Continuance

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Ramadan Mubarak to all my beloved🌹 and ummati, may He make it yet another means to secure our Eternity, ameen. 

Alhamdulillah, life progresses with its challenges and responsibilities and hopes and concerns. I've been wanting to write for the past few months, but often time doesn't agree and by the grace of my Rabb, often when I revisit, the typical emotional ebbs and flows that accompany writing, He has them tempered and subdued.

my Gift and Roshni, they're as gorgeous as ever mA. Gratitude is so simple when one sees one's blessings day by day, to know a refuge from loneliness and to see reflections of the soul in one's beloved. it's without equal an experience. though distance from some of my beacons remains, alhamdulillah the Moon can still be sighted at times and it's a precious thing to know. others He has kept in quiet distance and apartness, but as i am oft reminded, this life has never been known for permanence in anything. so if my resolve remains and objectives reach beyond the arms of this existence, then there is yet the Aim to be found and sought after. 

one of the consequences of accepting more responsibility in life has been for me, that i feel the depth of injustice more acutely. on a global scale, some events and present realities cut so deep, the wound is one that can only bleed. i wish that the qadr were not so brutal for some of my people, but the reality is weightier than any words i can write. my consolation, and i hope they realize theirs as well, is that this life is and always has been, temporary. the scope of the pain and agony and injustice can only be measured and rectified by Allah, not by any mortal means or mortal courts. solace won't come from human peace agreements or human compromises. it is something found in the presence of our Creator, when all deeds of all humanity are made manifest. i cannot pretend to know the price of belief in such a state of desolation and powerlessness. if i can borrow from some feelings on similar matters i've felt before, on a much more personal scale, then i can say...that giving yourself up to whatever our Rabb decides is all that remains. i learned this when i began chasing love and Eternity, and i figure the same reality holds true for a person no matter what the nature of the conflict at hand is. whether personal and emotional, or material and survival, there is reached a point whence our own efforts will never come close to sufficiency, and our only recourse is the One Who sent us His Quran and Rasool (saw). if you have imaan that your Creator owns you and will never let you go, then you are fine and taken care of, by His Grace. this is the knowledge needed, it is the staff of the soul, good for any shepherd or traveler through this life.

Peace

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

wish it were simple to spread peace, to heal the rifts plaguing our species, the animosities and divisions, tendrils of ego affecting outward as if some actual villainous substance. i don't know how many of my beloved and believing brethren these words might reach in, how often, but the attempts will be made regardless, of offering these scattered words as a small signboat in the wilderness, so we might remember that this life's end is not all that there is. 

~~~

it's fairly incredible, waiting 15 years or more to be connected on a level overtly social, but alhamdulillah, He's permitted me such vision, even if silence persists, i can see my Moon and her pumpkin, together, as beautiful a pair as these eyes could ever imagine. there is something to be said for the journey to find reunification, a trek throughout the oft-sparse wastelands of this life. the journey onward goes, and alhamdulillah a million-fold, not just for one whom remains part of the penultimate goal, but His mercy given through having such a Gift and...my littlest beloved whose light outstrips the known universe itself...I think "Roshni" is an apt nickname, translated of 'sunlight', in a more eloquent way though. The journey would have been beyond maddening absent these most joyous provisions of the soul. but alhamdulillah, my Rabb gave me such for this life and the next. 

just a Dream

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

i dreamt a dream with you, a little bit before fajr this morning. we were sitting in the backseat of a car, maybe a fancy one, being driven somewhere. can't really say for sure who was driving (or other minor details), because you'd captured my attention. i was amazed to see you, and you were radiant, beautiful. we talked for a bit, then the dream transitions to us walking side by side, maybe to an event or something like that. but really, for me it was more stunning to be near you. our conversations continued, ya Rabb i wish i could remember what they were about. but i remember one moment, while in the course of walking and natural hand/arm motions, my hand incidentally touched you and so you walked a little faster lol. 

~~~

a person is nothing without our dreams, our penultimate aims. the only real question that remains = is the dream worthy of having? and this is the entire context of why and how i can internalize my bond with my Creator so strongly. 

