Butterflies And Hurricanes

Hope is a beautiful flower

Indeed, but talking about hope and beauty have been exhausted

They took more than their fair share of poetry, so instead I'm going to talk about 
Despair

For, don't you realize how absurd it is to describe the moon as "luminous"

Forgetting about its hidden side which its morbid existence we nullified

Because it's a sour to our gracious eyes

Such a typical human thing to do, to disguise what we don't want to notice

With a mask of fairness

We don't realize that our excess adoration to one face

Is the root of our rejection to its opposite

But what if we allow the Yings and Yangs of life

To live under the same roof

Feed them equal portions of one's heed

So they don't have to fight for space and provisions ?

What if we love them like we'd love our own

And we all live happily ever after ?

Light and darkness

Goodness and evil

Love and hatred

Hope and despair

Bravery and fear

Harmony and Chaos

These ultimate opposites keep swinging in cycles of attraction and repulsion

Giving birth to a cyclone of anarchy trapped in a small shell

Many a times I wake up to find myself at the center of such a storm
Which I have no recollection of penetrating

Resting in a bubble of order, floating in the obscurity of disorder

Beholding serenity within turmoil

The only source of illumination is a narrow gap looking at heaven

And I'm dancing Waltz with my thoughts

When the world is kicking Kurobushka

I am too small, and this is too overwhelming

My little self is trembling in terror behind I and me

Yet my knees are shaking in excitement before the storm

Don't we all think that they look majestic from afar ?

They induce a shrill of awe so we don't dare to step closer

But when you can't run away from rage; perhaps the safest place is its belly

And I'm here, trapped in this seething stanza of contradictions

That I can't steer towards any known direction

An emaciated Ulysses that didn't expect all this destruction

To be born from the flaps of her wings

Already weakened and torn by the constant wringing

In lamentation of her sheer insignificance

But I want you to come hither, sir

Come closer, and look into my eyes

Can you see mayhem banging at the interior of my iris

Trying to escape ?

I find this concealed madness

Terribly beautiful

Then I blink for a split-second and I'm out of the storm

Back in my room

I look ahead and see hanging on the wall a crude statement made of Aluminium

Observing thespianly that "Chaos Is Beauty"

It was my 23rd birthday gift to myself; a tradition I started years back

Making my own gifts; though I don't quite understand what point I was trying to convey

Bending these wires to my will, hurting my fingers in the process

As if i was trying to define "Mien Kampf" using familiar vocabulary

Trying desperately to twist my fate to fit into a traceable shape

Ignoring my mentor, linking his brows whenever he passed while I was struggling

Grunting under his nose that his line of work allows him to see all sorts of incongruities

But I doubt that he knew what I was talking about

Esteemed Sir,

What is chaos ? What is order ? What is ugliness ? What is beauty?

Define contradictions

Who said ugliness cannot be beautiful ?

And who said excess beauty does not touch on the borders of ugliness ?

All I know, is that I closed my eyes again

Hoping to go back into that whirling prison

Seeking my lost answers that I forgot to claim

And thought of the one thing that I wanted to hear

The one echo of an echo that got lost amid the noise of life

The most genuine gift I could ever give to myself

Right when I was standing at the threshold of my youth

Looking ahead, before the monster of reality 

And this string of metaphors kept ringing in my ears

Being a walking lump of chaos is fine

Being a raucous storm trapped in a jar is fine

Being a vest full of scars is fine

Being sad and broken , disarmed and shaken right before the grand battle

Is fine

Nigredo

"Excellently observed, but let us tend to our garden."

I believe my biggest mistake was believing in earnest that i could go out to the world
While retaining the virginity of my soul
For "Every Good Boy Does Fine", I was told
But , alas ,it was ravished by the time I graduated from the school of adolescence
It seems the world isn't as peachy as you'd imagine it at the age of 8
And the older one gets
The less their innocence shrinks
And fades, mumbling between its chatter

"I didn't sign up for this"

Well, I grew up to be a sorry excuse for a human being
So mine gave up on my coming back when I left them alone
In the darkest chambers of my heart
They decided to remain quite when I wore the  mask of pretense
Every time I left my hearth
Even stopped showing signs of dismay when I mastered the art of lying
Without glancing sideways

I look back to the time when a smile of a stranger was a day maker
And I revel at how it is now either a harassment lawsuit in preparation
Or a big favor standing in line to be asked of you
And as much as I feel a shiver of disgust at myself for thinking that way

The sad part is ; i'm not mistaken
For the most part

I'm not mistaken in my reluctance
To take a hand offered to me while climbing up the cliff of desperation
Because I'd rather fall to my doom if fate decided that I should slip
Than handing my life to some goon and watch them
As they turn me to a crip
With a wry smile on their face
Much obliged, but I'd rather spare myself the soar after-taste
Of being made a fool of, see
If you've received enough blows at a young age, forcing you to an early wake
You'd learn to habitually raise your palms in anticipation of a slap
When a stranger extends their hands for a shake

I say, why does innocence die that young anyway ?

