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.

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.

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.

Stay part I

Caught in a web of smoky feelings. Missing things that are, were, even things that never were. What do you call this submerged feeling? Something akin to warm sea water. Blue and inviting, clear and endless. A beckoning mystery that promises and whispers through the breeze.

You are the ocean. I am the shoreline. My words are the wind. And I think, "I've given all I am allowed to give." And I wonder what sort of expression you would make. A grin, most likely. A friendly deflection. Ever silent. You never grace me with a direct response. I wonder. Something in between assent and dissent? Either way, it doesn't matter. What matters is that I have been allowed.  You have allowed me a fantasy. And I am pierced by your faith. Thus I am loyal.

And all would be like warm sushine by the beach. This soft glowing. Like the setting sun, something in all of this is fading. If fading could be stretched into eternity. A never ending softness. Death by love. 

Must I put a disclaimer here? As if friendship is void of love. As if romantic love is all there is. Any kind of love, is never commonplace. Love is love. Friends are lovers. Lovers are lovers. 

What a feat. What a feat of sentiment I have moved myself to construct. For you. Ever for you. Sweet friend, stay well. 

a touch of introspection

It will be September soon, spring will come. It is foggy these days. Even in the dead of night Melbourne is covered in ethereal fog. As if the entire city is intent to make the vestiges of winter a magical one. I am not partial to the bite of cold (not news). I suppose I will only miss Melbourne when I can no longer go back to it. Because to be honest, while I was home for winter break (much has happened in that rather short period), not a single thought of mine went towards this city. Then again, one can only feel at home and miss it only when the people or things they love are there to populate it. Melbourne is my alma mater. It teaches more than it comforts.

I am ever happy to frolic about with roomie and sofy. But it is a mystery to me that they never seem to feel the depths of dusk niggling at them. I do say 'seem'. Maybe they do after all. With much reservation thus, I say... perhaps not everyone feel it. Not everyone perhaps has been touched by introspection. That deep and occasionally involuntary pulling away from the present into the mind where one is faced with the soul and the heart. One becomes heedless of the world as is and enters instead into the realm of ambiguous perception.

Or I might simply be mistaking the simple act of pondering. Would not be the first time. And as always, the longing to put into writing the 'dusks' and 'depths' of humanity (love, eternity and all that tosh) nags at me. I seek only to bring into focus the vulnerability of being a creature of feeling. Just how much love and grief a person could harbor for the sake of another.

Anyway, when I do not write, I draw. And of course, the muse only rouses to which that calls to the heart. So I am not destitute. I linger still with ideas of martyrdom, nobility, stoicism and of course, the idea of ultimate love: selflessness.

Anger

I have a most striking flaw: To be quite terribly unforgiving when my patience runs out with somebody I care deeply for. I will state things as is, I will cut deep, I will be acidic. I will be gloriously angry and struggle to keep my peace. 

I believe in justice. I believe in 'setting things right'. Actions are a series of consequences and inevitably, people get hurt. Sometimes the 'blame' is equally distributed and sometimes not.

Pep talk

That one should let their self-worth be determined by another's opinion of them; seek no such thing. Be independent and seek yourself on your own. Set goals in life by your ideals. People (not just strangers in general, inclusive of family & friends) will help you but they may also pose a hindrance because people simply have opinions; some helpful, some not is all it is.

Be courageous, be generous, be forgiving.

For when fear grips you tight

And I crossed a sea of grief today, to show you just how much I love you, how much mother loves you, how much God loves you. To have the strength to be so vulnerable in face of your own vulnerability, I thank God. I pray that He puts into you the Love of Islam as a way of your life. Islam as your salvation. Islam as your pathway towards truth. Islam as your future. Islam as your End. I pray that you grow into a pious, kind & forgiving man. I pray that whatever challenges you face, you remember that He is with you every step of the way & that every step will only bring you nearer to Him until you finally return to Him.

Dear brother, ana uhibukifillah. I love you for the sake of Allah.