The Grand Canyons

These narrow valleys on your palms
They tell Iliads
Historical stories that time didn't heed
A  metaphor for life, already wrinkled ,though young of age

Read these lines

A set of curved tunnels and discontinued paths
That's the progress from the inception of life,

Ending with your throe
A faded line moving steadily ,like a stream
Till it spills at the cliff of your hands
That's your parent's affection
A paved road with a beginning, and no end
That's the journey of learning
Two rides in parallel, that's fraternity
Two lives adjoining ,
That's the inevitability of finding your missing half

These little valleys
When you look at them, you could tell

Though you don't remember

That you clenched your fists so tightly as an unborn
On your mellow hopes that one day you would get out to see the light
Though you never knew anything beyond the dark of the womb

You never knew

That these trenches
They are going to be the battle scars that you wear with pride
Medals of honor for your heroic feat of survival
From day 1
How they trap the last drops of your ablution
When you slightly curl your hands in a prayer
Seeking God's mercy and absolution
How they absorb the rays when you raise your palms
To cover up from the sun
Then light up in the dark when you look ,stunned, at your trembling hands
Wondering whether you have it in you to dig through the ages
To flip through the pages of your fate
To plant your nails in the mien of hurdles
And slap despair in the face
Wondering whether it's true that What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger

These trenches
Are the answer

Yeah,

These trenches are burn marks

Engraving all the times you grabbed the wrong hand
And swore to climb up that mountain on your own after you have slipped
And they are a stamped certification

A tribute for all the times you carried a burden beyond your limits

All the times you fell to the ground, scratching your knees
Then laid the weight of your spirits on your lean arms
And hardened palms to left them up
All the times you protected your face when hurled at by destiny
All the times you wiped your tears on your own
All the times you pat on someone else's shivering shoulder
All the times you stood greeting the rainy storm
Extending your hands towards heaven
Collecting drops of forgiveness in the cracks of your palms

These Grand Canyons
They are Grand in their merit
They whisper in a tone that nobody else can hear
Incessantly,
Gently,
Tenderly,

"لقد خلقنا الإنسان في كبد"

Die Tücke Der Dinge

Do you sometimes, in a vain attempt to laugh
Twig that your face, kinda resembles a vase cracked in half?
But each side still refuses to part ways
Much like the aquatic horizon
When you take a studying look from afar

The way the sky and the ocean lay so close

Brothers of kin, yet they still spar on territories
You can vaguely tell where one ends and the next begins
In the haze of the distance
Such is your first notion
When you try to reach out for the specs of dust
Stuck in the narrow trail that divides your features
Unevenly

Something is, fundamentally and profoundly
Wrong with you today,
Just like every other day

And you can sniff it in the air
You can feel it in your guts
Off your game; as you strut, you even forgot the lyrics to the song
You used to hum while dwelling in your daily routine
Fell out of rhythm and can't seem to catch up with the choir of the seen

Something must've happened
Tomorrow
Something is going to happen
Yesterday

She says, smirking
Wonder why don't our lips sync, myself and that one talking
Through the mirror

I rewind back to 7:05 am; I open my eyes already in an a bad temper
My alarm went off by mistake, it seems, so I try to fall back into slumber
Believing it is Friday morning
I get up 20 mins later so disappointed when I remember

That Friday morning was two days ago

As was cavalierly observed by that calender on the opposite wall
Random scenes from the last dream I had
Are trapped in bubbles, seeping from the open windows of my skull
They float all around, teasing
I try to take a look at each before it pops

I fail

Today, I'm not feelin' well
I try to figure out why
And I think so hard
Dig deep within the dungeons of my heart
Reach up the cells in my tired brain
Rummaging through the drawers of my recollections
Too busy to tighten the weaves of my thoughts
And my reflections like beads hanging on a string of silk
The earliest signs of a bloody migraine
And it snaps, sadly
Sending the contents of my mind on the run
Faster than slaves catching a glimpse of their freedom
I watch the last one
As it unhurriedly rolls
Decelerating to a stop
At the borders
Of Spain

I'm sorry, you were sayin' ?

My itching bones are telling me showers with chances of disappointments
Are in the weather cast of my mood today
But I can't tell exactly when

This vexation and bewilderment 

Exhaustion and astonishment at this naive trust in my intuition
They drive me insane, frenziedly going round the bend

But ,stay, where did it all go wrong? yesterday,
I asked as I looked upon my tormented countenance 

Was it that vile comment that concluded the argument ?
The unreturned smile I shot at my estranged friend?
The story I told with discernible zeal
That still in the end didn't get much appeal?
The jerk who cut me off without giving a signal?
That one cynical remark that ruined my meal ?
A dented floor tile that brought me falling on my face
While cat-walking in grace?
I can't seem to trace the whole series of events
But this rend on my face has been making weird noises
And the curve of my smile is starting to descend
Folks around venture to ask me blatantly if I'm doing fine
So I cover my facial cracks with the mask of a clown
Because for the life of me , I can't seem to find
What on God's green earth has caused my face to sunder