if i aimed simply and only for this life, then i would have left alone the consequences and possibilities of Eternity itself. how is this sensical? would i limit my acceptance of what i will do, to what my senses can grasp?...ignoring how much is beyond my senses yet still existing? honestly, disbelief is utter stupidity to me. the only root for it i can see is an impression/delusion that there is no accounting and death is a final seal for the living. and the only ones whose eyes are so blinded are the ones who rejected acknowledging any favors or blessings Allah gave them. if you can see one, you will see another, and another, until the pathway itself is full of His grace that permitted your eyes to open. 

~~~

alhamdulillah for everything He does, for letting me come to know such beloved exist, to keeping them safely, even if for some they're preserved in my soul and not externally expressed.  i hope just that He never leaves me to myself, and that He grants peace to my ummah, ameen. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

alhamdulillah for answers in silence, even with her sticking to her decision, to see a singular glimpse, and know a bit the state of beloved, it's precious, like visitation of rain for the desert and its nomad.

something special, striking, seeing one's Muse with her pumpkin, like solace made to find her face, ease her absence, allowing one to pour emotion at will, into these vessels we call our children. 

my Gift and Sunlight, still yet parted from me for few days longer, these days, seems lost their brightness but randomly, from places unpredicted, it reaches me again, alhamdulillah. 

always and forever, for Then, iA. 

sanity

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

(originally started on 9/10/24)

sanity is for the sane ones,

not

for those who sail on ships,

absent a skyline to gauge from;

even with eyes, even with vision,

feels like blindness,

so reaching out 

seeing if

i could touch a moment

somewhere close to a beloved.

but most often, it's encased, imprison

distanced, as if mere knowledge

of them

were too sacred to be known

by a nomad.

but he tries anyway, knowing the histories

recent silence, 

respect of their choices

along with these paper airplanes of attempts

regardless.

~

his Gift, she loves him, like a lover and beacon, she expresses, in ways he couldn't imagine in her nature, but the years of bridges building and giving her, his Rose, all of her own deserved water/light/attention, she feels, enough to touch my language on its wavelength, even if it's not hers, she's still reached out to mine, alhamdulillah. 

~

ya Rabb, i know well of silence, and distance, and keeping up boundaries which You decreed for us, just...keep them safe, all of my ummah and beloved, let us to survive and be saved through the tests You continuously (with some respite) try us with. ameen

Notes

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

started 8/28, finished 9/8

can't share your troubles, can't treasure your joys, don't know your pain, can't erase your solitudes, - found even in the phases of life, where He made us whole in a time as only parents knew. no avenues existing where the walls i'd will to break, they are His construction, your intention toward goodness, rather nurture these simplicities in earnest, just wish my ignorance didn't keep upwards piling, like an avalanche of absence that should be overwhelming.

but interspersed over these days, dominant in its brilliance, the beauty of my Sunlight, the bond of my Gift, such priceless beloved He gave, with whom this nomad finds strength to live. so while the absence lingers, tracing its way through my veins, filling my self with its emptiness entrained, these 2 whom He permitted close, bridging all my pieces as aloe over scars healed and retained, there is no thought spared for for the past, only forward where aims reside.

i would not exist without my memories, experiences, almosts, and sooner-or-laters, even if this traveler's tongue has not yet tasted any of its hopes, the aftertaste of possibility forever is one that lingers. it adds its substance to my pursuit, towards all my beacons, my Moon, all those whom He brought across my vision, whom He made precious, that not longer after i finally have met my Rabb, i too would soon meet them. most thoughts these days that occupy, how to persevere and protect these two closest beloved from the vagaries of this life as He made it our test to be born in. 

but it is a mixture, of the present and Tomorrow,  two trains of thought, who must walk hand in hand, for each offers its own wisdom and needs addressed, offering sight of both joy and sorrow. 

alhamdulillah, onwards still. 

The Value of Resonance

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

what is its worth? 

people always seem to understand things in terms of trades, exchanges, balance. what is given up for what is gained, the valuation of scales on each side. 

for me, resonance is the most precious substance one person can find with/from another. these days i don't know how to quantify it anymore, because i meet my beloved at levels we share, and some parts of the ocean run too deep for them to dip in to. it is a choice, to continue with what my Rabb decreed for His slave, to be content with it, and especially: to be appreciative of the sanctuary that He provided as my rizq in this life. going forward, that is all there is for me, all the past, all of the choices made that i'd remake had i the chance, point in the same direction. why would i make again the same in-the-moment past choices again, if i could choose again? because what He permitted me to grasp of life, of death, of akhirah, of reorienting one's sight not from a limited confine of earthly days, but from the pov of Eternity itself. 

i chase resonance. always have, and i always will. if i expanded my explanation to spread beyond human forms who it could be found with, then it is obvious Whom takes the place of supremacy in resonance: Allah. it is not like the resonance of mortals among mortals, but of the Master and His slave. of knowing what is submission, of being taught it over and over, in times good and times low. His desire is that I remember Him, that I hold accountability for myself and never lose sight of the end of life. people may assume there is no joy in standing before the One Who made them. i think they would be sorely mistaken. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

625 was yester day, alas for the silence, time kept quiet, so paths might run less worrisome, less stress.

never really thought i sought that much, to know how beloved fare in this world of being apart, but He has His own methods, His own conditions, His own tests He creates of His own volition. this life and its distance, will never seep into my veins and steal away those visions, that He nurtured and brought together from a lifetime of living and learning and reading, parsed so much of meaning, only to ever really desire being in an ocean ever only swimming. 

i don't know if i've been forgotten or remembered, alas, a lover wishes only the latter, even if it means having lived a lifetime as embers nigh spent into ash floating into winds gently as ether. but here is a record, of who i was, whom for me matters. that once my own bones find their earthen home, beloved who stay behind know forever their place in my central (heart's) chambers. 

my Moon, she made existing effortless, easy, as a vision, only once eclipsed, by Sunlight that honestly puts all the universe to shame with her own twinkling. but you will shine again inshaAllah. if He has ever loved me, i will hold you for the first of many, many times. and what i know of Him, how this road shapes, how He has never let me go, that they say only ones He loves are such blessed. supposition? i don't think it, all i can reflect on is my past, but i also know i have no guarantee of anything. having been brought to dust and finer still, too many times to count, i possess nothing quite like "trust". it is submission, the prostrated face of a slave on the earth, because his aim came from his Maker, and He is the sole one to bring it fruition. 

i hope your fingers have just a few new marks, at least from that guitar and its strings, tunes softly tugged, to let escape what's held within. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

wish i was the wind, free, ungrounded, ready to lift you up into the clouds on a whim, no barriers, no resistance, no gravity as enemy rather recreating its axis on top of a whole new paradigm's direction. i would have settled for only knowledge, knowing how you're doing, simple, uncomplicated methinks, but this life has for me no such semblance. the ocean ceases flowing, kept to stillness, like a pond wishing it could just rush into the currents of the nearest lake that light shined from. 

