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.

Self-seeking

O nameless anguish 

O heedless arrogance

          Why do you plague the weak-hearted?

           The bright adornments paving the road

           They sparkle with cheerful worldliness.

O patience-smothered

O humility-bartered

             Why do you flit from the soul's cradle?

              The perfumed beauty lurking the shadows

              They beckon with easy charm.

The heart forgets the soul

The heart thwarts itself 

                Unless watered with God

                Fed with mercy

                Clad with piety,

Goodness is fire frozen into a drop

Of contained passion

A concentrate of good-intentions

Fashioned with reservation.

Goodness is to forgo,

Forgive and forbear

A state of desertion

Of the not-divine.

.

No words except prayers to extinguish the anguish of contradictions. These futile words. Tumultuous heart, why do you only ponder the soul after guilt has sunk it's claws into you? 

It is tiring to exist in cyclical anguish. White, smooth & silken; depiction of goodness. The end-result of ideal character does not entail the iron will needed to attain it. 

To act towards goodness is the single most variable thing there is. It can be easy & effortless for one and near impossible to another. It pertains to the degree of one's commitment.

To commit the soul to what & whom. Vacillation is the trial. To brave through vacillation until the ideal characteristic is fully attained is a courageous act. Because really, how much willpower does it take to manifest an invisible, elusive foe so that one could strike it down once and for all? Especially if said foe has a penchant for resurrection.

Like iron forged in fire, the strength of will is a weapon strengthened by burnings & beatings. With this weapon fashioned in fiery intention, one must battle one's self.

Stage-acting

I can be mean spirited when my passions are challenged or I slighted. So I write. I write so that things will be as it was. Unchanged, perfect. So that in reality, I could proceed as if there never was a disturbance to my ego. So that pain, turned into poetry becomes something forgiven. So then I could resume playing my part, and begin again to hope. 

Bittersweet

Dear A.

When one is close to another, a strain develops when things are one-sided. Especially if the relationship was built on foundations of idolatry and warring egos fortified by time. 

I outgrew you. To think that I used to think you were perfect. The thing is, I cannot be happy when you are derisive towards notions & ideals I hold dear. I account your pessimism to your stringent distance (in every sense of the word) to me, to the rest of the world. You exist in the enclave of your family. I am tolerant of you. I always forgive. And then sometimes I get angry again (like this particular instance).

Do you not realize that I am the lynchpin? Despite it all, you lord over me petty things, which I know you to know, deep down are meant to put me down. I am hurt by your veiled unkindness. Was it jealousy in your part? Or is it simply your nature? (I suspect it is both). 

For once, I decided to stop being unassuming of your flighty words and curt dismissals of things I hold dear. I do not do that to you. So why then should I put up with this behaviour. You know me to swallow my pride and keep the peace no matter what, perhaps it is my mistake then, to be so temperate with you. 

Ah but to old friends, what is a sharp word or two ey? But darling, to old friends, concern for the other's well-being should be número uno. Or at least to my esteem it is. Evidently, not to you.

I ruminate your small betrayals here where I know you will never know of. Given your absolute disinterest in everything that does not pertain to you. Oh I am bitter indeed. Because I revere loyalty. I cannot stand anything less than absolute faithfulness. My love for you have always been strong, consistent and unconditional. Nonetheless, patience can and do wear thin.

Hurting,
P.

Dreamings

I remember my dreams. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. It's disorienting, pulling away from an alternate reality into consciousness. All these people and scenes that populate dreams seem so real. They say things, laugh, bleed, cry. When I wake up, I carry them with me, sometimes only for a little bit, but sometimes forever.

I dream each time I sleep. I have traversed worlds, lived and died in my dreams. Friends, strangers, monsters. I am well acquainted with them all. I used to dream that I am hunted down, each night, every night. That was years ago now though. I still remember them. I do not forget those dreams.

What are dreams? Do our souls really leave our corporeal bodies and enter this realm of shade? 

I read Surah djinn yesterday. The verses say that some of the djinns who have tried to listen or peer into the heavens see that there are guards (angels) guarding it. The djinns are shot with flaming arrows if they get too close. Some of them wonder what lies beyond. So when The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) brought the message of Islam, some listened and followed. The Surah says the ghaib is not for men to see.

It reminds me of dreams. What a thing for us to possess, this ability.

.

"The youths recite poetry. They say 'we wear our hearts as shields'." - An elder on Iraqi youths.