I wonder
At long
And it occurs to me to look up to the sun
Feel the early summer breeze tickling my cheeks, so tender
Them warm rays caressing the invisible wrinkles on my skin
And I start to ponder on how it could be a glitch in my hunch
That, most prolly, a burlesque series of events every once in a while
Could add some fun to my insipid life-style
So I finally surrender to the embrace of optimism

Today,
 I ain't breaking, peasants

After which I skip all the way, while I glitter and be gay
I get interrupted then, though, with a treacherous swing at my jaw
From which I craftily sway and venture to spring
But I nonetheless get kicked right in the kidney
And I get pushed under, have my dignity along with my temples
Get trampled to the floor I could taste the dirt

But I , somehow, in my habitual naivety
Still believe that I could handle some more

I whisper to my numb limbs through my missing incisives
While preparing myself for the fatal, the decisive

Sometimes you gotta lay there, beaten ,and have a frank talk with your ego
On prospect methods of mitigation
It all goes blank, halfway
Every time
I fast-backward to 7:05 am next morning

And I press Replay

Que Sera, Sera

It might come off as weird from a 23 years old
But allow me to be as bold as to squeeze
Out my wisdom
Friends, i've come to realize that life
Is too short to stay up a bit later just to prepare
Your fit for tomorrow morning
Imagine missing out on a good dream
Just to fold and iron
Life is too short to expend the money you earned
For your time and sweat
On a plain shirt ,branded with a stranger's name
And life is too short to work late
You might get paid
But money can't buy back the time your job stole from you
Life is too short to shuffle your priorities because of a random person
Forcing their way into the equation
It's way too short to leave your comfort zone
To let someone else comfortably replace you
And to seek acceptance from kids that need to accept themselves first
Life is too short to try and change a beau
It's not your job to do the matching
It's still too short to settle for less
Because being bae-less and free is still better than lamenting
The magical encounters you may have missed out on
And life, dear Batushka
Life is too short to miss the blessing in disguise
Because you were busy recounting how fate has been unkind to you
To try and swim against the flow
When you can surrender and enjoy the drench
To fight battles that aren't worth winning
Balance the bounty to a sack of your blood and it shall always seem too low
It is yet too short to withhold your giggles in a meeting
To withhold sarcasm; that stuff chokes you
To argue with an obtuse thinker
And try to sugar lace someone else's view
So you could take it in with your coffee
My word, it is shorter than you think ,
To spend it exchanging blames for the darkness around
You may not have a candle
But a talk under the moon is worth a thousand calls

It's too short for white lies and fake compliments

Someone else's insecurities aren't your project

And it's too short, ladies and gents,
To keep tracks of the total count of emojis in your texts
To abandon the mic because you so horribly lisp
To be afraid of unplanned adventures
Of smiling at a stranger
Of getting too close to the cage of a raging tigress
Of free-falling, when you know you are splashing into a pool
It's too short to do anything unnecessary, in fact
To submit an assignment early
Cheat on a test and implore forgiveness for being late
To try and untangle a tight knot in your lace
To wash an enduring spot on yesterday's plate
To check if they are still lurking behind the door
You just closed
Too short to try and fix things you can't fix
Just because you feel guilty for breaking them.

My Children

I'm not a poet
I can't call myself that
Giving my remedy a name requires a tag
And demeans its value
I'm merely a person that seeks consolation
In written word
They are my born children
And never, for the life of me, have I raised a child out of boredom
Never did I sit and wanted to summon
My feels if they wouldn't come on their own
They may not be much to read
But they are much to feel
Every single one has a dear story
Stained with tears and smeared with agony
Others are Untitled, brittle while drear
Melancholy's bastards
And, boy, do these adolescents have attitude problems
Often had to use my whip when they refused
To disobey the rules of language
But, you see, verses at this age have their own tempo
And I don't dare to use them to make a living; I ain't no bard
Begging at the court of a king
My children
They know I'm a frequent bleeder
And when I need a breather they know better not to act up
They gimme that tender look ,they say Mamma, don't bother
Worrying about the script
Lay your feels on our lean shoulders
And we shall carry them for you
And we shall arrange them for you
And we shall sing them in a Soul Ballad for you
And I got nothing but to smile at the thought
That my lil ones have grown
They be talking like adults, acting all high and mighty
Still not dropping that prone attitude ,though
They may not be the trendiest at school
But at home, y'all be sure they are the realist
And though I've long bled all my insecurities away (I lie)
And all my dejection and existential crises away (I lie)
I still get the urge to tell my stories to strangers i won't meet
Having a bunch of anonymous eyes read my linguistic bleats
See, i'm not a great speaker
I just read a lot, and when I'm tired of words
I read faces
And when the words don't come out flowing like a river
And eyes shy away from my gaze
I know that I'm not feeling enough
And there no need to waste my ink
So my dear friend,
There is nothing called a Writer's Block
Your pen
Just believes it isn't the time to bleed yet.