~~~

so many things felt on various other topics, mostly world affairs, but i think one thought predominates: this life is not ours to own, or scarcely even ours to live. this time is borrowed, from Him, the One Who owns us and all creation. this time was given as a test, and this place is only that. sometimes the nature of humanity stoops so low that what happens is beyond barbarism, so entirely full of blindness tainted in arrogance and casual cruelty...there is an end to this. life is but a trial, a container of them, hundreds and thousands and millions of trials we encounter in our lifetimes. 

we were not given the power to change the nature of life, though i know many would choose to struggle to change it anyway, at least to oppose the tyranny. few mortals have ever found it endearing to be slaves, and i could probably count on one hand how many would be willing to submit to His decree as it unfolds before their eyes, when it encompasses as much injustice and oppression as we've seen. 

the more a person becomes enchanted by this existence, the more one's eyes are confined by its vision, the greater importance it ends up holding, far more than what it actually is. the shortness of life, is not a testament to how much it should be lived to its fullest, but rather a witness to its insignificance. this earth was never made to be our Garden, just it looked like it, on occasion, on the surface of it. its pains, tragedies, sorrows, are all finite, as is our time in it. 

i know, my position isn't for everyone. but i learned long ago my lessons, and my path towards Tomorrow. the one for whom this life is his/her dream and cherished hope, will have it crashed and burnt soon enough. the only pursuit which can endure is that aim which resides near to Allah, to Whom is the return of everything. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Strange are the times of life when much can be felt, and thus one might think much written, but there isn't. Many emotions surface from the depths, and sink back into their origin, without ever meeting the light of day, without ever finding expression. There is so much I could write about, the changing directions of fatherhood and the kind of beauty my Sunlight is. I could write of my Love of All Lifetimes, and her once having spoken of being "eclipsed" by the aforementioned bright one. Or about the endless irony of loving a Gift whom my Rabb created as one opposite of me, how the contradictions I have to lay seamlessly together, like a farmer who knows the seeds he's working with need each their unique nourishment and he cannot water any two seeds the same. Or how many flashes of light and brightness, that He brought to my vision, then sooner or later took away from sight, so that names and memories and hopes I have, but nothing more. 

I could write of the questions held inside my chest, unanswered expect by facing my own worst case scenarios. Of not knowing whether the echoes inside of me still have their home inside those who claimed connection to my soul. Resonance, that old nemesis, evasive and unknowable, all of the scribbles on the wall of my cave, continue written without reply, because the paths we take...He decreed them separate. If you delve too long on this point, it's enough to bring about its own chasm and become as potent a reminder of the past as a blade is of slicing through vessels. I am no stranger to that though. 

I want to meet you all again, each of you. One I knew for mere minutes, others for decades, some at the surface but glimpsed far beneath, and others just projections of hopes and anticipation. My experiences shape me, as all of us are, by the sum of our choices and natures finding expression, one way or another. 