Why doesn't innocence grow kind wrinkles and stiff joints
Wither slowly like an old palm tree and die in peace with a smile of content on its face?
Why aren't we born contaminated and instead we grow backwards
To our initial state of purity?
Wanting to get ahead in the race of life
Isn't the root of vice
It's constantly watching the back of your ascendant
Instead of the grand prize
It's the dirty games
The elaborate lies
Judges of marilty accepting bribes, friends taking sides
The weak getting hacked
And the daggers thrust in one's back

Is it so wrong to think that I could've reached the top while keeping my hands clean
From the blood of my guiltless soul?

When I was a kid
I wanted my innocence to be buried with me in my dark grave
But instead I waived my innocence when i came of age with little traces of regret
It had to be done, see
It had to be done even if I renounced the race
Because the smile of my child was anyway gone
The minute they realized I found them a burden
Their healthy, pulp faces grew so thin
And quietly
They disappeared
To the oblivion of my closet
And sometimes,
I, the troubled parent
Resting my head weighed down by guilt
On my pillow, wet with the tears of my conscience
In the quite of the night
When sleep skips its usual visit
I stare at the ceiling
And  think of ways to bury my dying son
To muffle their faint breaths
Without having to look them in the eyes
And engrave in my memory the final gaze of disgust they gave me
When I failed them
One last time

Einsamer Hirte

Denial and apathy; two sides of a coin
They might get confused, mind you, during acute cases of heart break
When you flip the dime of your feelings
And it rests on the edge, refusing to face your gaze
In my case I waited for a while, thought i might need some time to take it in
But the coin
Is still obtusely hanging

And 48 hours have passed

I pinched my cheeks so hard
Even pressed my eyelids, so at least one tear drop would roll down
And relieve my worries that something might be wrong with me
I mean, a broken heart is supposed to make lotsa noises, right?
But I didn't hear a thing

It was quite as a grave, in my head

Even the faint pounds in my chest seemed to fuse with the clock ticks
And fade away
In my quite room

Weird

I'm supposed to be crying myself to sleep
But i'm counting sheep every night
And falling to the embrace of unconsciousness like a newborn

10:04 pm
Pray, cry

10:05 pm
Why am I not crying ?

10:06 pm
I can hear the sound of the wind gushing
From the last shell i put against my ears
Fascinating

10:07 pm
No, I think the wind is seeping through my ribs

10:08 pm
I think I'm sick
I may be dying

10:08 pm
Oh the window is just open

10:08 pm

One Mississippi

Two Mississippi
Three Mississippi

10:08 pm

I'm a shepherd

Oh well, I'm asleep and already dreaming
Yes, I'm a shepherd
A lonely bard
I take my lot to the prairie everyday
With a packed lunch of good humor , and a harmonica
At noon a take a nap, resting my head on a thick book
With a title too hard to pronounce
My cattle, i gave them peculiar names
Kept them close like my children
And let them roam around within the boarders of my imagination
They know when to come back
Waking me up from my light doze
Imagine being the only human around
And the world is only two colors, green and blue
It's so simple ,so orderly, so tranquil over here
And when a cloud makes its appearance
The pricks of sun rays get a bit softer
Does it ever happen that you open your eyes not quite sure
Whether what you see is real
Or a mere continuation of a dream?
Funny thing about the maladies of the heart
Is that they twist your sense of reality
This stranger was floating slowly
Aimlessly, drifting with the summer breeze
I said hello there, strange one
It grunted, and shrunk, a mild drizzle
Tickled my nose
I think it likes me
This plump fellow
It talks to me, through the rain, and when my kids are away
Felt so refreshing
It snows marshmallows on good days
Music to my ears
My cloud friend,
My little patch of winter in spring
My cozy shelter in summer
My quiet partner that made this solitude less lonely
Filled my days, so hollow and bleak
With peaceful joy
I got up and followed the cloud
I left my harmonica, and my pillow
I walked in its shade for as far as it drifted
Until we reached a cliff
Edge of my world
Never thought I'd have to go there
So steep
So high
Angry waves crashing beneath
The horizon, so bright, the setting sun flashing through the distance
Splashes of orange
And purple, and yellow
I didn't know
That other colors existed
My friend slipped away as I wondered
In my childish awe
They left to find other shepherds
That knew their own land better
And I didn't get to say goodbye
I stood watching the main, where i last saw their reflection
Forgot the prairie
Forgot my scattered thoughts, left unattended
My music of thought didn't taste the same when I was back
And I couldn't add the final stroke to the painting in my head
My brush was so dry without tears

And I woke up to a new day.

