The Architect.

She is an architect

Building houses of people

And people of homes

And thinking they would

Love her

Thinking that because her hands once touched the bricks of their being

And because her hands once got muddled in the cement she poured herself

They would think her significant

She wasn’t asking to be magnificent

Just asking to be acknowledged

And it’s funny

She laughed to herslf one night as she stopped to pick up the weeds that grew round the homes out of people she built

It’s funny

When

You open

Up your ribs for the world to see

You
Risk the pokes of crowds at your heart for that one delicate embrace

And find that no one even cares to poke your heart in the first place

The home has grown big enough to take care of itself

Has adopted a family to inhabit its walls and furnish it with pretty little things

And the girl realizes

There is nothing for her here but the mailbox

But the letters keep coming back to her unopened

And it seems nothing is there for her but the clocks

Nothing cares for her but the clocks

But even time only cares in that heart-poking sort-of-way she never even got before

Time only cares for her in the way that she bore herself to the world and only felt lonelieness

And this girl

This girl never built homes again

Utter These Words,

Utter these words to the soldier who stands,
arms and head against living tree,
letting out the humanity he could no longer stifle in the form of tears and sobs heavy enough to leave his shoulders heaving and his hands
-the same hands that cradled the AK-47 he held onto like life-
 trembling.
But life had long escaped him.

Utter these words to the child rocking back and forth -what we know as tornado-drill position:
 knees against chest, head between knees,
hair drenched in sweat and eyes puffy with despair
and that sick emptiness that comes with losing what you thought was everything sticking against his entire being like the air was sewn into Velcro…
calling out “Ummi, ummi.”

Utter these words to the daughter
who once dreamt of white taffeta and lace dresses, velvet wedding flowers, and the lights that would sparkle as she danced the night away
And who once prayed to love and be loved with the one man she believed was written for her every time she bowed down to her Lord.
…who now sits on her blanket as the rest of her family sleeps, violently wiping away the tears that brought back memories of men- no, animalistic monsters- who would not even regard her as human.
The memories that would not even allow her to revel in the hope and significance of her dignity.
No longer trusting any man, walking around, her heart crippled in a cage of confusion asking everyday why it still beat for her?

Utter these words to the revolutionary, armed to defend what time had oppressed, yet bending down
-even in the wake of death and torture worse than death itself-
bending to embrace the cat that continues to walk around; blameless- managing to still carry the capacity for tenderness, mercy and love.
And then again, bending, kneeling, bowing, falling, that same hour to pray to The Only One there for him.
Still holding on -with all that he does not have to lose- to the faith and freedom he fights for.

Utter these words to the mother who gently rocks her baby from his white sheets,
beckoning him to wake and greet her with that unworldly and purely newborn smile,
Her own smile of denial shining through the tears that would not stop loitering on her fighting face-
Madness.
Not willing to accept the fact that the baby would not wake,
for its sleep was now infinite.

Utter these words to them and ask
if they mean anything.

Dear Silence,

Oh silence,

Shout your worries for an instance

Allow me to hear the melody of your voice

Give me a taste of truth’s song.

My ears have only heard strangeness:

[The tick-tocking of man-made clocks, iron wired boxes… the slowly shriveling lie of Never-Ending we stuff into our mouths so that we may never be hungry]

...And my ears long for your reality

Tell me of your consciousness

Whisper into the beating heart between my ribs the lullabies I've held in confinement for eternity

I no longer want to feel as though I am a silhouette of moving lips and no sound sinking into shadow

Oh air; air that hovers around me,

Tell me, can I feel the waves of my words travel through you? Can I feel their echoes dance around the charges of my fingers? Can I prove the presence of my thoughts to the mortals like me?

Oh earth that I tread, does your sand blow as I walk in response to my pleas?

Oh sky, does the moon truly follow the wanderings of my soul? And does the sun really shine to greet my waking?

Dear Silence, your presence has been an obstruction. Show me your sincerity and allow your screams to travel past my lips and penetrate the existences of every other Silence that lives within us.

The beating heart will wither and the imprint of your lips on it will soon fade into nothingness as well. So, rather, I plead… do not merely mark your fingers with the crimson of blood.

…Oh silence, touch souls.

A solace amidst the madness of massacre.

This is for the mothers

Who have had to witness their screaming, bleeding babies ripped out of their very hands

This is for the fathers

Who have had to live through the pain of trying to protect a family from something they cannot control

This is for the husbands

Who have been made to put up with the torture of seeing their own wives brutally raped

This is for the wives

Who have been beaten,

used as virtual war toys

This is for the children

Who have to put up with the psychological want for power, our corruption.

Who have to be the victim of every atrocity they were never involved in

This is for the children who still manage to smile through the rubble

Clearing the dust that may have blocked the sun and just letting the hope

filter in

For the children who’ve been forced into adulthood before adolescence

This is for the youth

Who have left everything

To fight, to put up with the torture, the death, the depression,

Who have willingly set themselves up to be killed- or worse: “taken in” - just so that they may proclaim

“7urriyya.”

