- in the name of Allah -

Been fighting over and over the same battles, so long that I thought I'd finally had them all handled, fooled I was, trodden and close to trampled, but look around - take a sample: all from the basic formulas that just keep on slipping through the cracks, in my fingers and hands, the gist of it all to make rights from wrongs and realities of dreams. How many times will I think I've figured me and this life all out, before come these thunderstorms to drown surety all away with doubt? Even as I fight time's passing in my own mind by thinking I have some left, the hourglass tips backward, broken, bereft, the grains being blown away by ideals unkept. I'm a fool, naive, thinking still to hold my own against society, against communal forces that shrink and shrivel persona until it bleeds the same colors and wears the same sleeves. Who am I, what is me, that dares make bold claims, thinking truth and what people need to hear are one and the same? How many fallacies will I have tripped over before I can finally see, discerning in this shrouded path my destiny?

My only company remains, prayers and pleas, eternally unchanged: to save others but also for myself to be saved, to gather hope in a jar and keep it from thieves and assassins afar, to hold tight and near my beloved and friends and parry for them all worse intent, that no matter how far I stray from the Straight Path my Rabb has both my hand and my back, carrying me when I can only falter and granting me roof when I've shunned all shelter, ameen...ameen...ameen.