The name of it left buzzing malls empty,
sanitizers out of stock,
masks and hygiene products booming.

It revolutionized responses to sneezes
from bless you to get away from me.
It shut down schools and flights
bringing governments to its knees.

It snatched sleep from health workers,
that now risk their lives every day to be
the hustle towards the cure of it.

It declined stock markets,
dissipated jobs like
they were a mere nothing.

It ticked off the many goals of our buckets list
by travelling across the world,
and leaving the world impacted.

It disconnected touch,
grafted face masks onto people.
But wait, France is this a veil you’ll ban as well?

It revolutionized greetings,
made many of us home bounded –
is this the final push to making every inch of our lives digitalised?

As for the kids,
the final teachings of their doctors,
teachers and parents is put to work;
they’re finally washing their hands.

Did your body not warn you
before you were wrung dry?

The day you found yourself depleted,
the nights that lead upto it became fragile,
your cell heavy as they were heaved onto the bed.

Did you not listen to your body,
when you woke up with a heavy chest
and your body begged you to sleep?

Did you not acknowledge your heart
when it had become
a black hole the night before
as it ****** you out in.
Your bones like gravestones
prominent among the barren skin.

Did the suffocating dark matter
not ring louder
as you gasped for air with burnt lungs.

When you stood there overworked,
with signals mixed and sensitive
rewired and tangled
did the response fit their norm of you?

Did your voice not thud,
with the lump in your throat?
Did your heart not pound
against your ribcage,
your stomach not curdle
with that war in your chest,
as your mind raced
and your chest pressured as you tried
to clutch that breath?

Did your hormones
not muddle with your thoughts?
Did they not drown them in depths
and set them on fire all at once?
Did it not ache your muscles
before it all turned red?

Did your body not scream
when they came near?
Your feet cemented,
as your body froze?
Did your gut not twist
till you felt nauseous?

Did your toes not curl
when the feeling sunk
through your spine,
sat in your bones
like an unwanted guest,
and you like an unwilling host?

Did you not feel the chill
shiver down your spine
as terror spread across your face
and painted it white
before the quake came?

Did you not acknowledge
your body is the vessel
that you kept giving and pushing
depleting it of the right to rest
rather than opening
it to the abundance of love
it was surrounded by.

Your body became over extended,
your mind became forgetful
a body that is now a red flag;
travesty.

Your thoughts are far from the ground,
Like cumulonimbus clouds thundering by
And pouring rain. 


Life seems to pass by, scattered and wispy 

with the sound of the wind like a whistling train playing
as you stare at the elusive silver lining.

The pit patter of Peter Pan being lost
dwells heavy in your heart,
As you revise the sequence of the cumulus memories.

Life paces
As you ignore the malice and bantering of the crowds
Sticking your head above up into the clouds
half-deaf to reality in the room.

You have a foot in a fairy tale,
And one in the abyss.

A nation that seeks to craft
what the forefathers draft;
a declaration of independence,
a nation of acceptance and coexistence.

A nation that weaves laws
for the ones of different colors,
wears,
and of worship —
building a homage for them all.

A nation with the vision of a blend of culture,
welcoming them into progressing lands  that play the tune of harmony
as blankets them in safety.

A tolerant nation
of multicultural lands,
and foreign tongues.
Building Seven Pillars
that stand tall and high
to inspire and ingrain
tolerance in every
crannies and nooks of the nation.

This is UAE.

As you read stanza per stanza,
words interwine with your emotions.

They embrace them in their inked grooves,
like your depths, tangles and cobwebs
has found words to finally be tuck into
and call home.

The waves of emotion lap
against your jagged shores.
Their 27 alphabets playing the cords
and heartstrings of your heart
as though the cadence was at the same
wavelength.

Threads of connection form
to another soul that you did not know of.
Their books become your home,
etching parts of your soul,
mind and heart as though it is a
torn page of the book that has returned.

The whispers of tomorrow
tainted the marble walls as
the ones in the room painted
different shades and visuals
of their tomorrow.

The one with their hand jittery,
spine made of anxiety
stutter with their fear coated tongue,
the bouncing and rebounding words of
the chaos and panic of the heart;
the thought of uncertainty that
tomorrow dawns upon them.

As the word tomorrow is passed
on like a parcel amongst the ones sitting
the one with their pupils radiant
paints yellow and white
the hope a new day brings upon,
whereas the ambitious shouts
that she is a day closer to her goals
as she stands armored with passion and dreams.

The students have tomorrow
tattooed on their tongue,
a word that never comes
but morphs itself into the word procrastination.

But when it comes to me,
the moon dissolves into the sun
and the sun dissolves into the moon
as my yesterday, today and tomorrow become the same;
the shades of my life are painted all the same.

I come from a place of empathy
where perceptions
is a mix of colors
of hers, his and their
perspective.

I come from a place of empathy
where ears are made of patience,
drums sensitive to the change in wavelength,
de-weaving complexity
into simplicity.

I come from a place of empathy
where the emotions lacerating
hearts – sliced,
run parallel through me.

You lock into my embrace,
finding the comfort of compassion
amongst the rusty and scraping conditions.
  
