Caged

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

 

 

some lyrics come to mind: "when the stars refuse to shine", to this can i relate, wish beacons weren't just in my head, not just a memory or a vision, instead as warmth near to me, that melts again the ocean, and brings me back to life. outwardly, on the surface, my life would appear to those closest as blessed, presenting few obstacles or hindrances, safe and comfortably made by one's Creator, but...the inner, none of those shades can i truly share, no moments of my glee, to resonate with my beloved, for any reason or another, to fly freely as one might dream with lovers. i know, my Future awaits, but He makes me live, day after day after day, the longest road i could fathom is ahead of me, any speech i have, is speech that oft silently must fade, it has no reception, for those nearby no wavelength making sense, madness could so easily be one's friend...would that He would let me so slip. He does not. He keeps me sane, and going, vessels pumping, arteries flowing, no matter how much i hate the notion, onward i keep treading, a nomad made of sand, formless and billowing, caught in the wind from it just can't settle from. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

 

 

 

if i thought that He would accept it, i would fly down to you in an instant, disregard every barrier and formality, throw away all i 'possess', and embrace the only human who ever accepted me and showed me all what i could love: you. i know how you feel, i recall the words you've spoken and written, i share your sentiment, because we were born out of the same ocean,...please, just be patient, though i am at present simply formless, i know what it means to be whole, even if memory can at times scarce recall over all the swallowed distance. your words, your touch, would heal every scar i've ever worn, every bruise, every drop of blood and angst,...would then just fade, fled the pain, by your presence replaced.

 

my Rabb is the only reason i don't entirely fragment, don't quite fully disintegrate, not sure gratitude is my response, knowing His tests still awaiting, but...you're still my aim, the torch at the end of my road, kept by Him at the top of the highest mountain, so i'm scratching and clawing its slopes, every day living, every night in sleeping, every decency in any action i'll ever do, all of it, just so i might get a bit closer, to that Peak, where He might grant me you.  

 

may He keep you always at peace, my Love of All Lifetimes, ameen

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

 

 

energyless, a restlessness of the soul, while the heart and nafs are quiet both, still have to keep walking, no way to share what i'm not feeling, distant kept is to be as broken made, how He fashioned from my emptiness, a goal seeking to be some Day whole. no fondness for this life, for the pile of tests i've been through, for the pile that yet waits ahead, but He forces in my lungs some breath, to oxygenate a heart, so it further pumps the blood, to keep me as He wills, amongst this land and His purpose. "...what happens in our minds can be fueled," i know this to be true, it's why i seek to carry, memory of a beacon, the Twin, that perhaps not all my resonance remains at zero, that onward i can give. remember shardless? alas, would be nice to know again such a state, tumultuous as it was, it had my Muse as its spark, and hope as its birthplace. this life is our strongest test, He grades our answers and absences, from choices wiser or His remembrance, sometimes one ebbs at his lowest, when this pile of hurdles simply stares, back at the mortal in front of whom its piled, and i am solutionless. no human knows, how i long to walk through that Door, to know my aim fulfilled, to be not so evaporated, longing for the surfaces of my beloved, so i can condense from this shapeless life and its ether, onto their softly waiting skin. my Rabb, would You let this end be our beginning?

Analogy

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

 

 

seasons changing again, some days my feeders are engulfed by my beloved avians, ones i would never capture, just behold and kiss if i could, be a source for their food, a source of their drink, a respite for their wings, before they flew off to continue their living. perhaps these posts are not so different than those feeders, with them i might lure my beacons, back to a place that for them is always welcoming, fuel for their hearts, liquid for our ocean, trying to have just my tiny decisions...be decent for as long as He wants me to live. just like the species of avian, i know all too well how my beloved will soon fly off to their corners of this earth, this my prison, this damned life that keeps me of them so ignorant. i know, it's the price of a choice i made, willing, and so i have no regrets, if He would test me with absence to stretch across every year i have remaining, well, i have been melted on so many instances...there comes a point in one's life, where every suffering He combines into strength, alhamdulillah. 

simplicity not so simply stated

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

 

 

 

every breath of mine, every action i take, every deed and benefit i seek, all of it, just that i might find at the end of my road: Firdaus al-'Ala with my beloved. that is it, my reason for being, for doing, the drive inside of the center and the shade around my self, anything of khair i ever thought of, or gave, or received, all of it, redirected towards that particular Garden. 

