is on the land and in the heavens exults God'.

So on the way to work when I see all the lovely green trees (it's not autumn yet), I look at the leaves, thinking of the silent praise every single one is making to Allah SWT, how they rustle in the wind; the wind, praising Allah SWT in its whistling, howling voice, the slow sailing of great big clouds, the blue of the Sky which is the face of the Sea projected upon the atmosphere, the very air particles that I breathe, seeping into my blood, my heart, perfusing every cell in my body...

To possess such clarity...Remembrance of God is an innumerable blessing.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Final year

To think that this nomadic cycle of steeling one's self against this onslaught of being a stranger in a foreign land will end (inshallah) by December...I can almost taste it.