Found

Someone found me
and as we spoke
the questions came tumbling out
they looked at them
and looked back at me
and told me they’re strong enough
to hold me
and all my heavy, exhausting questions
« m3aliche » they said,
« keep your questions
they don’t scare me
I respect them
and I respect you
and I’ll be your home
no matter if or when or where
you find your answers »

With no cage bars in sight

Not one fucking padlock to be seen

Am I just blind, or
did I take a wrong turn somewhere and
end up in heaven?

Rent

Well, I never really found a place that I call home

I never stick around quite long enough to make it

I apologize but once again I’m not in love

But it’s not as if I mind that your heart ain’t exactly breaking

I always thought I’d love to live by the sea

To travel the world alone and live more simply

I have no idea what’s happened to that dream

‘Cause there’s nothing really left here to stop me

But if my life is for rent

And I don’t learn to buy

Then I deserve nothing more than I get

‘Cause nothing I have is really mine

Sleepy

I never knew it was possible

to be emotionally sleepy.

I’m exhausted.

So fucking tired,

I just want to sleep.

Close my eyes

and never wake up.

I don’t know who I am

I don’t know what I want

I don’t know what I’m here for

I don’t know what I should do

I don’t know who I should be with

I’m just a soul floating in the void

Desperate for an anchor

Terrified of anchors

Wishing I could stop overthinking everything

Wishing I had more time to overthink everything

Wanting to be with everyone

Wanting to be with no one

Terrified of growing old

and regretting my choices

or my inertia

Full of ambitions

That I don’t want

Go tell me how that makes any sense at all

Is there someone out there who can understand all of this

hold me tight

make me want them more than anything

to the exclusion of all else?

Make me alive again,

aching to take a glorious bite out of the whole world?

Home

GOD I feel like

having a person as a home

could be

so

fucking

good.

You could share everything with them.

You could talk about anything.

You could plan things together.

They would never judge you.

They would never hurt you.

They would never tell you not to do this or that.

But simply advise you when they can.

Be there to support you.

Even if they’re not good at it

But they try..

What would that even feel like??

Maddening

Here we are again

Flirting with fire.

Soul so exhausted

The body starts screaming

To drown it out.

Body so persistent

The soul can commit suicide

To silence it.

Why must they be enemies

Always at war

Don’t they understand each other

yearning,aching,desperate,screaming want??

To want the unknowable

The unhaveable

Nothing feels real anymore.

The whole world is a mirage.

How can anything I do possibly matter, in any possible way?

It’s difficult to move a single step.

And yet simultaneously

It’s difficult not to flee the world over

And run from all the grasping arms

Holding you back

Holding you down

Forcing a monotonous

life

of propriety

down your throat

I want to swim naked in the ocean

I want to get drunk on a thousand wines

I want a total stranger to make love to me

I want to take psychedelics and lose my mind

I want to tattoo ancient symbols on my forehead and chin

Just to be a thousand percent sure

That I don’t want these things

That the answers aren’t lying somewhere behind

A veil of forbidden pleasure and pain

That’s how maddening these questions are

Absurd

Have I exhausted all writing about the questions?

It’s interesting to think I might.

Day follows day follows absurd day

The questions never leave

I eat, I sleep, I sit in silence

The container needs sunlight and fresh air and strenuous, purposeful work

My heart should be pounding, my lungs gasping for air

Yet I continue to let heart weaken, muscles wither, flesh bloat

Wrapped up as I am in the incorporeal

The only answer I’ve found for anything is Rumi’s love

It doesn’t fit all the questions, or any of them perhaps

But stretch anything enough and it will either grow to fit, or burst

So I go on stretching, extending it with every neuron

Discarding image after image of the Uncreated

In the hopes of capturing the Imageless

Are beauty and light useful measures of the Unknowable?

They say ‘God is light’

Yet we haven’t figured light out yet

Is it a wave? A particle? Something else?

Perhaps the light all around us is, in fact, the Divine Itself

In some unfathomable way

Anything is possible

How ironic that there is no light inside of our bodies

Unless we are torn apart

I can sense a Presence

But I’m still far too tied up and tied down to reach out

and touch Them

merge with Them

and what a path it is

littered with souls yet so lonely

screaming with noise yet so quiet

paradoxes have become my daily bread

Glib

Life is naught
But standing round
The gaping maw of death

Watching it beckon us
One by one
Single file

And each time a loved one’s
Time draws near
We peer into the blackness
Of that maw

Telling each other stories of
The unknown that lies beyond
its merciless throat

Glibly saying « see you on the other side »
in the desperate hope
of softening the ripping-apart

Oh how I wish someone
Could make the journey there and back again
And calm our anxious souls with tales of certainty

Gone

Do you know why people gravitate to fundamentalism?

To dogmatism and orthodoxy, with a small ‘o’?

Because it answers all the questions,

and in turn takes all the pain away.

« God has a reason »

is far more palatable, even beautiful at times

than « God has forgotten us »

or « we are utterly alone in the universe ».

