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. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

life ain't got no replacements, real is sometimes lot more than how real gets, sentences shortened by letters in expression of days grinding onward, but He built me stronger than anything i imagined myself as. 

love the fam but they're not my beloved, select is the one tied softly by threads fated and woven, wish i could embrace resonance or acceptance like the level of beacons who held me in mirror reflection, but life is often single screen, single perception, never so much angular confection, as beholding or beheld by one's beloved in arms and bosom. 

love the month of June, your birthday near its peak, maybe open a window, let in a bit of breeze, don't mind the vast corridors of silence that might follow if only in turn a glimpse or scent of how time flows on the other side, the side lucky enough to have your living and breathing within it.

becoming what i have to become, but stoic, holding fast to His remembrance, can't ever forget how He led to me to these moments, blessed by Sunlight perpetual and pumpkinly delight, a Mia worthy of being one's first truly held woman and mother and wife, these treasures He permitted me, paving the way for patience to survive the epochs of absence, the repetition and daily consumption: of platitudes and niceties that normal people use to bridge their gaps of understanding that naturally develop between differences in how they were raised, don't quite care for the superficiality but if it helps others to be a bit more at ease, not really an issue, my vocal cords can evoke the patterns well enough to have them comforted and myself left in peace.

but my beloved, those absent my immediate surroundings, will never forget what it will be like when i can hold you for the first time, Firdausian wishes remain the pillar underpinning hopes of completion, by the mercy and will of my Maker who's gifted and shown anything i know from everything that's His.

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

should jot down this dream from a week ago, before it fades back into the subconscious. 

i saw a note you'd written, in fancy cursive, "Free!!", signed with your name and what felt like an invitation, then seeing pictured a few beds, including one smaller than normal, as if it were made for my Sunlight who was coming for a visit. don't ask me how or why or anything. in another scene, you were coming up the stairs of your place, a beautiful house with many windows/glass walls, almost as if in anticipation of our arrival, i think.

can you imagine what it'd mean to have my beloved meet? that the literal pieces of myself be united? every fountain of the ocean returned to its fount? 

mA you're amazing. always have been. i hold myself back from saying much of what emanates, but remember there is a lot of me that's you. your books, the ones you loved when young, became what i read, and i saw you in them, parts of you scattered here and there within thousands of pages. alhamdulillah i was able to find those parts of you to inscribe into memory so i'd keep treasured as much as i could. life is a varying, testful journey. got a new job recently alh, good step in the right direction, but iA just another way i can keep going through this life to be what i should for my beloved. for me, that word always carries your connotations within it, a definition embedded from the starting till final letter.

bi khair,

the slave's complaint

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

haven't forgotten, but it seems like some days are just floating, repetitions, reminders of objectives He's long seen fit to keep past the tips of outstretched fingers, some moments, resonance drops to zero, and i haven't any answers, losing sight of the questions, life and His qadr drowning out any semblances of what i would have chosen. 

the love i've found past couple years with His permission, suffices in the way a candle has a bowl to melt into whether or not its flame flickers or fades, whether i cast shadows on the wall or just imagine the sky was my aim, at the very least there is a minimum, a familiar ceramic to fall back into when the unresonated merely mimics being the old familiar foe of aloneness. i am not alone, but of the self, there are no places for me to pour in to, no bodies of water or flesh to intermingle in the same way i'd treasure and cherish...

there's something someone once said about, "sacrifice", and how when we accept or believe we've made it, it gives what's being given up a notion of sacredness, of something incomparably significant. i can attest this as true. my Moon is shaded, my Rabb sees fit for me so much of silence, ...when one such as the Twin i can't even tell is living, whether i was a mirage in her rear view mirror's existence, hated it is this apartness, can't even fathom in such instances my significance, and when such a question lingers when associated to a beloved, the hollownesses form their own substance, flowing in the veins unbeckoned, like pollutions of once-stated well intents.

cursed, perhaps, the pair of eyes that see potential unlived and unable to thrive, fuck this world is a mess of a hive, full of its bees imitating in least beautiful of ways what He made of nature, our honey is not sweet, rather full of poisons and fleeting imitations that bring forward our own demise. 

