Once upon a time…

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With heavy luggage
of dreams and desires
I landed.
And here I am now
drained and stranded.
But Life, I owe you at least
A rueful smile
Before I depart empty-handed
to my native isle.
For being a Peter Pan of no plans
And a masquerading
mockingbird assuming nonchalance
For shrouding promises
With cruel lies
And burying alive my heart’s
thousand deafening cries.
But even if
my self-esteem is uprooted
And soul ruined
Even if I am ostracized,
And obliterated
I will never be a firewood
in the pyre of depression again.
Life, I am a sweet bush of oleander
In the far corner of your garden,
Growing old unnoticed
and mostly regarded useless;
But still,
I have my own beauty
At least my mind is not dirty
Once upon a time in history,
Before you incapacitated me
With one roll of dice,
I was busy too chasing dreams
Like the ambitious Alexander.

Eternally

Like the wind that comes and leaves without saying a word,
I passed the corridor of life.

I will not judge my life

I witnessed a lot, experienced without measure, and understood profoundly
that nothing really matters in life.

There is absolutely nothing to profit, nothing to lose.

I will not win or lose because
I am only a pawn in someone’s game.

Every moment of existence is blissfully beautiful!
Moments that gain meaning with tears and laughter for which I am grateful.
I want to pour down as a torrential rain of gratitude.
Drop by drop I want to record my thanks
to you God.

Before my eyes surrender to sleep
Hoping to see a better world tomorrow
I pray like a candle burning with the fire of love and gratitude.

Like a mural someone painted
On the walls of time,
I will remain eternally in the heart of the universe.
I will rest as the meditative silence
within the strings of its harp.
As an ache that makes love possible,
I will live within the beauty of creation.
Like the fish that escapes the beak of a crane,
I will disappear into the depths of everlasting sleep.

And I will sleep there peacefully like a shell on the seabed of non-existence.
I will sleep
Like a pearl in the heart of an oyster.
I will sleep
Like an infant in the hands of angels.
I will sleep
Like the sweet nectar within a rose.

Dear Master…

I know you’re not perfect master,
Maybe I was seeking perfection in you in the past. But not anymore.
I am not seeking perfection in you.
Now I can see your mysterious scars and bleeding heart.
I know you’re not the final destination.
You are not the end of my seeking.
You are but a garden where I can rest for a while.
A spring from where I am free to drink.
A home that calls me when I am lost.
A book that interprets the scriptures I have read.

I can see a forgotten soul in the charade of your blissfulness.
I can see works began and left incomplete.
And a road closed to change your direction of travel to the summit of impossibilities.
You are a master because you have clearly defined your boundaries and yet you are flexible…never obstinate.
You have made a beautiful fence full of hueful flowers and a gate easy to open.
You are not a highway,
But a serene valley beside the river
Where I visit often as a pilgrim
And fill the cup of my heart
with the honey within yours.
A mountain of compassion,
An ocean of love,
A gently passing spring of peace.
You have shown me your flaws and flawlessness,
limits and limitlessness
Your humanness and your divinity.
You have no special place
But whenever you spoke,
your soul rooted in a special place,
An exquisite place that illuminated your face.

Not all get gems from you.
People are different and they find in you what they deserve.
Your mirror shows them who they are
You never force anything, you just remind: “go safely”

The whole purpose of your life was to become nothing.
And you became nothing.
Being whole in your love, kindness, friendship, and tutelage,
Being whole in happiness, misery, despair, awareness, and enlightenment.
You showed me how to be nothing
And still be everything. How to be imperfect and still be perfect.
I was seeking the heaven in you.
But you turned the hell in me into heaven.

You’re not crying…

You’re not fragile,
I know.
You’re not crying
Because you are done
And there is nothing
left in you to fight.
You’re not crying because
you want to abandon
yourself in a meek surrender.
You don’t want to run away.
I know,
You just want to stand tall
Like a rock in the tsunami.

Your understanding
is profound.
You are bathing naked
in your
burning agonies.
I know.
You’re not crying.

Your truthful eyes hold the pride.
tears of fire these are
Symbol of incredible strength you are.
Your cry is not like the ordinary person’s
It has a deeper meaning.
Now you are beyond weakness and strength,
I know,
You are not crying.

I turn my gaze to the ground
I look at your frayed feet
I didn’t want to see your face
For now I am talking
to your broken heart:

You are a beam of light dear
escaping
the hands of eternity.
You are my heart’s serenity.

You are a fathomless ocean of love
You are a garden of hope.
A home of dreams
and a bloom of joy.

Listen to the chirping birds
Their song is about you.
Look at my awkward steps
My dance is for you.

You are a mighty pillar
You have no right to fall.

You are not crying
I know
You are not crying.

