- in the name of Allah -

   In life there are at times things which must bleed, an ocean's tear falling as tidal waves, making space so one's soul may breathe. Even as ancient wounds revive, calling forth memory long since withered and dried, not every suture finds again its needle and thread, not always able to cuddle its nightmares and place back princes and princesses to bed. Some fountains, like the ever-wondrous heart, must flow free, even if their core seems worlds distant and apart. No streams can go where they please, without gouging their mark through the earth, pushing aside the dirt, taking from terrestrial life their leave.
   I've never carried any regrets, no what-if's about choices long since made, no second-guesses as to if my letting her go was perfectly (in)sane. I could not have been the guide for her road, not the shepherd of her path, unable to protect her heart, in the ways of knights long since past. My younger self was so gullible, so utterly naive, he could not grasp the price love took, when life dawned on dream, leaving in its wake, so many gaping seams. But though this scene might grisly gleam, truth at last shines through, giving rise to purpose, where one's love at last finds its due.
   Memories, it seems, are my last and only treasure, with fondness full a chest to brim, things I once let go in leisure, for wounds thought too grim. After all these years I've learned, some scars should never heal, always there to burn and pester, so one can recall through pain their heart, and what it meant to feel. We cannot be machines, cannot exist without blood in our veins, or desires beyond all our mortal means.The books will never close, the stories never cease, for long as breath remains in lungs, so too shall remain my pen, with ink from things which bleed.