He wills me to live onward, wishes i suppose for me to continue asking, seeking, though He fashioned the road ahead and behind, fashioned the trials and gifts, fashioned the deceivers and liars, the wolves in sheep's clothing, fashioned every manner of instrument we could touch and thus turn into mechanisms manifesting greed and unsated desire, and the slave is intended to ask still, in this? this cesspool of avalanching inadequacy where the rulers are tyrants manipulating the masses and wills to their own intents and frameworks conspired? 

seems a stretch. if He cares not so for this life, the weight of a mosquito's wing it is said, then coolly ironic that humanity should face the smorgasbord of everything the opposite: so many instances where we must deliberate and discern, matters worldly and clawing at our attention, trying to dominate our concern. what always frustrates me most, my own ignorance, the limitation of sight whereby wisdom is never enough, where knowledge only insufficient for me, while random others He puts in places where the material at least is theirs for earning to provide. this test, this unending test, the catch-all simplification that conveniently encapsulates everything we're bound in, is just about never fair, the playing field is scarcely even, factors and actors from distances outside of fathoming pulling strings and so personal efforts are always thus pre-empted and encaged, how many dance to His tune, move their pieces on His board, unknowing the beginner's extent of how against them their fate was written? 

full of questions, absent answers, overloaded with ignorance, no matter how much is learned, it insuffices the inquirer. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

One of the most beautiful realizations I found in life happened around May of last year.

In a sort-of farewell post, you described the missing piece of your early childhood history, telling me how you actually grew up, in the years before we met. I never imagined it was like that tbh, the way I saw you, it seemed like the world moved out of its way for you, a person kind and charismatic and full of dream. 

I know, silly and naïve and short-sighted, but then we were kids and kids tend to see the world with only the experience they have, which isn't much. Alhamdulillah though, I've gotten to know and complete the puzzle of my Moon, even if I hadn't known there were such painful pieces of the puzzle to begin with. 

But what is the other part of the beautiful realization? The things you said, you spoke of experiences primarily being a daughter, it was so timely for me, because subhanaAllah, in a few months' time, I was to become a father to a little girl myself. In a way, hindsight connected the dots for me, and I saw the lessons and wisdoms you gave me, that I should pass along in how I raise my Sunlight. How you interlaced your past into my present and future...incredible! It goes without saying, I express this kind of reality a lot when it comes to you. I suppose it should be taken for granted by now, but I don't think so, such ability to cause reflection and solace is literally like a divine instrument you were created with, insofar as it comes to me at least. Alhamdulillah my Rabb let me know such a one, to have such a state as a background with so many of this life's innate uncertainties. 

I also really have to mention...the post you wrote, was well before we'd done gender reveal. So as qadr would have it, your words were perfectly timed and prescient, your experience as a daughter to one about to become the father of a daughter, the most relevant intertwining with what was to come that I could fathom. Almost as poetic as the time I met someone with your first name and my last name at an airport by pure fated coincidence. Lol mA it is what it is. 

It's been awhile since I wrote a scene from our Tomorrow, need to do that soon iA, some evening or early morning this Ramadan while the mind isn't affected as much by fasting. 

for the Primal Primera

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

that summer's Eid, in the morning's early hours, we spoke at last our due, got to hear your words, to distill from our past its truth. 

you took me back in time, back in time, 

to 

when we were kids,

when words were far simpler things,

so

let me take you now:

to our Future's curtain,

unveiling its potential

as what we know for certain.

=

not long after He has me judged, and iA His full mercy given, i'll look for you, to place my hands over your eyes, walk you to your palace, breathing softly across your neck, help build the tension and surprise. sometimes, it's only one room that matters, the one where lovers reside, the first one they'll run to, laughing smiling and ready, to at last be ones that fly. 

the bed, more comfortable than a third of November, the sheets, softer than our whim, won't have to wonder what you wore underneath, some strings kept then tied, no longer, Tomorrow is for loosening of buttons, recreating our own Fifty Shades, so we let free, what all you'd kept inside. slowly fast, deeply savored every second, such is the taste, when a single lifetime, was the price for love we paid- the Garden's admittance, it cost restraint, and patience, to seek with endurance, the only path to finding His fullest of blessings.

i don't know what it's like to touch your skin, to know what you truly think, what your imagination held for me to unwrap and dive in, but my mind's vision, it won't forget that potential traded, of an instant's mortal pleasure, in exchange (iA) for an Infinity of unwrapping you over and over. if all i must give is patience, observance of His bounds, for a time as finite as this life of briefest living, don't mind a bit, passion is my choicest flame, to shine against the absence, and keep our aims forever lit.