I could choose to let go of my long-stated dream of reunification, perfect coexistence and reconnection with my beloved. But I will not. This life and its death are so utterly finite and without capacity, it would be the height of travesty to let my vision fade due to something so limited. So, by His grace, the vision remains, a Garden among all Gardens. I don't know if He will allow me to find it, but if there was anything, ever, worthy of being pursued, any destination worthy of being found, of being called Home, that is it. 

my Definition

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

If I were to sum up how my perspective has been shaped, in one sentence, I'd say: in this life, I've never  been able to love as much or as long I sought to. 

This existence has always shown me its inadequacy, and so my mortality reflects that facet (sometimes, too often). For the first few decades of life, the nature of the struggle was overcoming being alone, without my beloved or one whom I call my beloved, near. For the last few years, with my Gift and subsequent Sunlight emerging from the oceans, the struggle has taken a different shape: now, the daily battle is against the grind of life, working to earn and doing what I can to ensure their wellbeing. 

I thought for a bit, that the nature of my struggle had changed too. But it hasn't; how I love my wife, deep as it is, is nowhere near my capacity or inner depths. The boundaries of language and culture and birthplace and circumstance and juxtaposed nature, all of which my Rabb decreed between her and I, means there is ALWAYS a limit to what parts of me reach her. And in concert, what parts of her can reach me. The eventuality of this, means living in a way that love can be shared, up to the point that it is understood, or up until the point its effect is shared or embraced. As one of my beacons once remarked of her journey, of parts of the self that remain unshared, or unshareable. I don't know the words in translation, though in the beginning, Translate was a very usually helpful app. But the limits of that become too clearly obvious over time. So I learned to rephrase and parse my thoughts, such that whatever I say is first ran through the filter of, whether it will be understood, and if not, how to accomplish that. It is a slightly-stifled existence, but it is still leagues better a blessing that the torment of solitude I'd known prior.

If I had a choice between having such a gift, or refusing it, I'd ever, always, accept. I don't mind a few mortal years of slightly gulfed understanding, because I know this place is not the sum of it all. One Day iA, the chance exists for her and I to truly touch each other's souls. And not just physically either, as tantalizing as that is. But for our natures to really curl up to one another and lay peacefully. This is among the visions I seek, a true melding, of a pair that I swear by Him, could not be more opposite in this life. 

~

Some of my beloved have reinforced their silence and distance. Concepts and realities which I am utterly familiar with and which I deeply hate. But I know the limits of a slave, of my own human self, and though these limits frustrate me on the regular, I know why I submit. Ultimately, my time here will end, and some Eternity is to follow. Which type it is, what marvel or misery it holds, I cannot say, for myself. But the chance of full expression and resonance, unlimited and beyond brim, it remains precious to me. Salvation is a pitiful state if one had to savor it solo, bliss is only bliss if you can hold your beloved in your arms, and for some of them, make love as deeply as it's felt. That is the goal, a path towards Eternity, free of earthly shackle, containing only possibilities and their Reality. inshaAllah

k is for Kite

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

from 3.21.24, 6:25pm

wish you didn't have to be so distant,

but i understand

why you made your decision.

it's alright, the color of my blood won't ever change,

even as i age,

even when i find my grave, and

Dust fills the hollow spaces between these fingers

and their bones He made;

this blood still runs the same,

for when He raises me again, like a 

seed,

born of planted grain,

what flows Then: 

is what flowed once before, 

in this present.

if you hadn't by now guessed, i'd never make you choose, want your cup full to brim and overflowing, with bliss and light and ease, near to all the ones your heart longed to meet.

choices and choices, shape every day of our lives, especially now that little beloveds have crept into our arms, to become eternally the apple of our eyes. rather not taste more of silence, a bitter pale drink, but medicinal He oft made it, so that wiser courses can churn from many moments' grapes, a matchless wine to be savored.

Memories and memories, topped by hope as a chocolatey delicacy, no shades forgotten, no scenes skipped, all possibilities and visions, entrained within my patience, coupled with prayers, 

such is the Staff of the slave, 

as he journeys to his Maker.

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

wish at times i was but wisp, floated by the wind, effortless the breath, easy the breathing. have so many weights on these shoulders, uncertain of my own End, what it will yield, wondering after every few instants whether the effort these days given will suffice, even in imperfectly sufficient dimensions. 

don't think, dear Muse, that this life can ever dare to delude me from the truth: to trick me into thinking it'll last forever, to forget my past and forego my future, to let go of the threads that compose my being, ever since your presence He allowed me to be nearer, and what i became we together weaved while still learning to live when we were younger. 

living here, this life, extracts its toll, every day a price to pay, beyond dollars and cents, there is a drain on the soul, taking away all emotion, as if a hole had been drilled at the bottom of my ocean, losing pieces into what i can only fathom is ether, a void, absence, contemporary efforts by humans near not quite fully filling the whole of ambitions only fashioned in the mind and aided by words He'd sent about His finest of reward and its design. 