« All things work together for good » in the end

is far more relieving than

« there is no light at the end of the tunnel »

« all of this is meaningless and will never be made right »

It lets you breathe, in,

and out,

in,

and out,

instead of being suffocated by the futility of it all.

I’m hollow and aching, I fill my mind and days with tiny, miniscule things

but the black hole is always hiding just behind them

waiting for me to trip up.

God, if you’re listening, I don’t know what to say to you anymore

I’m no good at one-sided discussions.

I miss how the idea of you used to comfort me,

wiped away every tear and soothed every pain,

and I don’t know how to return to that

now that my brain seems to have made everything up.

« What the hell kind of universe is this, »

« there had better be a damn good explanation for all of this »

that’s what I want to say

but my upbringing keeps me silent, fearfully respectful,

just in case.

But presumably you know that,

so I’ll be sitting here, waiting for the answers.

Take your time.

If it doesn’t come on this side of life,

then so be it.

You know I tried.

In the meantime,

I’m going to love the hell out of everyone

savor the forest air,

cook good food

give what I can

cuddle with animals

feed the birds

and hug the hell out of my family

and I swear to you if you take them from me

I won’t recover

My soul will be destroyed

So take us all at once

That’s the only thing I have left to ask

want

okay, here’s the deal
raw material has to have an origin
the origin has to have an origin
and that one has to have an origin
til you get to the unoriginated

the unoriginated either cares
or doesn’t

I want one that does
I want one that makes everything okay in the end
everything
every. thing.

and even if I’m not allowed answers here and now
I want there to be answers after death

so I will believe they do, they will, and there will be

I will believe the unoriginated is aware of me and listening when I speak

I will believe the unoriginated is love and beauty and light

that is all.

light

the innate human need for ritual and reflection

a need since the dawn of time

ritual, meditation, chanting

have psychomedical benefit

And by remembering God the heart is polished

and starts to reflect the divine light

 

how did I let my heart get so dull and ugly

how far have I strayed from the light

what mystic beauty lies around the corner

behind the veil

choosing

silence overwhelms me again

yet another earthquake of the soul

fascinating to wonder whether these will continue

fifty years hence

I am slowly choosing

choosing to believe God is beauty

God is compassion

God is endless love

and all these horrors

this endless stream of violence, gore, disease, famine, death

has an explanation

that all will be made right in the end

there will be retribution, redemption, rahmah

that perhaps time and purpose, good and evil

are not as we imagine, not comprehensible

I say I choose to believe this

but it’s really beyond choice

to assume otherwise is misery, depression

I never liked the idea that my brain isn’t enough

my mind can’t grasp, logic does not suffice

there is no simple train of reason

no ‘if A=B and B=C’ simplicity

but there is no other way forward

and forward I must go

my soul is from elsewhere

of that I’m sure

and I intend to end up there

coexist

the human brain baffles and frustrates me
the human soul even more so
the things some humans believe
with utter conviction and peace of mind
that seem so utterly insane to others
the fact that what I believe
seems so utterly nonsensical to them
it’s a wonder we coexist at all
it gets in the way of so much intimacy
and how odd to walk around in a world
completely at odds with all that is in your head
some souls crave sameness, fitting in
others crave difference, standing out
and somehow I want both and neither
I’ve long come to terms with the dichotomy
that I will never be fully part of one family or another
never be lost in a crowd in any country
Dzair was the closest I’ve come
yet I could not, cannot stay there
so I’ll live on inside my own head,
dancing every day with the questions
standing motionless, silent, before others
and avoiding human contact long after this plague is over

forgot

did it ever occur to you that perhaps
quite certainly in fact
salaat is not for Him but for you?
that maybe you need a slap in the face
five times a day and more
to bring you back to reality beyond reality
not just a quick thought
but a pick-you-up-splash-water-in-your-face-
-get-every-muscle-moving-and-repeat-four-times-
kind of slap in the face?
a reminder of the reality that’s more important than work
more important than family, than fun, than eating, sleeping, breathing
of course it occurred to you, you just forgot
so what will you do about it?

how

tsunamis

receded

now rivers here, slow trickles there

still castaway on a raft

will the water metaphors never run out

I don’t know where I am

or where I’m going

but my soul is from elsewhere

of that I’m still fairly sure

and I still intend to end up there

though I have no idea how

I may not have oars

but I can keep myself alive til I find some

and god, how the sunlight is beautiful some days

love

They say nothing new can be written about love
It’s all been said before
Well here’s all I have to add
Love is when
Someone else’s pain
Makes you wish you had never been breathed into existence
Because it hurts so bad
When you push your own lover away
Because the thought that another is alone
Makes you spurn intimacy with fiery disgust
Because you cannot possibly enjoy what another cannot have
When you wish that all the joys and comforts of the world
Could be forbidden to you forever
As long as in exchange,
Their pain and solitude would disappear into utter oblivion

