pacemaker

Naturally, one would like to be explained to, to believe that the reasons as to why things happen to us will be unveiled in the immediate future... because otherwise things do not make 'sense', it adds up to our anxieties and discontent. But life's not like that, we don't always get explanations, no great reveals, no nothing. Life isn't rational (to our human faculties), it is not a persona we can hold accountable and make demands to, assign faults to. The question of faith fits here, the cupped palm that holds us. The irrationality of life makes for piety, for belief but that's not my subject matter right now. I'm talking about the whys, the need for answers when there is none to be gotten.

It's futile, but it's there, niggling away at the back of my mind.

Then, there is the question of self-autonomy, one's Will. To what extent are we capable of governing our actions? Is it exponential to one's belief that one is in control? or maybe we're not supposed to even grasp at the illusion of control, rather, to be bouyant and surf the waves that buffets us like flotsam at sea. Life is a journey afterall... the concept of acceptance being the great storms, trials, that visits.

I feel like anarchy is built-in into me. They call it the 'Nafs' don't they... heedlessness, always making the wrong choices, consciously so. Because sometimes I feel like I set bylaws for my heart only for it to be ripped apart, torn down, by my own self.

I can't help it. I keep wondering why I end up here, if it was by my own consent, if I did my own heart upon myself. How much of our relations to the world is voluntary, how much of it is destiny, and how much of it is pure brain chemistry?

Ultimately, the heart runs its own beat. It's not an instrument. We do not play its rhythm.

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My perception of the world is deeply personal. I wage war with my ideals, flay myself alive,  repeatedly, for all the failings I am aware I commit. Maybe I like to suffer, who knows? It's very selfish of me to hold things in such deep regard, it is unfair, but isn't that the ironic nature of Justice? That there is a right and wrong, even when things are all gray?

Regardless, I would rather suffer the consequence of being this inflexible than be a wayward, hollow being incapable of knowing meaning... dismissing all as superficial, impersonal. 

I will be as I am. I will not be less.

Repose

Like the pendulum of a metronome one can swing between extremes of a spectrum and only passingly feel that balanced centered calm.

Many mistake the need that drives them are motivated towards affection, ambition and a myriad of other emotions or worldly things when really the essence of that elusive, endless want has always and will always be for repose —which is divine in nature.

The calm amidst joy, the calm amidst control, even at the contradictory apex of a thrill there is repose.

Life is riddled with anxiety. Repose; that momentary stillness, is the pinnacle of satiation and its constant absence can only be described as torture.

Not made of your expectations

It is okay if the world doesn't know, if it judges you by what it knows, holds you captive in the confines of what they believe you in your position should be grateful for –just let them be. What do they know about you and the things you treasure in your heart, the hurts you bury, the wishes you desire... the world doesn't know.

Let the world trample this image of you that they see. It is not you it demeans. 

You are not the world's expectations of you, you do not need the approval of people who think you should be happy when you are not, you do not need to explain the flaws of your character... justify them so that you're able to make yourself worthy of being weak...

You are human and just as you are, you are capable of strength. Your dignity is always yours. Let them be. 

always on the night shift

I turn out the lights, lie awake, thinking shadowy thoughts, breathing slow, and let my heavy heart wander. Then I rouse at the call to prayer, step into the shower, let the water run on cold —still wallowing in the dark. Maybe it's an attempt to manifest the symbolic, maybe I'm just tired of being tired, whatever my motives, I then prayed, enveloped in darkness, my eyes having adjusted to the monochromatic world of the lightless; hoping Light would visit me from within. 

Later, I will leave again, drive into the night, where the bright lights of the ED is blinding, where human sickness awaits, continues, endlessly.

In memoriam

A pause, a moment of suspended breath, where I find myself in a memory of light shafts on white ceilings, cobbled stones darkened by rainwater, alleyways full of wind halting my walk; and other warmer scenes of S. sitting on the carpeted floor against her bed, the fan pulled out of the back room finally of use in the summer heat, blowing the strands of her jet black hair about her white forehead into her brown eyes, and I, cross-legged on my bed, back to the cool wall, tapping away at the keyboard, sealing memory into eternity.