it's almost an exquisite kind of torment: to have the vision of a thing in the mind, and not have it fulfilled, to not know whether it will reach fruition, to have dreamt of togetherness a million times and wonder if sanity is the last switch i need to turn off to evade the ravages of time. 

haven't an outlet, modes of expression, no mirrors to refine from me my most sought reflection: beloved to capture the sight and embrace with existence, coupled in nearness. this was too much to ask from this fucking life, so He made it part of my trial, to sever me into shards (again, and again?), scatter the pieces inside the sky of ones I'd meet, only to keep each of those parts ever so far from even remotest of visitation or knowledge of wayfaring. my beacons....the distance, my ignorance...just more scars invisible, carried onward for long as He has me breathing. 

of a Year

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

the year, it comes nearer to its close, of parenthood my first, pushing always boundaries of what it is i think i've known. ever ready to learn new things, never afraid of challenging my own ignorance, could not progress an inch if i ever thought i alone sufficed myself as an answer. my Rabb paves for me my road, with pebbles yes but strength and purpose held within firmly while not for observers obvious. 

what can i say of beloved, for most i am in presence absent, but perhaps it is true what they say, 'with' is a state of being inside the chest. i wonder how their journeys fare, what twists and turns and shocks, what most pleasant of surprises, what joys enriching lives, and what makes their smile widest. i forget none of the pieces that make up my soul, none of the pieces of my cosmos...never think thyself forgotten or by fate forsworn...for patience is my sword, cleaving from Tomorrow the roads that connect us eternally at once, in Firdaus as home, iA.

a note for those Oppressed

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

these days, it seems in the most chaotic and devastating the world's landscape has known in maybe a century, there is something i notice from so many people, Muslims especially, that makes me think there is something critical missing. so much protest, so much anguish on display and conveyed in media, so many battles with words and public opinion as weapons. 

what bothers me most: do people think that other *people* will be their saviours? do they imagine that the feeble will and ability of creatures like themselves, their own selves whom they do not wish to accept as needful and humble (though fate has cast humiliation over them as a blanket), that others would heed their call and save them from their torment which they are incapable of forestalling?

perhaps the stupidest train of thought i have ever seen. my own experiences and disillusion long ago, warned me away from seeking that type of refuge or aid from people. 

the point of saying that, is to lead here: where is Allah in their pleas? why do they think that more cameras and attention of mortals will save them? 

my point, if i can make it, is that mortals will never be their saving grace, that the only One Who could save them is their own Creator Who tried and tested them in the first place.

i know so, so well, the price of asking and wondering what my Rabb intended for me for in something i went through. the first price i had to pay was submission, not to any person, but to Allah, first foremost forever. there was no path i could see, taking into account the weakness of humanity, that led anywhere meaningful, if i did not factor Him into my equation first. 

i can't say there is solace in having to turn back to Him, at least at first. it will not mean an end to the pain and suffering and loss of our beloved. but eventually, there is solace, because what can others do to us if they threaten with only a means of our ascent to Heaven itself? there is no land on this earth that deserves to be grubbily sought after and grasped with desperation like that. does not matter where it is, even one of our beloved cities and lands. why? because this life is never the place of our fruition, our peace...human beings WERE NOT MADE TO LIVE HERE FOREVER. your road, my road, our road, is a temporary one. we will all be called back to Him sooner and later. 

i beg you, turn back to Him and leave off asking people to save you. if there is sanctuary anywhere on this earth, only He will lead you to it. if there is no sanctuary here, then wait with patience for Him to do with you as He wishes, whether it be in living or in dying, because ultimately there is good in either direction He takes you. and after that, i can't say how long it will take, but after, there is peace bi ithniAllah. patience, dua inside prayer. what else do we have? fight weapons of the world with belief, it'll be the last thing any one of us is left with before death comes for us. 

Of my Sunlight

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

how she elicits affection, with a simple turn of her face in one's direction, eyes capturing the sparkle of marbles in scattering light from wherever it was made to start with, tiny worlds that accentuate her cheeks with a smile, that she, this offshoot of me, then corrals everything precious and perfect within her soul and her every atom's physical substance. my daughter, she is not a beacon like any other beloved, she is her own globe melded and yet separate from mine, lovable and loved in ways inexplicably hers and hers forever uniquely we intertwine. 