المــغــتــربـون

في بلاد الغربة

أبناء حواء، نسعى مثل أوراق الخريف

افترقنا عن غصون السدرة

إذ لم تعد تقوى عروقها على النزيف

 البعض منا ا يصعدون على فلك المطامح
إلى أطراف العالم
نقتن حرف التملق والإحتيال على أعتاب الملوك

نرسي على موانئ الرضا بالمكتوب

القلب جامح بالحنين
أقدام الظروف تهشم أضلاعنا
بينما نستلقي على قارعة الطريق

نحن لا نرفع أعلاماً في أعياد الإستقلال
إن تذكرنا

كيف نشدو "أحبك يا بلادي"

و قد هجرنا كنف الأم الرؤوف في لحظة ضعف

في بلاد الغربة نقضي الصبا بحثاً عن ملجأ

و نفطن بعد عمر طويل بأن الوطن

بعكس الثرى، لا يشترى

 وان الإنتماء لا يمنح بوثيقة مختومة

 أن التطبع بعادات قوم لا يورث هوية

 نحن بعد الكبد والعناء نتذكر بلد المنشأ

فنرى أن الجذور وإن غاضت فهي بعد لم تفنى

هل تعلمون ؟
قد نكون "على قد حالنا" في بلاد المهجر، على عكس الظنون

ذاك الغريب ذو الدنانير الذي تدعو بالمريب

قد أفنى عمره على ظعون العسر

 يجمع القرش على القرش في صرة من الصبر

قضى بهيم ليله في ابتهال

إلهي أعني على غربتي و حسن من حالي"

حتى أنيب إلى أحبتي"

والجذع القريح في سكون الليل ينادي عبر المدى

بني ، إلي
بني ، إلي
بني ، إلي

مضعضعاً راحة البال

وأوراق الخريف التي أنهكتها ركلات التشرد

تهمس بكبرياء جريح

"لالوب بلدنا ولا تمر الناس"

ولكن

ولكن نحن في بلادنا غرباء

عندما نلبي نداء الهوى بعد عمر

 يستقبلوننا عند الباب موضبين حقائب الإغتراب 

ومن يقعدون يهرعون للسؤال عن

عرابين الاشتياق التي نشتري بها المودة

قبل السؤال عن أحوالنا 

فنحن لا نبغي الود و الأحضان على حسب الإعتقاد

عندما نعود يمحصون دروعنا قبل قلوبننا

و نحن في بلادنا ممثلون في مسرحية هزلية

ينتظر المشاهدون انتهائها بفارغ صبر

  لكي يرشقوا محاصيل الإنتقاد الفاسدة

هاهموا قد عادوا يمشون الهوينى
ليدوسوا على تقاليدنا"

و ليبصقوا كبراً على حالنا"
جميعنا نرجو المناص من مقبرة الربيع هذه

ولكن هل تعلمون ؟
لغاية ما يؤمنون بأن جنة الله في الأرض
هي أبعد ما يكون من تخم الحدود
 هي أبعد ما يكون من ربوع الوطن المنسي
 من الأم المنون
من بلدي
لكن جنة الله في الأرض تقبع في ثنايا القلب
و قلوبنا
قد دفناها تحت التبلدي الجوفاء
في "تنقاسي" الحنون
بلادنا

"لن أقول "وهي الفقيرة مثل أجنحة القطا
و لكن العطا في يبس رغم فيض المروءة

بلادنا
من يلومها وهي السدرة الثكلى
ترمق أبنائها العائدين شزرا

على عقوقهم

 تقول بإزدراء ونحن عند أقدامها نطلب السماح

إليكم، انظروا إلى المغتربين

  ما أغنى عنهم  نزوحهم ولا هم هانئون

 وانتم وإن عدتم بعد حين

لا مثوى لكم في حنايا الديار 

 .ولا مؤى لكم بين هذي الغصون

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.