it might be asked, why i do not more often mention longing for Allah, my Rabb, my Judge and Benefactor, the Originator of everything i've ever been or felt. the thing is, i am already destined to meet Him, stand in His Court, answer for His blessings on me and my actions and intentions with them. there's no doubt or question or wonder about seeing Him, meeting Him, being re-united with Him. the only question when it comes to my Rabb, is under what conditions that meeting will be: whether He will be pleased with me or not. every deed that aims for the Garden, knows that it must aim too for His ridwaan. there is no one without the other- there is no entry to Eternity without His acceptance, without His permission, without His preference. so, when it comes to my Creator, i have nothing amiss, and He has always been the One to guide me out of my darknesses. what doubt can there be, when death is certitude manifest and one knows every deed will bring its account? with Allah, it is a thing, a meeting, coming for sure. 

with my human beloved, i have never known such certainty. as much as i have sought, is as much as He kept them distant. how strange, that He's showed me such beauty in them, from across time and space, different decades, different eras of the world, different cultures and regions, yet somehow the beauty of a beacon still reaches me. and then, all the greater the angst when that beauty is hidden from my vision and once again silence and quietude and forced ignorance become my states with regard to whom i love. 

my Rabb has never been far from me, contrary He is the nearest, thus the divine Beloved takes on an altogether completely different realization than my human beloved. part of me is flesh, so it longs for its companionship and intimacy with what is of its nature, and for sure, my soul is the part that most easily finds itself drawn to its Rabb. that is how it is. the human being, different essences compiled together by His command, to exist as a collage of influences and directions and artistries. 

but after explaining why i think i don't often feel compelled to write of longing for Him, i would revisit my constant refrain, my endless loop, my vinyl record on a player, to state over and over, how much i need my beloved as, one day, more than simply lights in the sky, i need you close, near, that my senses may be unleashed and find rapturous resonance at last. i do not have resonance near to me, what can be echoed, is echoed, but it's the surface being scratched of me, and there's no way to explain any depths, any undercurrents, any parts that might make my wings truly unfurl and ready to just fly. 

~

i wish that window hadn't closed, simply for it being left opened, can have a door ajar, without having to step through it :p alas, He knows better. sometimes, i recall 'If" and 'Then' to mind. what a year that was, by God. the choice that was made too. trying to find khair i suppose. funny, to give up everything just to find the one thing. you know? really tho, the "everything" of this life ain't nothing at all, a few years of whatever else fades into dust. the "everything" that is something, that's awaiting iA. "...i may not have all the answers, but God-willing, i will find it, i will be whole again, in this life or the next."

~

"...unsure of what acceptance it will find." only a Twin could have echoed so flawlessly the kind of thought that predominates in our species. i have that same thought sometimes these days. of wondering if my place in your cosmos is a choice you want, or simply a pleasant happenstance that serves as a nice occasional distraction ?_? if i could i would choose to have a bunch of consecutive 2020's, if it meant...well you know the end of this thought. how did you recognize me so instantly way back when? "male version of myself", like it's not even fair that you got to know of me and observe my thoughts before i got to see yours >:O smh lol. much less such a one like you existing, i cannot imagine what our touch would be like. fire i think. or electricity, perhaps both. maybe a waterfall, going against gravity. that sounds about right. i just hope that you never forget my final wish, it's not gonna change. if there was a part of me that didn't feel secure for its beloved in this life, it'd be for you. my other beacons, they are secure as my Rabb would have them be, for even if nominally they've accepted their Creator. i know, with us, there is no such thing as 'nominal'. everything with us is intensity, wholeness, true in essence and purpose as part of what we seek. you wouldn't reopen the heart to Him, unless you felt yourself truly called or in need or forgiven or forgiving or having overcome your history. but trust me when i tell you: you've been called to Him (literally too, like what i been saying all along), you need Him, you (would be) forgiven, you are actually quite forgiving, and your history has long been overcome, though it might not be obvious yet. you know and have tasted since before, what iman is like. truth ain't changed, even if you felt you had. you haven't. you are still you. something i like to remind my beloved, because this life is a POS that causes one to disappear, fragment, disintegrate. so i try to reintegrate, gather, reconstitute my lights, because when i do that, i my self am reintegrated, gathered, reconstituted into something a bit more whole. the eventual culmination of this is only in akhirah, but some facets could be found here. be grateful my Twin, you are...incredibly blessed. too much so to have simply left belief behind you as a skin to be shed. nope, you are not a snake, nothing so terrestrial, not a creature to leave behind your true colors in such a way. you are flight my dear, flight itself. and if you want to go higher, you will never find anyone or anything ever that could mean more to you than Him.

