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Two days in a row, a breath apart from you—I collapsed the next day

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Instead of ups and downs My path has the topology of sharp bends Murky twists and wayward turns Like none I could imagine and comprehend When the path is straight I would look back at the turning points and see footsteps of those who have pulled me out From the quicksand of my brain

After each turn away and back again I feel a coating of rust flaking off Clearing obstructed sight, distorted reality Seizing my accelerating spiralling thoughts As light breaks in through the cracks on the walls and dispersed into spectral colours The burden of a soul not used to be human Feels a little lighter on my shoulders

I read the news about a prisoned strip of land being turned into an extermination camp They bold the line between human and nonhuman: Only nonhuman would treat human inhumanely and shed the blood of thousands in the name of one’s ancestry

I thought of my own minuscule scale of a battle When I placed myself on an unhuman pedestal I struck her down at the smallest manifestation of human flaw A loopholed law governed my city Rights didn’t exist for this piece of flesh living in made-up inferiority In the ensuing rebel against the mastermind The ivory tower shut off all systems in self-defence To fence off signals of voices telling the truth Because the believed lie was Empathy, kindness, and love deserve to be given to everybody but you

See the logical fallacy here that waged the so-called war For years unseen was the carnage I was drowning in oblivion Until I know myself my mind could never reason

When I saw my brothers and sisters in faith Surrounded by the rubble of their homes Holding motionless white bodies of their dead resembling porcelain dolls Smoke, ashes, and death in the destruction of everything they owned But God! The people, young and old Smiles hiding their fatigued eyes and shaking shoulders Said “Alhamdulillah” All praises to Allah “We’re alive”

How can I not live? And I remember the promise Of “On them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve” And “On no soul does God place a burden greater than it can bear” God-willing Palestine will be free From the river to the sea

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For some reason I need to point out the exact moment when this void in my chest appeared. At moments of idleness I would try to figure it out and these suppositions would not leave me until I am certain.

One possible point in time would be when I had to part with my closest friends in school whom I loved so dearly that I was dejected at the thought of not meeting them again in this life. Around that time, and this could be another possibility, I was sent to live for a whole month in a cold country where I first witnessed the first fall of snow and nonchalantly experienced it as if it was just another winter.

Or rather, I am quite certain, that it started further back when I was eleven. Disembarking at an unknown place somewhere out of town, I was to attend an art competition. It was just me and a teacher, and an imperceptible void in my chest. There I met some students from other schools, whom I would later meet again in high school, but that’s not the important detail. It is that there existed in me an emptiness that was a result of alienness while being among them.

I don’t think it ever went away, though I might have forgotten about it, because I got a time machine to run away with—I call it time machine but really it is just the iPod. Having the only two things that mattered in my life at that moment—books and music—in my pocket, it seemed as if nothing could bend my spirit.

Seven years later, from beneath a mound of musical scores and fictional stories, though the void had grown, it was filled to the core at the sight of my now alma mater. I was in a lab for the entrance exam or interview of some sort. Hazy memories, but one thing was definitely clear, the sight of a familiar face in a crowd of ordinary people. I must have stared a little before remembering an almost ancient memory which I didn’t even know existed. Since that single moment in a string of hazy moments, I would gradually and unconsciously become enamoured of its existence, while part of me ceased to exist.

Let’s say that this is one of the definite junctures in my life that makes me happy when I look back, for two reasons—the place that momentarily filled my void, and the person who stole it.

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A adhd poem

It all ties to motivation Need stimulation Be my caffeine for a change?

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赤い

If I were to paint this feeling, it would be in blood red. Warm, scathing, and alive. Sometimes it turns ice-cold, arctic blue.

My thoughts would camouflage, changing my mood as the landscape morphs inside of me.

I am waiting for when it becomes the colour of the forest. Cool and haunting as it once was.

