Sunday, September 28, 2014

You are these words

You were falling asleep. It is midday, the wind is singing through the rustling leaves, you can hear it through your open window. The sun is streaming into your white room, the Sky is smiling at you, a fresco of blue and white. You are in bed. You were falling asleep.

Your phone rang. S. is calling you. You answer and she speaks. Something. She tells you something. You talk. The conversation ends. Birds have been chirping all morning. You can hear them through your window. Your window spans the entire wall of your room. A large, clear window. The Sky comes into your room.

You were falling asleep. M. is texting you. A poem by Plath. "Morning Song." You try to read it. You can't. You skim it. You try to read it over and over. Yet you skim it each time. You think of F. You think of M. You reply. The conversation ends. Your window rattles, the wind whistles at you. It is like you are at the beach. The wind brings the sea into you room.

You were falling asleep. Now you are writing. You are these words. You are these words. You are t h e s e w o r d s.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

red gloaming

I weep for innocence lost
for chivalry gasping for precious breath
for eternity bleeding on the floor

this crowding city, this human fog
this supine skyline;

Who waits, what wakes, for you
When you darken your door?

Hungry man, do you dream when you sleep?
Does the wind die at your shivering?
Does the world pause at your weeping?

this human tide, this wild road
this red gloaming;

Dying man, do you hear your stilling heart?
Does death smile upon your meeting?
Does the reeling world matter still?

this human grief;
this eventide, this evenfall.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Stay part II (Happy Birthday)

Dearest M.

Tempest, beloved, this is the year I give nothing to you. I've thought about it long and hard and I could only find one thing that could possibly make you happy today of all days and it is something that I cannot give. Another holds that happiness. Thus, I present to you now, my words. As I always have through all these years. 

I have written to you, written of you, read things as if they were written of you. In my letters, my poetry, I have summoned you in monikers and fashioned you into personas as countless as the distant stars. I have sworn you into my words, sworn to you in my words. I have built you fortresses in my mind with these words. They have become one with the very walls of my heart. To unseat you is unspeakable grief. Sometimes I shelter from thoughts of you in them but mostly, I admire their walls, the long lonely hallways, the crooked stairways; I admire my impossible affection for you. You are the vessel for my words. My medium, my tedium, my delirium.

This is all I do. I write of you in long reminiscences, I write you into an eternal precipice, because that is where the beauty of life is most stark. You fit into all these notions and more (such is the nature of a muse). You are many things to me and this is precisely why I will never cease to write of you. A word, a sentence, a paragraph. They are never enough. I have tried to sever this connection. I have tried to erase these words, raze my crumbling fortresses to the ground, scorch you out of my life. It pained me beyond my understanding, and if I am not mistaken, it pained you too.

I hope you read this with fondness for me. My intention is to remind you just what you mean to me and hopefully, to make you happy. I want you to know in this life that God has blessed us with, no matter how many years go by, how much changed things can be, I will stay the same. I treasure what we have, and always will. 

Dear sweet friend, happy birthday. May Allah SWT bless you with love and happiness in this life and the next. Inshallah.

Ever yours,
L.