Did you forget too?

Poetry

I’ve asked myself these past few weeks

Whether hopes and dreams meant happy or happier

I still haven’t responded to myself

Mostly because my mind couldn’t be more crammed than a jammed copier

I think it’s fortuitous and perhaps it’s eventually grand

To be so busy you can’t ask yourself

Whether you’re cut out to build your own brand

But do we only work and grapple until we forget?

That at some point there was a hope that began a bet

That one day I’ll be this and I’ll be that

Let’s get to work then

Let me catch up on the righteousness track

Because to dream I guess is to be noble

To live beyond your existence

To hope your impact becomes global

But here I sit and type out fatigued little phrases

From a mind that wanted to remember why it began all these phases

Is it worth it now? Are your dreams equating “happy”?

Because I don’t even know

I’m so tired I forgot

I don’t even know

Good night then self, I’ll dream and hope you’ll remember tomorrow

The Future is Mud and Ice

Poetry

There is a future that I fear,

I see it masking its opportunities in mud and thawed icicles

Waiting to be reached at or grabbed at just the same

I think it held its coolness for a while,

I think it was trying to assume repose

But the fever of great await sweat out of its pores

She melted her only preservation

And I guess prayed no one could see

I think no one noticed how she drowned her body in earth

Then rummaged through oceans for equanimity

I guess all she found were some ice sticks

And held them closely before they ran

But mud and water is not clarifying

And I saw the creature feigning repose

Perhaps I was the only one

But I shuddered at the auspicious sight

That she should be worth waiting for —

That finally reaching her was only right.

But all I feel is fear

I feel terror beyond my sight,

Because she is not what I will create…

We are both bombed against each other and asked to be patient and then fight.

This Whole Time

Journal, Poetry

And it feels ongoing

To desire then wait

Then desire again, some more patience

You get it and sometimes you don’t, and the ticking of time moves as slowly as you continue to want

It was ongoing — seemingly relentless

That days hung on my shoulders and I forgot what I wanted

I was only moving forward

Get it done get it out of the way

Let time pass until that something you await

I would promise myself the second I took hold of desire X

I was to be golden

Untouched and satisfied

But the next desire advanced into the forefront

Demanding a presence or improvement

Like perhaps you could need an alteration

Or perhaps this was not your initial real desire

And so it feels tautological

And so it feels quite ongoing

To desire then wait — and hold nothing, not even time, to your own advantage

It is a cruel patience

One where you know not what you are waiting for — one where you only want “other”

Though not specified nor called for

Okay okay that is all well and said but —

But then there was her

Her

My baby

My beautiful precious little baby

And it is like the clocks stopped their ticking

And the earth slowed its orbiting

And it was just me and her

All too new but too familiar

Molding in and out of each other in an inexplicable attachment only felt not described

She was a piece of me

She was the piece I had been waiting for

She was a desire that needed “wait”

But in the incredulous moments of her arrival — in the surreal swirls of her turning a blush pink and breathing our oxygen

My world flashed

It was her — her — what I had been waiting for

Not for nine months… I think for twenty four years

You know when it is a calling?

I do not know, perhaps I still do not but it is like a calling

And it was her this whole time

I had been waiting

I have been waiting for you my whole life, baby

I have been waiting this whole time

اللهم احفظنا لبعض وارجعنا اليك وانت راضٍ عنا

Thin

Poetry

There is a thin line between success and journey

You see, success

It is too autonomous for me to understand

No real reasons, no fighting, no experience

It just happens or it doesn’t.

But you see, then your journey —

It’s a long journey

It tells you it builds the highs

Scrapes them from the ground into little rounded pebbles ready for the projectile

But it is only shaping you —

You, as you walk, jump and crawl,

You, as you speak, whisper and scream

I decide who I am and how to be I suppose…

Success doesn’t know a thing about that

It maintains nonchalance as it passes by carelessly chosen souls — telling them they’re the lucky ones today

My life could have been this or that, different I suppose

But there remains a thin line between it all…my choices almost not mine

But ever so slightly in chosen repose.

Sure, today I gush open wounds on accident and they drop out of my mouth like waterfalls — I wish they didn’t, I wish I didn’t make choice A or B or any of it at all

I wish I could get out, be alone, not lonely, surrounded, noise-full and left all at once…

I do not know where I lie on the line

Am I in between? In a far end? Losing time or gaining wins?

Will it be worth it as my head lays in the dirt,

Stare at the sky, wish it were closer — but it is already way too close

I’m not sure if any of this makes sense but this perhaps may not be poetic —

I am walking, trembling, continuing on a journey…with a thin line and thin consequences

Too quickly and slowly everything seems to pass

Hold on, wait, I don’t know. Just rest.