Loving

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Loving is an act of disappearance.
A suicide infinitely slow.
Cloistered by foolishness,
Fenced by ignorance,
Loving is being five thousand pieces of bread for the starving,
Flowing in the direction of tranquility,
Showering on human deserts
and making them lush green meadows.
Loving is listening to the unconsoled,
Being a song in the strangling silence of depression.
Loving is seeing the beauty of failure,
Seeing perfection in the imperfect.
Loving is inclusiveness without judgment,
Being grateful for what you have,
And battling for what you are denied.
Loving is being the voice of the voiceless.
Loving is giving what you love,
without measuring,
when you don’t have enough of it.
Loving is a game you win by emptying.
Loving is to live and die for a great cause.
Loving is the happiness you experience when someone is happy and satisfied
because of you or of something you did.

Paradise

I plant words in my garden.
Words that I find abandoned and disowned inspite of their worth.
I give them water and I give them care.
And I nurture them until a grove of forgotten words is restored
And a lost paradise is found.
Imagine a jungle full of words of joy, solace, and peace.
Where the sun plays melodies on its harp’s golden strings.
And the wind, wakes up from its mid-day nap, to blow away sad memories.
Where words grow into climbing couplets and shady sonnets.

I spend my days climbing, hunting, and relaxing underneath the foliage of life.
I drink from the pristine streams of wisdom.
And at times, I jump from the cliffs to the worlds beyond words.

Seasons come and go
Sweet scent of fruits invites birds of diverse plumage.
I’ll hear and enjoy them sing and celebrate.
With a consoling grip, a grape vine twines round my hand.
Like an exquisite haiku,
A lotus blooms in the pond nearby.

The DIY Project

When you find yourself broken
Do not cry, nor despair.
Nor wait for an angel to appear.
Gently, take each of your broken pieces and fix them back to their proper places.
Do not attempt to hide the cracks.
Poised, you should wear your precious scars
as if they were ornaments of gold.
Turn the wounds into a thing of beauty.
Remain imperfect and remain real.
Come out as a piece of art from the garbage.
Engage yourself in this art of Kintsugi.
A different way of seeing is possible.
From a perspective that makes
Everything exquisite and flawless.
Do not change the world.
All there is to ever change in this world is
YOURSELF.
So, be that CHANGE.

Freedom at Midnight

In the night,
The street looked sultry,
Mysterious, and highly inflammable.
For him, the freedom
he enjoyed
during the night,
Had the taste of a rare wine.
His dreams often spilled
from the chalice of sobriety,
His thoughts in slow-motion
moved like snails.
He could escape from reality and obliviously revel in his addictive night-life.
He could exude his madness with such artistry.

But, she longed for her love
on the bed of hope
like a flower that longed
for the night to bloom.
What else could she be,
She was but an eagle
that grew up with the chickens.
Naturally, the word ‘sky’
was gibberish to her.
And the word ‘flight’ a myth.
Because she was entangled in the realities of the day
as much as he was in the surrealities of the night.

Hopeless, she threw away her bangles and jewelries
And wept like an abandoned child.
Slowly, she fell asleep as her whimper died.
While in sleep, she dreamt herself riding a
luminous horse towards the horizon.
She moved briskly and fiercely that she looked
Like a lightning flash
Which often startles the nightsky.

Wandering

I wonder why I came here.
This world always makes me feel like an alien.
What missing piece of the puzzle am I searching for?
Am I seeking love to get pain in return?
Am I the cursed prince in the fairytales,
Waiting for that magical kiss?
Like Narcissus, I am looking at my own face,
Making the river my mirror.
It is blissful to see someone like me outside me.
With the same face, same body, and same ache in the heart.
When I look,
I get lost in the thickets of darkness in the endless tunnels of my eyes.
I’m afraid, I’ll be blind by the time I reach the secret garden of my soul.
Or is there such a garden waiting to welcome me?
It seems I am seeking reality from a world of illusions.
Maybe I should stop this endless journey.
Maybe I am taking everything serious in this drama of absurdity.
Beyond the walls of this self-deceiving wonderland,
I can see my innocent kite from childhood
In a painfully blue sky,
Wandering; homeless.

Reincarnation

Let your beauty never prostrate
Before your fear and blindness.
Let the brilliance of your wisdom
Never diminish from the horizon of existence.

Let nothing mute your singing nor cage your freedom.
Let the voice of your spirit never be strangled to death.

Whittle your beauty, little by little,
On the marble of time; before you settle.
Carve your dreams and paint your passions and dance your madnesses out on the stage of life.
Leave the battlefield within you and discover the shrine of peace therein.
Let the dam of silence and suppression break into a furiously unstoppable, yet soulful song.
Let the frozen stillness melt into a beautiful glacial stream.

Let your love songs be decanted into the glasses of your silence,
Let all the world drink from them and be intoxicated, lost, and reborn.

Let your garments be removed,
And the secrets be revealed.
No more masquerading.
No more self-deceit.
Let the Truth whirl in your heart in ecstasy.
Let heavenly light alight on your crown.
Let your face welcome back the smile in exile.

It’s time to be brave enough to build a shack on the ruins of your life.
Do not wait for a savior other than you.
And do not wait for tomorrow’s leisure.
Today be your day of breakout.
Today be your day of salvation!