Amor Fati

"Everything is possible
But nothing is absolute
We pick our truths like we reject our lies
By utter convenience
And a truth is only so
Because it was laying around for the loot

Your delusion
Could verily be someone else's creed

Isn't that beautiful ?

All these possibilities and all one ever needs
Is to have enough sense to pick what best to believe in."

She kept quiet for a while

"You know, I had a dream", she finally muttered
Looking sideways, lips pursed as if her words barely got the permission
To leave
Took out a pencil and drew on the napkin
What she thought was a revelation
Krutoi would've smiled at that scene
I haven't looked at her face in full view
Since we met
She sparkled, under that fluorescent light
Beneath an orange painting

"I'm looking for a man whose face I couldn't see
But was told he was my fated person
And I shall find him walking down this street
Where three buildings of the same front looked down on a garden
At the time it finally rains in K city
I heard it rained there, yesternight, you know

It's stupid, but I wonder
I wonder if I would find him there. Right now."

She had on her this bashful smile
Like all the hopes she could ever harbor
Have taken abode in the shadows itched in her laughter lines
Like she has waited all her life
For this moment ,yet stopped an inch before
Fumbling around for a safe landing

I sipped on my coke and said "Let's go."
"Let's go nudge your fated lover into awakening.
He must know
Who you are."
And she looked at me, wide-eyed like a child's first moment
Beneath the light
Even I was surprised, that I didn't burst out laughing yet

"Disbelief in nothing.", isn't it ?


Somehow, deep down, I hoped that God would send a stranger
That would restore the children of faith that has wandered away
From this woman's heart, at old age
Perhaps I was just bored, unusually nostalgic for the grand and mysterious
Have read too many a line of Kazansakis, and grew loose in picking
My sport

I didn't know her last name, and she didn't know mine

And on that evening
We wandered together down an alien street
In an alien country
Looking for an alien apparition she saw in a dream
Yet swore that she would recognize 
That she would make a gift of her future to his present

And there was not a single ounce of doubt in the soundness of this blind faith
In the scope of fortuity

The night was young 
And there was no one else walking down that street as we strolled about

We both kept quiet for a long, long while
Cold breeze brushed our cheeks

"Thank you

"For coming with me.", she whispered, her face fading into the blooming darkness

"Perhaps it was all to bring me here, get disappointed
Only to find my answer as I turned back where I came from.
That is my truth."

There was nothing to say back, strangely

When did I become so superstitious?, I wonder

This time my inner voice wasn't indulging in satire
While chewing on gum
It was as quiet deep within my soul as that street
Perhaps because I knew all along
Or
Thought the same : Every road leads to some end
When it leads to a mute wall then it must've been the journey

I wanted to come here
I wanted to be here
Stand back to watch as she embraced the truth of all truths :
In every direction, God has lain down an infinity of branches
And has given us the freedom, all the freedom in this world
To pick our path
To indulge in not knowing
And that gleam
Oh, that blaze of all constellations falling into place
That flickers in one's eyes as they realize the truth of all truths ,at last

Is why I spill my heart to strangers I would never meet again.

......................................

On that same night we walked arm in arm into the house of wonders

The Jennie at the door of the back room said in an undertone
When I habitually tried to cajole my way in

"We are going to quarrel if you say that again."

I knew by instinct that I shouldn't lie to this man

He knows
Who I am

See, there exists in this world a certain breed
With fuming storms in their chests
Bullets loaded into their tongues
Oil for vigor in their veins that spill out
And burn when they bleed

It was there and then that I realized my truth

I was looking all along for a person
With such beautiful flames in their eyes
A man with a passion so strong
It only dies
With the warmth in their guts

I didn't know his name either

Oh but I found a little piece of the sun left out
In this house of beautiful, beautiful things
Chambers within chambers, and the Jennie
He stood there in guard like an Archangel
Fending for everything dear, letting only the naked of feint
And the austere of splendor pass through these doors into his personal heaven
"Your cause is a noble one", I told the blonde descendant of the Tsar
And though I don't believe that fate is written in stars, I knew that our fates
Would've strove to intertwine, had we met in another time
And we spoke for hours and hours without pretense
Three strangers of three colors, and one raison d'etre
Marauders of life's boons of little blessings
Hidden in strange places

Tonight I've met my fated person, but he wasn't mine in this life

And it filled my heart to the brim, this joy of just stumbling upon him
Deep in this infinite ocean of possibilities
Despite the whimsicality of my choices

Fate, indeed, works in a strange fashion.

Child of The Sun

She finds it satisfying enough to have run half the race
Sweat drops start to form on her brow
Her pace slows mechanically

"I did all I could", she explains

As she stops to a halt

And turns around

Looking for a certain pair of eyes
In the ocean of gazes
Faces grow obscure in the dimness
All looking down, trying to pierce
Through the flesh of the deserter
A cluster of ridicule
It's like the darkness of all the living
Has evaporated
Seeped out of their pores
Reigned over that stadium
Blocking the sun light

"Ecce Homo", she whispered
",falling."

"My heart beated too loud and I ran out of breath, you know
To flush this bad was only expected
I can't push too hard if it leads to my death"

Silence

"Needless to say, my legs hurt so much"

Someone scoffs

"She thinks folks get by by sitting on their behinds all day
The fool."

