I look at old pictures
Of me…of us…
And marvel at
The play of time and space
Tricking us into believing
That we’ve changed
For the better
That we are today
A truer version of ourselves
Didn’t we feel the same way
About our old pictures back then?
Memory is an echo
That travels from yesterday to today
It’s the sound of the dreams
We saw together
Change is discernable
Only because it plays out on
Something unchanging
I know we’ve changed
Because something about us hasn’t.
How strange that
Today, I no longer am
What I once was…
The freedom today
Belongs to the confinement
Of yesterday.
If I am not that
Then neither am I this.
When justice is what I want
Injustice makes me angry.
When truth is what I want
Lies make me angry.
When perfection is what I want
Imperfection makes me angry.
When agreement is what I want
Disagreement makes me angry.
When respect is what I want
Disrespect makes me angry.
When strength is what I want
Weakness makes me angry.
When ‘one way’ is what I want
‘Many possibilities’ make me angry.
When power is what I want
Disobedience makes me angry.
When morality is what I want
Immorality makes me angry.
A burning desire for one thing
Burns down everything that comes in its way.
It’s not imperfection, injustice or disrespect
That’s the cause of my anger.
It’s the desire of that thing
That stands outside of me…
Unreachable. Unattainable. Evasive.
That makes me angry.
I used to refer to it
As Your world, earlier
Now I know
That you can have
Nothing to do
With this sickness…
The world is my doing
A projection of my mind
Why, I wonder
Do innocents suffer?
And if their suffering
Is a projection of my mind
What am I suffering from?
The answers don’t come easy
The pain blocks it all…
I recall the wise words
Of a liberated soul:
“Suffering…,” he had said
“Is the poverty of consciousness.”
The world, I begin to see
Stands as a battered ball
Kicked around for pointless goals
In the space of our minds
We live our lives
To settle old scores
As if that be our reason to be.
Consciousness… pure consciousness
Dear Asifa, just like you…
Has been diminished and killed
You suffered for our sins
The world stands before us today
A cancerous, malignant tumour
Grown out of apathy, pride and greed
I didn’t notice, dear God
That You had left
A long time ago…
Our green pastures
Where little children
Bring their horses to graze
Apparently, you’ve left our temples too.
Disgust, I feel you
But find you difficult to understand
How strange
That you are the face
Hiding under the mask of pleasure
Why, I wonder
Is pleasure your grace;
And your disgrace?
What do you want me to see
Now that you and I
Stand face to face?
…That things are
Not what they seem
That their charm is fleeting
And that a lie
Needs ingenuity
To seem like the truth.
Things are what they are.
Their correct proportion
Is a sense cultivated
Through dispassion and distance
Knowing fully well
That pleasure is a gift
Of the imagination
And disgust-
An ironical reminder of that.
That memory…
Of when we met by chance
Was it true or imagined?
That sentence you began
But never finished…
Was it true or imagined?
That moment soaked in feeling
That spilled out of my eyes
Was it true or imagined?
The meanings I draw
From your short sentences and your prolonged gaze
Are they true or imagined?
What if I trusted
For once
These out-of-sync moments…
After all
We don’t always abide
Within strict definitions.
We feel
More than our words
Can convey
The rest
We let slip past the gaps
Like sand slips through our fingers
There are many paths
I haven’t walked…
The roads weren’t paved
I couldn’t tell
Where they would go
And would that place be true or imagined?
The well of wisdom
Lies deep below the surface
Of appearances
Which can only show
Our scars and our smiles.
We must come to see
That wounds run deep
And that resilience is a counterforce
That becomes a tree
Which grows upside down
Rooted in experiences
But flowering in deep reflection.
Happiness can never be
An attribute of the superficial
Its source is a fount
That bursts from a force within
A deeply intuitive one
That has learned to assert itself
In the face of misleading appearances.
When you breathe
Breathe deeply.
How do I look beyond
What I see at present?
Is that seeing a matter
Of imagination, or faith?
What must I presuppose?
What must I know?
The present will cease
To overwhelm you
If you understand that it is
Only an event
In the expanse of a larger destiny
That awaits you.
Don’t cling to it
Don’t linger on it
For too long…
If the moment is over
Leave it behind
Knowing fully well
That you are on your way forward
And that if time hasn’t stopped
You have to continue walking…
You have other promises to keep.
Remember
The only truth
The only thing for certain
Is your own existence
Even through changing seasons
And changing scenarios
Also, intermittently
through darkness and light.
Your laughter, your tears
May be prompted
By circumstances
You may whisper sweet nothings
To an apparent other
But while they come and go
You remain… with yourself, always.
In an ever-changing life story
What do promises mean?
How truthful
Can truth claim to be
When all is a lie?
Where does fact reside
In the architecture of our imagination?
It’s clear to me
That change is the law
But my heart’s desires
Seek permanence and ever-replenishing joy
I believe if only I could
Hold on dearly, with more heart
Nothing would betray me.
Yet broken promises and tears
Are not a curse
And a crowd and some company
May not be your blessing
With objectivity
Subjectivity regains its bliss
And all opposites collude
Lies, I’ve come to see
Is the creativity of truth
A disgruntled friend
Expands my notion of friendship
And an incommunicative lover
Is now enjoying my silence
He no longer feels the need for words.
Now I know
When all that appeared to be true
Becomes a lie
When all that had promised
To remain the same, changes
I must remember
That I am the truth
That needs to be restored.
Life is a mystery…
And that is the cliché
I use to describe
My confounding experience of it.
That’s the irony
Of life
That I depend on the dead
To help me understand the living…
What if I gave up this strife…?
Would my not-knowing
Be any less
Than it is now?
I’m beginning to see
How acceptance
Is moral and complete
And how it immediately harmonizes…
Perhaps there’s wisdom and beauty
In dwelling in the silence
And not soliciting the overused
To speak about it.
When things can be said
How much more eloquent
Would it be
To not say them.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 