Days and days of sunlight, blue skies, brisk weather and countless cups of shared coffee with our twin lipstick stains around its edges. Days and days of songs about youth, of my witnessing S's lovegames, while I indulge in my ever permanent devotion to being singly poetic and ever single. Days and days of films projected against the pristine wall of our shared room, the whirring of the electric heater, like crickets in Autumn.

Soft, tender and vibrant; night walks in the city, aimlessly wandering the streets to listen to buskers, people watch, and finally crashing at Sofy's place. Me watching the two women going about their wicked friendship which ran hot-cold-hot, too familiar, like lovers (but not) in their intricate dance of secrecy, fondness for each other's beauty; the play of womanly egos. Morning afters where the kitchen is filled with music, as they cook and dance, while I sip my drink and enjoy their light-heartedness.

Lazy days of staying in bed, talking to S. in voices muffled by our quilts, making plans for the weekend, plans to the library, plans to buy grocery at the market; for domestic youthful pleasures. 

I have committed no other person to my memory as I have S. Her personality, physicality, hopes and dreams –all as familiar to me as my own. She is a moving image in technicolour so pervasive with happiness that I cannot part any conception of her from the feeling. While I'm at it, similarly, I have committed no other person to my soul as I have M. M. who is my prose, poetry, ever-friend.

Younger days; freedom so concentrate it leaves a taste on the tip of the tongue.

Another beat, another breath, the spell is broken. Reality rushes in, time catches up and the present is restored. Now is now. The satisfying weight of nostalgia nestles neatly upon my heart, which smiles and aches. I walk on, with dregs of bittersweet joy clinging at the corners of my mouth, dimpling my rosy cheeks.

Gentleness

Whilst making duas to put steel into my soul so that I may have the strength enough to be patient, brave enough to be good, today I am suddenly struck to ask that my heart be made gentle.

I forget, that it is not hardness that should armour the heart.

I have failed myself too often of late. I rankle too much, I am aware. Sometimes the need to be understood is overwhelming and I, who talk to none about what bothers me and such, can become...

[Note to self, remember to be gentle.]

captain the soul

If there is anything one could do when at wits's end, is to make dua.

Make dua for help to come your way, and if none came, make dua for the strength to endure.

And if even then you fail to muster the strength to endure whatever it is that you are faced with, make dua for His forgiveness.

Don't abandon yourself.

sunny and downcast

At least it's always sunny here. No winters to endure, except the one within.

Sometimes I consciously feel the sun on my skin, like when I'm walking from the parking lot at work, or when I open my mail out in the front porch; the heat of the rays always a reminder of Life. Sometimes I feel bitter about how unhappy I have become, sometimes I just feel a longing to have the time to enjoy the days as I wished and either way it culminates into discontent.

I feel far removed from joy. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to fix myself to be honest. 

Lord, help me. I'm much too inured to being morose.

a feat of feeling

I'm not a person of half measures. Am one for grand gestures, one of those who (if I had the money to spare) would write 'I love yous' in the sky, fucking fireworks on birthdays, roses on coffee dates, or buy you a $130 scarf on a random Monday sort. 

I will 'go to town' so to speak. Or at least I'd like to think I would.

It's a character flaw, to indulge one's self into feeling too intensely. An exaggeration of sentiments that merely puts you on a vulnerable ledge on an emotional skyscraper. You get high, sure but then what? 

On a side note, I'm now calm. I think.

tell no one

“Travel and tell no one, live a true love story and tell no one, live happily and tell no one, people ruin beautiful things.”

                              — Khalil Gibran

Drive

All I wanna do is curl up in bed and read my Southern Vampire Mysteries novels all weekend (which is what I'm doing right now, before I turn in) but it's a 9-2pm and 9-5pm sort of weekend sadly.