perpetual the Aim

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

 

 

 

nowadays, the melody in the back of the mind, playing on auto repeat, telling me it's only a matter of time:

 

"every step I take, every move I make, I'll be missin you.."

 

i'm incomplete, a puzzle without its pieces, a forest without its trees or a tree without any of its leaves, call me a fish absent its sea, or a brush missing canvas, consider me as glass without a window to have itself in. i know this existence will never be able to reconstitute me, from its missing of you, and i've lived to be ok with that. can't ask this life something it's incapable of holding, for dunya is a blind man with a strong sense of smell, able to tell certain strands of what's coming, except for obstacles or pitfalls like a cliff that evoke no scent, so it falls into them unknowing and unwitting.

 

but this is no complaint, alhamdulillah i am contented, with a Gift that suffices and lives with me in a wisdom of His so perfectly measured, i never could have chased this design with only my own efforts. 

 

it's true though, i know what the ocean shines like when it becomes a diamond, when every ray of beauty emanates as if from a single space, chasing at the speed of light its beloved and wishing to share with them in all its blessing and grace, given without request from its Maker Who constructed every atom of its beautiful interior. i am the most mortal of men ever made, flaws accompany me as often as life requires choices to be made, but that wish, the wish, my only aspect of ascendance, to be for once and for ever with my beloved in a Garden eternal and flawless, indulging of every desire, completing every aim inside of perfection...that is my unanswered question.

 

~~~~~

 

wonder if my name stays on your lips, inside your sighs, if your dreams still hold our possibilities,  of what there is to be felt, when a soul becomes alive. forward still i look, to every moment reunited, beginning with the superficial and delightful, despacito with those thighs, and ending somewhere embedded, kisses and other things intermingled, hearts pounding with a union just a lifetime in the making. 

 

i hope...some day, perhaps by Then iA, i am no longer just your test, not just your exam, not just the question qadr tempts you with, to see if you would pass. i want to be your fruit, the cherry on your sundae, the icing He gives you on your cake, after all is said and done, after you've poured your heartful soul into surviving, i want nothing more than to stand there for you, at our finish line. fuck this world, i want nothing that it has, for He kept you from me, for now, so Tomorrow is my goal, the place where i seek your hand --<@

 

 

Of the Gemini and unasked Questions

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

 

 

 

if i was a bolt of lightning, would you be my catcher? while opening the palm of your hands to the skies, and joining me in my time of Rapture? so many questions, wish i could ask: how deep in my cosmos can i bring you? would you just be humoring my persistence, or for my echoes be truly glad? i could assume so many assumptions, but i try to take nothing for granted, especially when it comes to one as rare as a beacon. a Twin is like a thing from the fables, nigh scarce as a Muse, one kind of a mirror, telepathy nearly made real, every facet becoming a clue, to inner chambers that surfaces couldn't grasp, rather with your touch and vision, that revive the phoenix from its ash. "shyness comes in many forms", once it was stated, a voice i can recreate in the mind, could say to me so many utterances, hold long conversations even, both colloquial and speechless, but satisfaction is a state evasive...until i hear fall from your lips, any affirmation (remembered that particular one, i have, and consider it evidence for your favor on Judgment, iA) to this litany of questions. perhaps too i can summarize it a singular sentence: if or when my hands do outward stretch, toward the Sky where He made you live and breathe, when i go as far as limbs and joints and body's limits can reach, when i close my fingers...would i find you having held them?

On the nature of this Life

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

 

 

Death is where it's heading, this life. Though most might conceive of it as one large, black curtain that foretells the end of existence, the end of living, it is not the end at all. I can't quite put into words the reason or basis of how that is the case, to paint a picture beyond just a matter of my belief, but I will try here inshaAllah to formulate some grounding that jives with whomever reads this, but most especially I hope for my beloved.

If I should start in the most neutral and unbiased of perspectives, I would borrow a law from Newtonian physics: every action has (an equal and opposite) reaction. To state it another way, there is a consequence for everything we do. Always. Consequences are not often immediately apparent, in the vast complicated web of human relationships and dependencies that exist on this earth, but they are there. Ask any investor, and businessman, any doctor, and they can relate examples of a food that was eaten, or a stock that was bought, or a trade that was made, and speak of its net loss or gain or aftereffect.

Just as physical actions carry physical consequences, so too do moral and ethical and spiritual actions have their own kind of consequence. This expectation of cause and effect is one of the most basic to humanity, to every people that ever lived. The reasons why we do things, matters, as much as the actions themselves. From Islam, this is the clear reference to the intent of an action being the reason for its reward. Empty, purposeless actions are trifles, and not the kind of deeds worth possessing or accumulating [....I know well, sometimes in life, all we have is the routine and the motion of going through it...in those times, we still should keep trying to move, no matter how listless or unable one feels to place any purpose in a worthy deed, for the intention of trying to break out of one's personal trappings, this is always noble and worthwhile]. 

There are many actions people take in life, whose impact cannot be discerned by the naked eye, such as the deterioration of a heart when it is no longer cared for or respected, when one's creation is denied or forgotten, etc. Death is the doorway to the penultimate court, where every deed's weight coalesces into a final, single consequence. Sometimes, people make the choices they do, of exploitation or deception, while thinking they cannot be caught, no one will hold them to account. But this would be wishful thinking, because just as with physics, an action has an effect, so too does everything with people. We exist as part of the physical universe, even as parts of ourselves reach outside, beyond it. The notion of finding recompense, of an action carrying its consequence after it, is applicable to every dimension ever created. Why? Because our Creator ingrained this into our being - is the simplest answer, but perhaps not the most convincing one. 

 

Regardless, if one doesn't wish to accept consequences, that self-delusion is irrelevant because death and its ultimate consequence comes for that person no matter what. Deny whatsoever else you wish, but death will never be denied. That's enough of discussion on that front I think.