This feature photo is my own photography. I found this random bush on a walk the other day and thought it was a very bizarre looking plant. Perhaps just as bizarre as a lot of my thoughts have been lately.

Tired of Patience

Poetry

I suppose it is not as beautiful anymore

When a worship as noble in stillness as it is in movement extends its wings

She is leaving me, but softly

So gently I might have not noticed she was here in the first place…

Behind her she has left blocks of lead

Heavy, dark, fatigued

There is stillness that remains

But it is a choking kind;

It wraps around the waist and neck weighing them onto the ground

Pebbles, the blocks crumble into

And my heart does not know a patience it thought it had

But they told me it is liberating, enthralling, nascent in a hope once found before

I can’t find it anywhere and my face is wet

Uncertainly of confounded tears and sweat

I am not waiting anymore I do not know how

I am tired

I am so tired

How does she return? How might she find you once more?

To remove the crumbles she left behind and pat me on the shoulder

With a smile,

“Your miracle is on its way,” she would say

“What’s a minute of waiting?”

Point

Poetry

And at some point

You do not know what to say…

When the breaks inside scream for a hope

And all you can do is sway

Left and right my head spins

As I think and re-think all over again

Decisions decisions decisions

Perhaps conviction or some sort of consolation

Perhaps a conversation — someone I trust

But they seem to have walked far off,

And I am not certain should they return

My hands in the sky, during a month of handy sky

Come back! I may plead

Then patience is my only reach

Even such a word is a feat

To wait is to not know

Should I move or stop, when can I hasten, when should I take it slow

Will it come like a miracle? Or will my eyes be shutting down?!

Will I be well deserving

Almost as if my head is topped with a crown

I fear those longer stretches; my human tendency is to forget

Yes, with it pain dissipates — but so might the thirst and beauty

Of the onset

You know, the one that had me breathing really hard

Praying for a long life of steadfast

Then as the ticking gets slower…my back breaks

And I wish for the end quite fast

And then at some point

I do not know what to say

When those little bubbles find solace in a moving picture — fiction I try to explain!

Fiction, my love…

But what can they do? They are wounded

And they see love and generosity,

Hope and grandeur — as if it had never existed before

They tell me they know it exists — love — just not for them,

It will not be a part of our story

So at that point

What the hell do you say?

When you are hopeful and hopeless all at once…

I suppose I simply let my head and fingers sway

It’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, I’ll be okay

I think, I know, I don’t, I don’t know

Validation

Journal, Personal

On understanding and recognizing the importance of validation!

As my emotions and sufferings are validated there is a lifting by the Mercy of Allah of sadness and anger,

I am happier,

Twist on Anxiety

Journal

I recognized very potently how when I inadvertently diss myself it affects my self worth and self compassion.

I’m starting to become more aware of how much I need to give my soul the time of day. That I am worthwhile and I have meaning بفضل الله

Although I am so glad about my anxiety. Truly a blessing it is that I do not feel a humility in hiding my ability no, it is a genuine fixed belief that I am not capable of anything.

With worship this truthful feeling allows me to spread the wings of faith in Allah only to believe that anything moves forward.

I just recently got hired to be a teacher and I am so sure that I’m not ready and feel that the teachers telling me I am are lying.

Anxiety is that.

A genuine fixture that keeps you on your toes, worried you’re not ever gonna be good enough

I hope this will help me never reach arrogance

I hope I don’t ever rid myself of my anxiety that grounds me into Allah’s care and fate.

I hope I never feel that I’ve ever fully learned or that I can’t get more prepared than this. I can only do all I can do. There’s always better and that’s okay.

Learning about Love

Journal, Personal

On the subject of self compassion yesterday was the biggest emotional turning point in my life.

That’s all I have written for that note. I think I remember accepting and loving a huge portion of my faults I never thought I needed to love to be able to grow. That’s it’s okay to not succeed in this or that, that I can still be worthy if I’m not loved by him or her. I still hold value and uniqueness. Love thy self to make thy self important.

It was a reflection I raised many eyebrows with. I would see those who didn’t work nearly as hard as I did to climb up a constructed social ladder and didn’t have nearly as many skills or potential talents or beauty spots…but they were mysterious, accepted, desired and even chased after. The answer was in them. It is they who hold themselves at a certain esteem that define their worth to the world…the world in turn must accept their value, for no other definition is provided except for that confident one.

I am worth people’s time, energy and love.

Featured photo is my own photography