just a Dream

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

i dreamt a dream with you, a little bit before fajr this morning. we were sitting in the backseat of a car, maybe a fancy one, being driven somewhere. can't really say for sure who was driving (or other minor details), because you'd captured my attention. i was amazed to see you, and you were radiant, beautiful. we talked for a bit, then the dream transitions to us walking side by side, maybe to an event or something like that. but really, for me it was more stunning to be near you. our conversations continued, ya Rabb i wish i could remember what they were about. but i remember one moment, while in the course of walking and natural hand/arm motions, my hand incidentally touched you and so you walked a little faster lol. 

~~~

a person is nothing without our dreams, our penultimate aims. the only real question that remains = is the dream worthy of having? and this is the entire context of why and how i can internalize my bond with my Creator so strongly. 

if i aimed simply and only for this life, then i would have left alone the consequences and possibilities of Eternity itself. how is this sensical? would i limit my acceptance of what i will do, to what my senses can grasp?...ignoring how much is beyond my senses yet still existing? honestly, disbelief is utter stupidity to me. the only root for it i can see is an impression/delusion that there is no accounting and death is a final seal for the living. and the only ones whose eyes are so blinded are the ones who rejected acknowledging any favors or blessings Allah gave them. if you can see one, you will see another, and another, until the pathway itself is full of His grace that permitted your eyes to open. 

~~~

alhamdulillah for everything He does, for letting me come to know such beloved exist, to keeping them safely, even if for some they're preserved in my soul and not externally expressed.  i hope just that He never leaves me to myself, and that He grants peace to my ummah, ameen. 

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

alhamdulillah for answers in silence, even with her sticking to her decision, to see a singular glimpse, and know a bit the state of beloved, it's precious, like visitation of rain for the desert and its nomad.

something special, striking, seeing one's Muse with her pumpkin, like solace made to find her face, ease her absence, allowing one to pour emotion at will, into these vessels we call our children. 

my Gift and Sunlight, still yet parted from me for few days longer, these days, seems lost their brightness but randomly, from places unpredicted, it reaches me again, alhamdulillah. 

always and forever, for Then, iA. 

sanity

أَعُوذُ بِٱللَّهِ مِنَ ٱلشَّيۡطَٰنِ ٱلرَّجِيمِ، بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

(originally started on 9/10/24)

sanity is for the sane ones,

not

for those who sail on ships,

absent a skyline to gauge from;

even with eyes, even with vision,

feels like blindness,

so reaching out 

seeing if

i could touch a moment

somewhere close to a beloved.

but most often, it's encased, imprison

distanced, as if mere knowledge

of them

were too sacred to be known

by a nomad.

but he tries anyway, knowing the histories

recent silence, 

respect of their choices

along with these paper airplanes of attempts

regardless.

~

his Gift, she loves him, like a lover and beacon, she expresses, in ways he couldn't imagine in her nature, but the years of bridges building and giving her, his Rose, all of her own deserved water/light/attention, she feels, enough to touch my language on its wavelength, even if it's not hers, she's still reached out to mine, alhamdulillah. 

~

ya Rabb, i know well of silence, and distance, and keeping up boundaries which You decreed for us, just...keep them safe, all of my ummah and beloved, let us to survive and be saved through the tests You continuously (with some respite) try us with. ameen

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.