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Idleness

I dislike being idle, because when I’m idle I’d try to figure out how this hole in my chest came to exist. When was the point in time the skin began to chip away and the flesh started to rot? Or did something gnaw its way through and eat parts of me alive? Why did I let my guard down and let people come so close they could touch my wounds?

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Things at the turning point

Books with transcendental meanings Art that moves the qalb Company of good humans Dreams of death

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Sadness is contagious

You seemed sad Thought I’d cheer you up But then I caught the sadness I think I’m fine now I thought I’d cheer you up If you’re still sad

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As long as I read

I don’t think I’ll ever forget you. You live in books, a mythical friend after all.

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Little doses

Yesterday, I played around with colour grading on some old photographs. I can’t remember the last time I felt a similar sense of being alive, but it drains me as much as it invigorates, all the hours spent finding the perfect tone. Eventually I’d leave it for something more important, like living, and months later come back for mere hours out of necessity.

Talking to you was like that, in a sense. Little doses of art that heals. But I think too much of things.

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dark.h0llow

A deleted identity Of cringe and history And fatal little oversights

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Draft-3

I could spend hours crafting and blending words just for the fun of it. There is a rewarding feeling from finding the proper word, either from my dictionary of pretentious words that mean something stashed in my head, or the dictionary, that encapsulates everything I desire to say through all its different senses. I rewrite, and rewrite them until the rhythm sounds perfect in my head.

It is difficult to say things simply, like I like you or, I want to know you. Perhaps talking in person is easier. Where words exist only as vibrations and sometimes a memory, I don’t have to think so much.

When I write I like to put my soul into my craft which is not exactly useful. It’s nothing to do with the art, the problem is my inherent tendency towards unattainable perfection.

The first law of a perfectionist is the fear of making mistakes, the accumulation of which unbeknownst to me, had brought years upon years of emotionless and motionless crisis. I had been suppressing the long-lived rebellion of one who relishes being reckless from plunging into the void and filling it with traces of her.

I now pronounce myself guilty for being naïve at matters of the heart. I can’t deny it after all, the ghost of you still lives in my mundane. Sometimes it is quite a feat to just get through the day.

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Draft-2

There is a certain fascination in the unknown, isn’t there? I thought I disliked not knowing, but the more unpredictable the situation, the more engrossing it becomes. That is what I think about this predicament. I find myself being amused and finding muse in writing to you. Art is my sole excuse.

This pursuit of companionship is senseless. People say, be with those who bring out the best in you, but from what I could deduce, even with the thought of you I am the contrary. Knowing someone within whom I find myself has only unleashed the demons in me.

Do you know of the somersaulting iceberg—the beauty and the brilliance along with all the chaos when, by way of nature or accident, the ice has melted enough to lose balance and topple over?

I feel like a flipped iceberg, metaphorically. All the turbulence and heat that has been thinning my soul out for years might have upended me completely.

Ultimately, there is a blessing in knowing thyself. What is left is to make use of this knowledge, which is particularly daunting.

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Guns For Hands

I used to like Guns For Hands for the notion of not being able to sleep. Until at one point the not-so-ambiguous underlying point resonated, there exists a certain insistence to save everybody else from slipping into the same frame of mind I’ve been trying to run away from.

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Cherry

Ethiopia coffee Single (origin) light roast is the death of me

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Winter, It

Your vibe is winter snow January’s end My heart freezes there, too

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Wayfarer

I left the things I needed in my grave and ignored the things I left in my wake. “Be in this world like a stranger or a wayfarer” cleansed my head of the unnecessary baggage I had picked up on the road.

I am leaving this hoard that I have gathered and traded in, selling faith for darkness, buying darkness with faith. The double-edged sword of my mind, one a useful edge I seldom sharpen, the other drew cuts I bleed from on the inside. I am tending to invisible wounds, the collateral damage of a carnage of neurons. This isn’t a programmed suicide but a perfectly inappropriate neuronal cell death.

A wandering mind hardly ever lingers. I wonder who you are at this juncture. My tragedy, collateral beauty, a Godsent saviour?