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. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

few days back, when Ramadan started, got a simple message from one of my beacons, surprised me how much i relished reading it. hearing from someone with whom i have deep connections, ya Rabb i wish i could have that kind of visitation more often.

it isn't an easy thing to maintain distance when there exist avenues for their shortening, but my Creator has taught me often about waiting for that which i seek. sometimes the immediate pressures and intentions of worldly nature obscure that seeking, but it's always there, ever present in the blood, red as it runs, like when the Moon is clearest on nights without clouds. 

as for Ramadan itself, had my usual early impression of its layering upon layer of imprisonment, but after discussion with a fellow 85er, alhamdulillah i was able to dissolve the momentary dissonance and simply accept the nature of life and fasting together, my solution? submission after all. it is the backdrop of the slave, always the place upon which i have to stand, remembering to look down, see where it is i truly am. 

i won't get to write as many words as i wish, whether for time or occasion preferring silence, for the ones who now situate in my Sky. they are precious, my beloved of various origins and colors and backgrounds. some have visited the ocean, others know not it even exists, but for me, in my mind's sight, i have seen roads untraveled between them and i, paths i know for certain i would love to take in their company. so they become part of my fabric, a tapestry, a Pattern, accentuated goals as gems adorn the horizon. 

ya Rabb, forgive them, aid them towards You, and never let us be lost, ameen

On the other night

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

not too many nights like this, where skies empty of clouds and moonlight touches every inch of landscape, but it's a beautiful moment, in the midst of so many answerless questions. could say the effort of attempting is as draining as a tornado over water, funnelling away the substance, ever enveloping with pressure, can't control the weather, pleas to the Maker as arrows fallen quickly out of their quiver, deflation the reoccurring wind for the seeker of stillness, this life and its vampiric nature, can't understand how typical people survive much less the ones oddball and composed of dimensions non-money, non-linear. 

over this past year, i grasp less and less of my beloved, can fathom no equations to resolve the distance, silence poses an ever increasing stockpile of questions, among them one might ask, how is the caring still worth it, when the future of Tomorrow becomes a vision by the demands of dunya slowly blurred into the ether? it's as if thought of the Garden and its attainment is simple and easy, while finding a place of work and belonging at present is a mountainous task, so many peaks to scale but such little equipment. 

~

what price would any sane person pay to end the distance? what decisions would he make to dial down the questions, have only in front of him his beloved to gaze in? one of the most predominant conclusions i reach over and over, that i remain insufficient, yet the aid of my Rabb is a twinned edge blade i wonder which way He'd have it twist, whether when it's just reaching my fingertips or right when i think i've mastered His tests? 

truth is, programming is not the template of my nature, just an extension i felt i could take because it held something of wonder, potential, artistry in diction meant for machines to execute with precision. somehow, if i'm to survive this choice, to choose my career's direction, i'll have to internalize it at some even deeper level, keeping ever expanded the mental limits, of learning and dots forever connecting. 

not so dissimilar this is, from waiting to see you again. every once in awhile, wish i'd been purely selfish, not coded and guided in principles, perhaps sooner feel your touch for the first time ever. but, i don't want you for just an instant, not just for a night or series of breaths no matter how exhilarating and ecstatic, but rather...i want you Forever, eternally tethered, fully, unbounded, unfettered, to share and relish every measure of love hand in hand with learning of matter and exploration of creation beyond what our worldly senses once told us. 

alhamdulillah my Love of All Lifetimes. the journey is what it is, seeking from Him to be whole one Day iA. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

just in case a reminder may be needed, in case this winter's stretched its tendrils too close to where you're breathing, i should reiterate what i said not long ago, that you'd never be eclipsed, not in any season, for as a runner in the blood, how intertwined are oxygen and love? 

my Rabb has given me quite a few blessings, and decided to try me in some ways so deep, but no matter the happiness or sorrow He decrees me to face, absent you i am never completed,...why is still partly why, the Garden holds fast its meaning, its necessity, why every deed i have as pebble, i save to show Him one Day for me to plead. 

they do not understand, they cannot fathom, how one once so bereft of mortal acceptance, longs for one who showed it him without condition. it's a simple thing, i swear, so obvious, if it were outloud spoken, all would say 'of course it is', as fruitful as the vapid exclamation of how magic might be wonderful and helping...of course! but utterly unaware of how such a thing is actually brought to fruition.

as  my Moon once said, "only Allah can give it, and only He can take it away". such is the fate of that which over we possess no control, things submitted, for they belong to Him. 

my beloved are remembered as every day passes, inside duas released from tongue whether or not my state agrees or wishes, whether my compass points right the moment, or decides to be itself still, you remain embedded within, and some day iA, i'll get to hear your words again, and be able to show what you mean to me. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

some days are sweaters of anguish, wrapped tightly on the self, holding the fury of unanswered questions, measures falling short, of minimum levels i need to have reached but still dispossessed of. 

am i the only one on the outside looking in? society marching forward, careless of efforts or struggles of nameless ones, long needed belonging but been decades since i spliced it from the thesis of my being, so i remain averse to an essential ingredient every mortal was created as needing.

persistence, patience; the finest of twinned blades, best with which to leave streaks in the soul and underneath flesh before signs appear, carving out methods of how to walk as one who is slave. there is no paper with enough space, no pen with enough ink, to spell out the depth of inadequacy when an ideal is the measure of self, so it invariably falls short, an engine without fuel, all you could see, is the trace of my plumes in the sky, left in the trail of where i tried to be. 

hope battles pessimism, potential with reality, possibility with displacement, sometimes the nomadic one can only see what he is as homeless, truly being of statelessness, internal equivocations the only sounds to his ears nearest. one simple most beautiful light, in the midst of all the unknown, my Sunlight when she bends around any corner, by sight or sound, my beloved is home.