When you project anger, fear, and angst
I start dissecting your past,
your rearing,
justifying and understanding
the origins of the
hand and experiences
that shaped you.

You render your mind open,
as I step in
walk among the stars, darkness
and the turbulent waves crashing within.

Your emotions tingle my skin,
and linger within me
as I understand wor(l)d apart,
developing cross-cultural understanding
and objectifying subjectivity.

Though I begin to understand
the origins, stem of your being,
swaying with your words
and hazing in the paradox of other’s being.
I choose to succumb to gravity,
and remain sturdy on certain beliefs.

Your name wrung
between the lines of
fresher tender cuts.
Brushing a slower finger
over dusty pages,
disturbing untold stories
that was long untouched.

Your name is
the tap-tap of hammer nails
and the crimson consummator.

The barricading name,
of the mesmeric temple of apologies
molded by unequivocal agony and anger
lying in the bleak moor
laced with your remnants.

My mind is left shambled on the floor,
shards of memories
now leaking as exudate
am I being inflamed?

If I were to paint this across the canvas,
it’d be red, blue then purple
a galaxy with mismatched constellations
on a rippled fabric of night skies.

If I were to ink you to paper,
tracing you in black
you’d diffuse, cry and leak
into a pool of red,
dripping at the edge of the paper.

You are the cactus
pricking with every temptation.

The one engrained in my figmentation
wrapped in lessons
coloring the pigmentation of my skin
with various hues.

You are the open wound
with the fabricated scab.

You are the name
that rings inside my head,
echoing through my memories
trembling shakes, tremors
through the cronies
widening the past a little
more within me.

The pain rots and sheds,
as it smoulders her bones
and burns her skin third degree.

Loss and jealousy enwrap
her scorched heart into ashes,
while lava flows off her tongue
as it promises vengeance.

She becomes a vortex of emotions
engulfing her own life,
dwelling in the
merry go round thoughts.

Until she picks up the pen
and tucks the rage and ache
within the 26 alphabets
stringing words,
to sentences to paragraphs.

Ashes and embers stain the paper
as they ebb, blot and flow,
crafting the cathartic relief
until the paper stains darker
than the shades of her mind.

The blues that would pour,
become the budding flowers
in her chest.

She remodifies
cobblestones into steppingstones,
amplifying her narrative.

She tosses the losses
into words
and crosses beyond the horizon.

A candle flame burns deep
inside her solar plexus
as she transmogrifies the shards into a mosaic;
the strings of the web she was entangled in
weaved into embroidery to embellish her soul.

The cries and lies,
made her wise
as she built from the same sorrows
she was drowning in.

She put her ache on cadence
and turned up a brain wavelength.

She finally found her salvation
from abandonment
a dive deep and wide into
the depth of introspection
pulling from the cronies and nooks
the parts built and undiscovered.

She armed herself with
empathy fueled passion
as she has burnt, learnt
and learn to yearn the better
while she steers forward
with a transfigured mindset.

For the people who came,
now leave as poems.

Eid Al Adha;
Eid of Sacrifices
and the celebratory end of Hajj.

Purity abides around their heart
as souls are blessed with the
sown seeds of joy.

Allah hu Akbar;
takbir echoes
as devotees congregate in
every mosque nearby.

They wear embellished clothes,
extending their hearts to one another
and capturing the ecstasy
in every single encounter.

Sentiments are reciprocated,
and gratitude is manifested
on such an occasion
as we recall the origins of the
reason we sacrifice;
and that is to follow the order of Allah,
as Prophet Ibrahim did.

Her stained thoughts manifest
as reckless voice that
critiques and confines.

Her words jars authenticity
and snubs their narrative,
cooked from their perspective,
and experience.

Flames of disapproval,
burn brighter with every beat
as incompetency bites
and acceptance withers.

She captures snapshots,
and confines them into
stereotyped framed
of idiosyncratic value.

But steadily,
as she delayers,
scrubs the scrutiny of judgements
of her thoughts, and emotions —
she steps off the battleground
of others skin
and becomes the change of creating
a embracing society.

Pupils beamed with radiance,
and naive genuineness flowed
as the illusion of love came her way.

But behind the tugging of strings
was a skillful maneuver
with his foxy intentions.

As the strings were played
back and forth,
emotions began to be strangled
and the cords that were struck
created a melody
to the tune of his accordance.

The fortress began to whither
but he was tired of his own maneuvers
that he gave into dispelling his intentions
before the frontier guarding her heart collapsed.

Though the barrier to intimacy
did not collapse completely,
the intention of ones kindness broke,
the illusion of ones amiable action broke
as it became the an act
just to open the gate of letting one in.

Trust withered,
but hope seemed to still be lingering
as the good in them, she always saw.

But after multiple tries,
of her heart being played with.
It was locked,
to the ones who would come along.

Her roots are growing upon your being,
waiting for the warmth of your presence
and the drops of your attention.

As it grows,
she begins to demand more
her appetite to sustain grows.

But slowly you’re furthering away
your radiation no longer reaching
upon her bare skin
as the trail of your shadow is left behind.