This is for the bystanders

Those who know of the massacres but can find absolutely nothing to do but pray

And prayer is our greatest weapon

This is for humanity

That little beating voice that insists, “Do not hush my freedom”

That massive jolt of inspiration

Through blood, sweat, and tears

Towards justice.

This is hope talking

Hope is speaking to you.

Hope has not yet abandoned you.

Justice will be served

I swear by God, The Avenger, that justice will be served

And that the good in people will remain in the people

And for the people

No matter what the sadistic ones have tried

Humanity cannot be cleansed out of us

It will linger

It might falter.

But it is there

And through the deafening bombs

Through the supposed “war” tactics

Through the newborn babies crying from the pain induced by shrapnel

God’s Name is etched in every plan

There will be a day when we all step forth

And every innocent will be rewarded their sum

And every oppressor will be cast away to rot in the depths of hell for what he thought would go unnoticed

Hold onto that

And remember,

remember 

not to let the bitterness of this world drag you down into the depths of numbness

rather let it motivate you.

Know that it is when you take everything away from the people that they become most powerful

When they have nothing to lose but their dignity and freedom

they will fight 

We have the power of Allahu Akbar.

God is our witness

And by God, there is nothing we need more than that

Freedom is imminent.

 Yes, God willing.

It's all sinking in.

         .....Freedom       is inevitable.

Your joy is etched in the sky.

Seeing your smile lift the indentations of your cheeks
is like the seeing the sun, rise from its hidden tavern and lift the stars
Back into their labyrinth of infinity.

A Muse on Love & Humanity:

    There is a quote I read a year ago that I still carry till this day, "There isn't anyone you couldn't love once you've heard their story." It shouldn't take us more than the mere fact that one is human to love someone. That we are like them. Persuasion becomes irrelevant in the realm of similarity. One of the oldest Arabic poems states, "All strangers are kin."

    We are all lost and wandering travelers in this world. No one is truly established here. And travelers… they survive in groups. We are all broken. We all have little porcelain cracks lining the parts of us only we can see. We are all fragile little skeletons awaiting just the slightest jolt to push us back down, crumpled on the ground. We all want acceptance, truth. We all want to feel like we belong. And it's true, I tell you. “Love” for us humans, is not a craving. It's a survival instinct. We need something to hold onto. Something to submit to. Something beautiful for us to feel infinite and everlasting. Something not tangible, but dreamy that we can fly with; settle on pink dipped clouds of ivory with.
    Bodies, materialism, are not enough for us. We want to go deeper. We want to scoop into every soul. Touch those little parts of people they have never even felt; those little crevices and black holes and abysses upon abysses that exist between our delicate ribs. We want to change people in a way that will leave a lasting imprint. We are criminals; trying with all our being to leave a stolen fingerprint on the hearts of all those we love. And we may not feel it... this love of strangers. But it's there.
    We all have a soul. Forget the mouth, eyes, ears, legs, and arms anecdote... we ALL exist with an inane wanderlust, trying, pushing, digging to find that perfect paradise... Some of us think we've found it here, in this mortal world, and give up all that the paradise in the next holds. Some of us, though, still believe in a beauty greater than the human eye can behold. Some of us still remain patient with all that this paradoxical world may throw at us and just hold on until we can reach the paradise we still believe in. In the afterlife. In the life where love is without bounds of material, mortal, mortar. Where happiness is without the bounds of reality... and life is just a never-ending dream of smile after unbridled smile after smile.

My Lucifer

Slow and steady

You shake your head over and over again

Doubts swirling

Stomach churning

Low-growl yearning

500 degree internal burning

A fast-paced nirvana turning …

These thoughts fill your head and slowly consume you to dust

Where you drift, drift, drift.

Blow away….

And you yell at them to stop!

You scream, cry, shout.

Like a mad man,

grabbing at every ounce of possible sanity.

“Where is your life going?”

It whispers

Like a snake zigzagging through the twists and turns of your mind

It makes you want to gag

This drag

Of ‘if’, and ‘what’, and ‘why’.

This glass eye of your conscience

It’s not you..

..Not you.

Not-

Not me

Can’t be

Please make it stop!

And the thoughts they keep consuming you, you’re the Sahara now, millions of particles of scattered memories, lost hopes, regretful realities… drifing, drifing, drifting….

A marvel for those who don’t understand.

Until you can only scream: “STOP! Stop this madness, I order you- you spineless, false, false, fal-“

You can’t find the words for the thing inside you, suddenly recognizing the voice, the slow and steady breathing; the words of your little Lucifer.

Suddenly, realizing who it is.

Silence.

A breath. A whisper.

Drifting, drifting, drifting…. Gone.