and till yet, she hasn't grasped language, imagine what waterfalls and hurricane gusts await when she learns (iA) syllables and diction and vocab and semantics, strategies with things written she'll never need with me as i suspect our resonance will grow organic, innate, as a deeply rooted tree that knows exactly which of its branches flowers in any given instant. my beaconly beloved, especially ones who've closest to my earth laid in orbit, know well my deepest calling has always been for them, for ones who possessed at some level kindling of resonance, emotional and physical and spiritual all at once and only in beginning, some moments i gaze into her orbs and it's like i'll never need to speak a word, ever, for her to know me wholly to my fullest measure. and for her, she has acceptance and an anchor, ever living as her guard against the winds of fate and folly that this life tries its hardest to pull each one under,...she has me as her buffer, much (and even more, iA) how my own father was for me against this world my strongest mortal shelter. alhamdulillah, this word a million-fold, to have tasted such a vision, to be captured and sufficed within an emblem that to me is exactly everything i'd have loved in a child, she has, every element of her being, as if it was created expressly for adoration, facets long ago i fell in love with, so deep a blessing, i could run on and on this sentence, pausing merely for commas or breaths, but the end purpose lingers...alhamdulillah, my counterweight to all the darkness i'd ever known, this ray of Sunlight to pierce every too-dark shade, is her. alhamdulillah, for a beacon of my own blood that is to me as the Sun is for all humanity. 

inKind

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

even though lately you may not see your pseudonyms spread often across these pages, don't think for a second you mean any less to me than you've always been, for what i seek is still the same: a time and place where your being embraces mine in the best of ways. you know the color of my blood, it hasn't changed, even if it lingers long outside my self, where it was born and what gave it strength is quite the same. i could make a list, of every name to you i've given: my Moon, my Love of All Lifetimes, my Muse, others which memory encases and preserves for me to once again mention, when we're no longer distant. i wish i could tell how drift the winds of your days, whether you find more light or what pain flashes across your face, i know, you chose silence as the means of preservation of ties, both past and present, and that choice is the choice of my beloved so it is respected, endeared, within me embedded and thus for you always reflected. my Rabb knows well the pattern of our age, the courses our paths must take, but your initials and essence are eternally tethered, whether i speak or silence reigns across all obvious means of measure. want to write of Tomorrow, more scenes, perhaps depicting precursors to ones i've already written, or further amalgams of how you will drift one Day with all my beloved within my ocean (iA). take care my Muse, may He let what i write be a source of comfort when rest of life turns to ice, a blanket when warmth seems to the season strangest, ma'asalaama

a Present Moment

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

One of the hardest truths to stomach is how the nature of oppression is self-perpetuating, as the oppressed themselves become extremely skilled at oppressing others when their chance comes to impress their power on people.

I love peace, serenity, understanding, truth, beauty, justice. This dunya has often if not always, sought to erode and vanish these ideals from just about everywhere my eyes have looked. That is the reason I no longer expect to find these things anywhere, except to try and sustain them in myself, to whatever degree my Rabb permits me, sometimes more and sometimes less.

The struggles of brethren in that place, something that has stuck with me for decades. I was hopeful when the peace accords were happening in the 90's, for a kid that's an easy thing to be drawn to. But then there is the onset of war, so many wars, and the fuel of it all: hatred, distrust. Iblis has done a masterful job convincing so much of humanity that others aught to die, that their own living can only happen when the "other" has met their death. It is...saddening, a cause of grief. Some scholar once mentioned the idea, "one-state solution", with "equality for all its citizens". I do not think reality capable of manifesting this, but I absolutely love the idea regardless. Perhaps if neither of 2 sides saw themselves as better, then both might consider each other their equal? Do not all people desire this for themselves? 

I know these words will fade to the wind, like I will too one day. One soul can't quite change the course of humanity once they set their minds to destruction and keeping control of power. 

My Rabb, forgive them for their sins, grant them an excess of patience to endure and not become oppressors themselves, for if the choice of vengeance or peace was offered, permit them the wisdom to seize peace, that they might show others the best of us, ameen. 

Among many other thoughts, my beloved cross my mind often. Even my first Twin, whose bridge I hope has not entirely been lost. And if it has, then it is well, my Rabb owns us all and our return is to the same place anyhow. I hope you retain dua for me, as the pieces of myself always remain in mine. ma'asalaama

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

is that where my sanctuary is, there, waiting in your chest? where my head has waited, so long waited, to find its place of rest? people want so many different kinds of things, but for me what suffices is just this: the bosom of my beloved, so the nomad wanders no longer, and finds in that sadr all what life gives. 

most beacons other than my Gift, they show most of silence and restraint, safer courses for ones truly wishing for decency and belief, though apartness is the sharpest pen, scrawled its signature on my soul's surface, marked for me this path, the most common refrain of His tests, to see what choices i'll make after.

for each one that such composes the self, a remnant hole remains, embodied absence, an irreversible reminder of a beloved i have not known yet (or enough to have breathed in). i know, most shall think me crazy, one to care and long for as i do, after either a lifetime or a few minutes of connection, time matters little in that reflection, for there are moments when - it's easy to be certain: "this one, i want to know her forever". these are so scarce, seems a few for every decade passing, could live life as normal and yet never come across another beacon, 

...so i find it worthwhile, to keep them in dua remembered, as memory is my ink, and all my deeds the fountain pen, perhaps one Day He finds at least a single droplet worthy, so all my beloved will be together in our fullest, iA.