hurricanes

We’re all born on a raft
Or our parents give us one anyways
And send us out on the great, wide ocean
Telling us a better land lies on the other side
So off we go, into the great unknown
Off I went, letting the wind carry me
With great plans for the journey
When suddenly the raft began to leak
And when a bigger, better one came floating by
I dove off the edge
Swimming frantically through the dark waters
And caught hold of the other
Hoisted myself aboard
This one had paddles
And I began making headway
Everyone I knew floated around me
On their own leaky rafts
Bailing water more efficiently than I ever had
Not realizing that they’d spend so many years
Bailing out the leaks
That they’d never make it to the promised land at that rate
I hoped they’d see the obvious superiority of oars
And jump aboard with me
But that was silly
And after ten years of self-assured rowing
I’ve suddenly fallen overboard
And the waves are suffocating me
I can barely keep my face above water to breathe
I keep telling myself it will be all right
But when the storms come up
High winds stirring up huge waves
That crash all over me
I’m sure I will drown
I keep trying to make it back to the raft
But the waves of questions keep dragging me back
And the rip current seems to grow stronger, not weaker
And with every passing day, week, month
I realize that even if I learn to swim
My only hope is for some motorboat to come along
Or I’ll never reach the other side
Some say there is no other side, no promised land
Some say when you reach it, you find yourself right back where you started
Some say everyone reaches it
Not everyone can be right
And I need to know who is
Before it’s too late

I’ve made a pact with God
Whoever and wherever He may be
Well, I talk to Him anyways
He knows all about the hurricanes
He sees me crying late at night
Begging Him for a boat
He knows I’m treading water as hard as I can
The rest is up to Him

survie

Je vais peut-être apprendre à vivre déchirée
Je peux voir une lumière qui traverse l’océan qui me noie
Elle coupe les eaux et m’atteint dans les profondeurs
Je me bat pour rejoindre la surface
C’est épuisant, certes
mais je ne m’abandonnerais pas aux tréfonds
L’amour me fera remonter
l’amour de la vie, du mystère, de l’inconnu
du dieu, de l’âme, de la beauté
Je vais survivre, et en survivant, m’épanouir
Un pas à la fois, une journée à la fois,
Attends, chérie, voir ou ces flots de la vie te prendront

gouffres

J’habite un autre monde, un autre univers peut-être
Qui existe dans mon esprit
Si réel, que la réalité cesse d’exister pendant des heures
Et quand le besoin m’arrache,
Me ramène au monde physique
J’ai une misère extrême à m’y remettre
De diviser sa fidélité entre l’esprit et le corps
N’est pas une chose facile
C’est un déchirement quotidien
Et je ne sais à quoi ça aboutira
Mais je ressens au tout fond de moi
Que ces questions n’auront jamais de repos
Tant que je n’y cherche pas les réponses
Partout
Même dans des gouffres qui contiennent
Tous les secrets et mystères du monde
Si dangereux qu’ils soient.

énigme

Tu fut Gibran et moi Haskell
Voici un tournant inattendu
J’ai jamais imaginé que ce jour viendrait
Cette opportunité de faire face à l’ensorceleur
Non – c’est faux – j’ai souvent imaginé ce jour
Mais je crois pas que j’ai cru qu’il viendrait
Oui – je parle en énigmes
Mais tu me laisses aucun choix
Tous croient qu’il y aura solitude au nord, péril au sud
C’est plutôt péril au nord, solitude au sud
Un autre énigme
Mazal ma3ala balakch la force de la bataille
Qui s’est menée en moi, qui se mène encore
Mais tu vas le savoir, car je vais te le dire
Oui, car je connais déjà l’aboutissement de cette bataille
Au moins dans mon âme
Car mon âme a déjà vu plusieurs de ces batailles
Et je connais mes faiblesses
Dont tu es une des plus grandes
Si je suis ta meilleure amie
Alors cette bataille est mon meilleur ennemi
Tu sais ce que c’est d’être ensorcelé ?
De ne pas savoir si le sorcier te fera bien ou mal
Mais d’être aspirée vers lui par le destin
…
Je me laisserais aller cette fois-ci, aspirée
Si seulement pour voir ce sorcier en face
Pas par trahison, non,
Mais pour mener la bataille en personne
Et voir s’il n’y a pas une faille dans mon armure
Et si Gibran et Haskell survivront

highway

I
une grande autoroute qui vire doucement
une forêt verte de chaque côté
qui se dirige vers les montagnes

II
arrivée dans les montagnes
à un arrêt de train
je t’ai retrouvé
en fuyant le passé
j’ai monté dans le train avec toi
et je n’ai jamais regardé en arrière

III
une maison de famille, une hutte en pierre
sur les rives d’un ruisseau
dans ces mêmes montagnes
elle t’appartenait
et on allait y habiter

ces trois rêves
entremêlés
Je ne me souviens pas lequel m’est venu en premier, ou quand
Je ne me souviens même plus de qui tu es
Je ne me souviens pas des mots qu’on a échangé dans ces rêves
Je vois juste des paysages et des visages aux couleurs vives
mais les sentiments qu’ils ont suscités ont changé tout
et bien que je ne vois plus la vie en rose
je souhaite toujours un multivers
où je pourrais prendre tous ces chemins
et voir où chacun aboutit

J’ai assez d’amour pour des milliers d’années
mais ce n’est plus à moi de donner
et n’est-ce pas la fin de l’affaire ?