Being tired is now simply a way of life. Just as; sleeping at 2 waking up at 6, breakfast in the car at stoplights and on the highway, singing with the radio (I'm Hitz FM & Red FM trash), cursing at bad drivers, being a bad driver myself (not anymore, I drive strictly between 100-130  nowadays post the accident), arriving to work, work, doing all in my power so that I can leave at 5—are.

The other day, it was brought to my attention that I didn't even know the number for my paycheck slips —because I've never checked if my salary tallied with my paycheck. My lack of interest in my remuneration basically had people saying clearly I've never checked because I've never been in short of money. Sounded rather offensive to me but it's true I suppose. All I know is I feel stuck and aimless. Money is about planning ahead and I have no plans. 

Anyways.

My colleagues whom I genuinely like are all leaving next Monday. They're done with the 12 months internship hence are transferring out to other hospitals and clinics. I'll be a lot lonelier I expect, which is disheartening.

Oh well.

It's just what Life is. People move on, they leave, and you just cruise along like you always have; sleepless, breakfasts in the car & radio music keeping you company.

keep your head up the world hates sad people

No one likes to say it, that they feel lonely sometimes, do they?

That sudden awareness of acute quietness. It's not a pleasant feeling.

Refuge

If there was ever silence or distance in my part, it is either out of respect for another's consternation or merely a desperate act of self-preservation.

To lessen another's hurt or to lessen my own. When words maim, silence becomes a balm. When presence aches, absence becomes refuge. 

Or not.

And then one remembers, fa inni qaribun. There is no silence, no solitariness that is without Him who is the last refuge.

 

Tribute

I write only for my own heart, and for that which reside in it. My audience and subject is one. Nothing else matters.

“Poets don’t have an ‘audience’: They’re talking to a single person all the time.”

                                 —Robert Graves

through never, for ever

I thought myself brave and again, I cowered. I question myself, is it cowardice, or rather out of wisdom that I now halt myself from... feeling unnecessarily. Does the heart always hold the utmost truth of our beings? Is it not prone to bouts of fickleness? Is love a thing to be possessed? A space to be occupied? A state of being?

They say love is selfless. How selfless, and for how long? The fact that I ask these questions at all. . .

Love is a burden for bearing, warmth for sharing and most of all, it is an offering. To love is to sacrifice all. 

If it didn't hurt at some point, then it wasn't love. Being human, we disappoint, naturally.

Having heart

You blink back tears. It is dark, you were about to go to bed. You are tired, it had been a long day and it is so quiet in your room. You smile through your silly tears. H. had just texted you a photo of his newborn son. H. who had gone through so much this past few days. 

You had been reaching out to him. Reassuring him that he does not indeed stand alone in his hardships. You are just friends. Mere colleagues. He had been needlessly kind to you before and you, you revere kindness. You repay kindness with absolute loyalty.

Because you know what it feels like to feel as if the world is crushing you. What it feels like to need help and have no one there. No allies to fall back on, no hearts nearby willing to shelter yours, no hands to catch you as you fall. 

And now here you are, feeling blessed by H's joy. This is meaning. Kindness is meaning. It is a debt of love and mercy that I will do all in my power to repay.

Alhamdulillah.

Mornings

With the singing birds, the cool morning air, and the dew upon verdant leaves, comes a sense of renewal, of hope.

I must remember to celebrate the blessing of hope as much as I brood upon my woes.

Alhamdulillah 

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"It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind."

                                                                                            — Naquib Mahfouz

.

Each passing day feels like a brick. A brick cemented into place in this looming Wall in my path. Soon this Wall shall be unscaleable and I will find myself in a place I have glimpsed far too many times in those dreams that haunt me; a place full of silence and longing with nothing but piles of dead leaves that crumble into dust at the whisper of a touch. 

"How lucky for you, that your path is set. I myself face an uncertain future," said her.

I peered at the naive girl and thought how wrong she was. I exist in a cage set to descend into the nethers of a pit. A 'set path' indeed.

I am tired of feeling. Let me rest.