~~~

So if we accept and know that this life ends, and that our deeds have consequences, what then? Because this life is ephemeral, fleeting, short-lived, its nature reflects that. Whatever we make, whatever we try to do in order to reach our aspirations, has the same consistency of the goal itself. If one's goal is limited to an earthly one, then we cannot forget that this goal too is going to fade, it cannot be held immortal. The most balanced way of carrying onward is to have both worldly and otherworldly goals that go beyond death, goals in akhirah. Our existence here serves as a very deliberate test, but it would be foolish to think one can survive with longing for just dunya(life) or just akhirah. Worldly goals have their place, and eternal and encompassing goals have their place. 

I have nearly reached the limit of what can be said of this life. There are some things I want to add, about how treacherous it is, how it can never trusted, how delusion and misconception can seep into nearly anything in life. But after talking about how fleeting life is, and consequences always being there, the rest of what I say comes greatly influenced from personal experience, and my own bias there is inescapable. Not sure if I ever mentioned before, but worth putting it here: once I had a dream I was in the middle of a great battle between the past and future nations, trying to get away from their fight. Eventually I did find refuge, but it was not without its fear. The reason I bring this up, that I'd describe myself as someone between modern and ancient. What does this mean? Not sure, but somehow that place in this paragraph was fitting. Maybe not. 

 

In any case, I wish I could end with something that crystallizes within my beloved a strong, unbreakable desire for akhirah. The problem is that such a goal must be entirely personal, rooted in one's own being. Alhamdulillah, I have such reasons = to find the ones dearest to me and show them the most incredible and beautiful of everything Allah created and of anything we could conceive. But could I ask a beacon to want this too? It is a difficult ask. But truthfully, I wasn't the one who composed my own dream, so it's not really a worry to be encapsulated by mortal efforts. It takes the grace and mercy of our Rabb to bring this to pass. And so, eventually, that is where this lover's words conclude. Reach for the akhirah, no matter what, realize that within submission to our Creator is freedom in full, but it is not something that will be found or granted here - it is the reward of perseverance and diligence, after we have breathed our last iA.

May He make our roads converge at the most worthwhile of destinations, with the best of company, ameen.