Vantage Of Dreams

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

i had a small shop somewhere, not sure where, selling random stuff or something, then you walked in the door. there was a poster or calendar or something (with writing/dates/?) on the wall, and you were enjoying the read. "i wish i had a ton more of those, just so that i'd have a reason for you to come in and stop by for a chat" -something like what i said, and you were laughing and smiling, and alhamdulillah, i was good, whole. 

later in the dream, i was walking down a country road, and saw you in a small yellow  (VW bug?) car, we saw each other and i nodded my head as you rode by. 

God, i miss my Moon. i hope you never think you're outshined, even though my Sunlight is of one caliber and my Moon is altogether a different species of celestial. their orbits, the source of each, differs. if my Rabb granted me one of you, but not the other, i would be as spliced in two and wrought asunder as i could ever possibly be. so, point being, i hope He keeps you reminded of your place in my cosmos, how cherished you are in my Sky. 

the longer He causes me to live, the more He expands my chest, such that i am composed of more and more of my beloved. there is no place i seek, where i remain parted or in pieces. the reason why Firdaus-ul-'Ala retains its meaning to me is because He has never let my horizon be dark or absent ones to love, and for all of them, for each part and (potential) possibility, i want realization in full, with them all. my Moon is a pillar among them, and so much can be said of her that this slave will keep on writing for as long as he lives, in part to explain her preciousness to him. 

ya Rabb, take whole care of my beloved and those whom they love, forever and always, ameen. 

escaped

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

some days are stiller than others, encased inside their own moments and efforts, a prism not outwardly reflecting, keeping whatever traces of light it still has internally remembered. 

she went quiet again, known what that state is, compounded my present reality of absence of the Gift and our Sunlight, like a balcony with none to stand at its peak, none to capture its vantage point or exclaim at how filling was the breeze. most every beacon, these days as stars whose light i scarce see with these human eyes, sometimes all i have is the memory of a name inscripted across the back of my mind, causing some wonder as to whether such beloved were ever real, or did i imagine them to begin with? 

would that i could question my own self as imagining, did i truly exist? yet the answer to this i know as resounding certainty, for the test of this entire road was long forever His. the joys and sight of beloved may be ephemeral, like this life itself, but the trial of their parting from my sight, this is all too true. verified and assuredly so. 

alhamdulillah, i don't have complaints, not really. work progresses, i find His blessings as He has ever been to me. should i count on them forever? part of me wishes to think of my own effort sufficing, of some measure of independence, of Him? hah, i know, it is absurd, but it is a side effect of wondering how long He would shelter me, and what should become of this slave if that mercy and shade of His ever were to end. ya Rabb, i am not enough. i wish that i was, that my sins and absence did not haunt me, that my meandering through this life were as firmly self-conceived as everyone else i see around me. but i am not, i live having internalized my need of You. somehow, this realization does not make me feel stronger, rather the opposite. but it is true, my strength has always been from Him. my distance from beloved, my antithetical reaction to dunya in my olden days, i can survive such consequences because He has not let me dissolve, as many times i have done and sought to (melodramatically at times, true too). my Rabb sustains me. even and especially on the days where the smile and beauty of my Sunlight is not near to hand, she, that singular beacon who herself embodies the ocean while encompassing and reflecting it, one who is dearer to me than the sum of all the earth and all its people put together. that Sunlight, is not back in my arms, still just over a week left till she returns. 

iA when i see her again, i will miss no one. this tiniest Kinz, my littlest beloved, rapture is in her fingers and toes, her expressions and wails, in her every atom and sound composed. alhamdulillah for one's rizq, for the Mia and the Sunlight.  

of a Moon fulfilled

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

not something predicted, not something could have said decades ago as expected, but the moment came when i got to see her eyes, smiling while fully contented, assured by His gifts, tempered and strengthened by His tests, this was a state - captured in a photograph of course - that this slave had to recollect and save in his chest of memories. tiny laments of my own distance, wither away into ether, because He replaced absence in your bosom with a love even closer and deeper. if i may speak on it, reflecting from my own time with my Sunlight, i know he's borne out of your ocean, belonging to you just as your belonging is his, in ways that will forever escape words' efforts to capture but writers attempt the message regardless. 

alhamdulillah, a congrats laced with the wish of the best of khair for my beloved's beloved, another pumpkin whose plumpest years may pass without a chance for me to pinch or kiss, no problem at all, knowing you gained the coolness of your eyes, this knowledge suffices and erases my own momentary absence. our duas evolve, becoming more inclusive, whole, selfless, effort and endurance emanating from our selves for them as effortlessly as breathing, alhamdulillah for these gifts.