"I wasn't made for this kinda toil, you see
I grew up too spoiled to run leagues I couldn't fathom
From the windows of my room
Besides, I always took the lead in my head"

Ah

They wouldn't understand, though

I always took the lead in my head

Been told to run races 

And go to places
So I did,
The fault is not mine

The jeers and giggles start to bite from the depths of the silence
Shift to a treble that still escapes the ear
But never misses the bight
How is it that the abyss becomes the face of a lover
The longer you stare
The longer it peers 
Into you

"Wasn't it enough ?
To be this sick at soul", she exclaimed
"And still have to be told that
I wouldn't know unless I've tried
Only to be tried for not knowing
How to run miles non stop
With the smile of a gallant that was born running."

I
Could run ,I know it
I could run alright
But where to run to when I have crossed that line
In the end ?
What to run for when I've covered every inch of the tracks
"Wasting your breath and vigor on a pointless endeavor
Is such a disgrace to God's gifts, you see, my lover"

But that was a shameless lie

The girl perfectly knew in her bones
That she was born with the legs of a deer
Standing in motion, before reaching the age of grasping notions
She couldn't dodge the flood
And so she was hit hard
Into awakening

"La Naissance", she hummed
As she closed her eyes
Shifted her ribs apart

Then opened wide her arms

So her heart could be kissed by the sun
One last time
Before drowning into the dark

The girl has been running
All her life
From her shadow

This coldness creeping up the back of her neck

Is the disgust of vying ,for things small

This stiffness in her tongue
Left by the thirst for winning

The unstoppable twitching of her brows
Were born from the fear of eyeing

The bottom of the mountain where the ones with little dreams
Eroded nails, and weak limbs
Were told to lay
For the flood to take them
Take them
Away

"You
Did prove the point
When you tied the badge of intent upon your arm
Shouldn't you quit while ahead in the chase?, now
Content with having been there
Or merely, being at all."

It is true
She is not one to construe, the girl with numb arms
The whispers of the whimsical handler in her chest
Nor is she one to delve deep in the ocean of rue
Over the chances missed
Perhaps
All she needed to prove

Was her will to want
Or her want for a will.

Reflections II

Have always made it a point
To properly watch the fireworks every year
Ceased all conversation
Put down my phone
Tried not to pat an eyelid
Where I am on the globe doesn't matter

This is my grand ritual of re birth 

It's the point on the night where it sinks in
Another one has just ended
And the past one flashes in front of my eyes
Like an old film of black and white
As I gaze into the night

------------------*Boom*
*Boom*
*Boom* *Boom* *Boom*

Crowds rave, lights dance
Ember flicks fall
And fade
Only the smell of ash lingers in the air

*Boom*

It wasn't so bad, was it?

------------*Boom* *Boom*

I've come a long way

Been more honest

Stopped being a doormat

Stepped out of my bubble of comfort
And opened my heart a little

*Boom*

I don't dislike who I've become

---------------------

The ones I cherish the most are standing next to me

And I take the time to remember the few
Missing on this cold eve

"May the lord lighten up your grave 
Like this dome"

----------------------

"But you are missing this"

How many funerals has it been?

Stopped counting when my tears ran out

People forget so readily
Or pretend to move on
But death lived in my chest for a while

Sat on the couch between my ribs
I can't
Pretend to be strong, like they do

-------------------------*Boom*

This is not the time to mourn, bloke

My fingers tremble as I cling unto these cold bars
All the stars on the plain above took leave for the night
I shouldn't be crying
It's so pretty
But I wish you could see this
I shouldn't be crying
I try to utter a few prayers in the gaps between my heaves
But I wish you could see this
I wish you were here
I wish you were alive to exclaim out loud
"What a wonderful year it was"

Maybe it wasn't

Because I can't stop the tears

They disobey my command, like the words out of my tongue
Out of my pen, jetted by my keyboard

The world is dressed in colorful joy

Content is exhaled along with the laughter
Another year is sealed away
In the attic of our minds
I alone
Wept bitterly
And when the noise rose and swelled in willful glory
I let out the whines, howling
Like an injured beast

I never felt this lonely, embraced and patted by this cryptic sorrow

Could no one else feel this shiver deep in their marrows
A cold rush up their spines
As they rise from the shore were life has washed them
Nay, spat them,
Mere skin and bones with decaying flesh
Dust of dismay stuck between their molars

Could no one else tell where we stand on the cord of life
At this eternal moment
Galleys of naught lay deep below
Bleak horizons trapped within our irises
Regrets taking abode within our shadows

Could no one else taste an exotic blend
Of grief
Of joy
Of hope
Of foreboding
Of loneliness
Of relief

And it all gushes out in a waterfall of emotions
That cannot be explained but for the tears running down their temples
Quietly, on moments of glee

Does no one else understand what it means to survive someone?

Leave the fallen ones back in the minefield
Of remembrance
Carry on alone into the night
Inexorable and unknown

I really do cry a lot, of late

And for a moment, perhaps too long to be mistaken for a verse
This familiar dome I printed on the back of my eyelids
Was painted with imminent light
The sandclock labored to deliver the final grain
Before starting all over
I
Wiped my tears as I pretended to cough and smiled for the pictures
Somehow, I was reborn again
Already tired.


January 1st, 2017
1: 41 am
Abu Dhabi, UAE