the trials, though, haven't ceased, because they exist for the living, the ones seeking. my reach for Tomorrow, the way it shades and gives shape to my intents and purposes, remains alhamdulillah. reunification has not lost its glimmer, but other brightnesses dot my sky, and duty fills me whenever the heart's well runs for a moment dry. a nomad walks on, journeying with his provision, never forgetting his Maker Who blessed him with everything he had and everything he aimed for. 

of an yet-unwritten beacon

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

"I guess I'm going to close the gap in the window, some chapters need to be closed. To keep the nice memories hidden from outside." 

don't know if she still scrolls these pages, a beacon as yet unwritten, perhaps the most noble of any i'd ever known, grace and composure, loyal down to her bones (repeated this twice to me,  maybe just so I'd know), beauty to match her inner fire, that was for now, tempered by choices made and lived with, for this life she hadn't chosen of her will to make all her own. "in Jannah inshaAllah", amazing how those born of my same year, found resonance across all sorts of barriers in distance, culture, language. 

curious how once such people He causes me to find, truly beautiful, but then from them He causes parting, and so distance reasserts itself, so our patterns might be woven as He designed. alhamdulillah for it all, for smiles and quirks embedded within memory and hope, etched into my aims, a celestial star to forever hold.

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Alhamdulillah, been in Maroc with wife's fam for the better part of the past month so updating here has been little less frequent that I'd prefer. a couple things i need to write, maybe a third too, for beloved of mine that by His grace, continue on shining. 

before getting to those poetics, have to mention how my Rabb has been sustaining me of late. this trip, first time traveling with my Sunlight, proved to be exquisitely challenging, but specific blessing happening before we left, on the flight itself, and regularly since we've been here, keep on reminding me to be constant in my shukr. New job was going well alhamdulillah before I left, so hoping to continue being productive there once i get back. This year, of all the years I can recall, my two elder bros have had my back in the most beautiful and appreciative of ways. it wasn't even about me being in a position of need necessarily, but a new dad with new job still building his way towards family stability and thinking about having enough for the various tomorrows being a parent brings, the people He gave me in this life, mA there are no words to do justice to what they mean. not excluding my dad especially, who spent his life working and saving and paying and helping his family and kids, these kinds of selfless, supportive and affirming lessons are the best ones this life can present to a slave, alhamdulillah. 

often these days, i am recalled to the ayah, from Surah Ibrahim (name of beloved's beloved, subhanaAllah), verse 7 :

وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ ۖ وَلَئِن كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ عَذَابِى لَشَدِيدٌ

"when your Lord proclaimed, ‘If you are grateful, I will certainly give you more. But if you are ungrateful, surely My punishment is severe.’"

these words been resonating in my mind much. it's something we all need, and mA when the doors of rizq and potential actually begin opening, i think shukr and remembrance of where it all came from, Allah, --- that is the most important, undeniable reply for us. 

Lessoned

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

It was as if he was almost complete, almost whole, almost full beyond brim, the Gate, it was opened, waiting, calling. He knew the steps he had to take to reach it, simple mechanism of the physical pieces his Creator made him with, one foot in front of the other. But, where was she?

In this moment's context, 'twas only one 'she' he sought, to fill the vastness a lifetime of apartness slowly built. There were times, he could not see her, where their Rabb caused life to construct divergences, responsibilities, separate and unique parts of their hearts had arisen, as continents from within their ocean. 

~

He had envisioned enough moments, where somehow qadr would force his dream to recede from manifestation, to present enough alternates for each of them, that their paths need not ever merge. Those were some of the heaviest moments of his life. What words are large enough to carry the sorrow from denial, fashioned by the Owner and King of the heavens and earth? 

It was not a state he expected necessarily, but he tried, sometimes, to imagine the peak of his disappointment, to crown perhaps all of the disappointments the past life had littered in his path. 

Even with his Sunlight, his Gift, with every other beacon...but you? It wasn't a thought he wanted to hold or face, but he knew the choice he'd make were his Rabb to decree it for him: he would choose no Garden absent her, but he was not foolish enough to choose Fire instead. no, in such a crossroads, the slave would choose the heights, a place in between them both. 

~

Alhamdulillah, I've seen us both survive the past few years, having faced tests that tried us to our core and then some. By His grace, we've made it here, to now, where our lives have brightened to a degree I'm positive we'd never imagined before. Regardless of whatever the future brings to pass, I know one truth well enough: you were the first human to ever accept me, the first creature i loved loved before i knew i did, and the first beloved i knew who set the standard of definition for what acceptance is, how high the bar is for love itself. 

I hope He lets me hold you Then, iA.