Just like the rest you’ve furthered,
leaving her parched and left to thirst
the reservoir that has stopped flowing.

Grief tastes like fear,
for attachment is the synonym of fear.
To be intertwined and interlinked,
to give and expect —
but to receive less
with the passing days.

The experience of the past
harbors fear,
tremble at the feel of attachment
that is ripped away
to leave her bare.

Before you leave
Before you detach
She will leave
and disentangle herself.

Front and center of it all
I am a big burning,
bright gas ball.

Planets spin around my girth,
Like Saturn, Mars,
Venus and Earth.

I am the one that rises
you in the morning
and leaves you stunned
by my leave.
I am the one
who blazes and scorches
and at times
hides behind the clouds.

Even though
I am 149.6 million km away
I am still there to
light your world
and keep you warm.

"I never knew it was toxic, until I tasted freedom with love. I never knew what it was like to be loved, without being encaged. But now I can take my decisions, I can roam free. I can be loved and be my own person. I chose what I do today and forever.
It was love before, it is love now. But now he loves me into independence. I discover more about myself. I find myself healing.The stifling breath, and aching sobs in my chest are slowly fading.  It was love before but the bad outweighed the good. Too weak and in love to leave. But I am not a possession, I am my own person."

- excerpt from a monologue of breaking free from a possessive relationship

My healer,
the one who rubbed
ointment on my wounds,
calming and relieving the pain.
Who's presence was the epitome
of comfort and love.

Has now become the stealer,
of my happiness
and the exploiter,
of my kindness.

There are days,
when she feels lost in the universe
that exists in her mind;
overthinking herself to oblivion.

There are days,
when she feels she is downing
in the depths of her thoughts.
Drowning in the sea of her emotions,
tears turning into high tides
destroying peace of mind.

Night bleeds into morning
Sun dissolves the moon

She wants to come out for a breath
and just breathe the light air.
Feel the lightness of it,
as it enters her lungs -  
the simplicity of it.

She is losing more of herself.

What is security?
For I never felt it
in the love of others
and in my own fibers and cells.

Planted with love,
watered by compassion,
fertilized with the light of our presence.

But it was all an illusion,
for the it was planted in betrayal,
watered with disappointments,
fertilized with lies
and maintained by fakes.

Our roses were red,
but now they are dead.
Weak and brittle petals,
crumbling beneath my feet.

I’m a paradox.
I say I don’t care,
when I really do.

I say I don’t need someone
to ask me how I am,
while I am longing them to.

I say my voice matters
and act as though it doesn’t.

I want someone to know my emotions
when I haven’t told them
and never want to tell them either.

I want to be happy
but I think of sad thoughts.

I am lazy,
yet I am ambitious.

I crave attention,
love and support
but reject when it
comes in my way.

I am strong,
yet run back to the ones who hurt me.

I am a conflicted contradiction.

Hope is shrinking
Light is dimming
Walls are caving in
and everything seems to diffusing into blue.

It's all heavy and dark
draining and enveloping.

And all I want to do is put a pause on life
to make everything stop moving on
dragging me along with it
as the abyss is plunging me
in like a dark hole.

A message from you
and my mind is spiralling
on the road of overthinking.

Wanting to embrace you
even at the risk of you deserting me
once more.

To write,
was to embrace all the waves
that you kept off the shore.

To write,
was to embrace the thoughts
you shoveled down
so they wouldn't have the power to hurt you.

To write,
was to feel liberated
of your shackles and confinement.

To write,
was to find yourself
navigating towards
your own thoughts
and emotions that you
kept away for so long.

To write,
was to feel once more
and be brought back to yourself.

I didn't realize,
how easily I believed you
and let you break me.

You convinced me,
my beauty was ugly,
my strengths were my weakness,
my pride was my shame
and that I was inferior.

You made me believe,
a reality which was hurting me,
and I accepted what you made
me believe.

Maybe our past version
could never make it work.
Maybe they weren't meant to be.
They knew to little
and felt too much.

But now that we've picked up
our broken pieces
and rebuilt ourselves.

Reconnected with ourselves.
Changed, grown
and matured.

I wonder if it is meant to
be between these two
evolved souls.

I didn't like the way you glanced,
I didn't like the way you gazed,
l didn't like the way you whispered to
the other man's ear.

I didn't like the comments you made,
I didn't like the vibe you were giving my way,
I didn't like the way you smiled.

But you didn't care
that I didn't like.
You didn't care, who I was.
You just didn't care,
because you stepped close anyways

It is true pain changes people.
But you know what pain also does;
it hurts you,
it breaks you,
it drains you,
it disconnects you from the
people around you at times.

It sometimes makes you feel
like giving up on your life.
But maybe that's just a phase.

Maybe we have to break to heal.
Maybe we have to fall to rise.
Maybe we give up to fight.
Maybe we have to make mistakes to learn.
Maybe we have to tear to be courageous.

Maybe we have to go through chaos to find peace.
Maybe we have to feel weak to be strong.
Maybe we have to get messed up before we step up.
Maybe going down was a part of the plan of rising
up once again better.

Pain brings out the worst,
the best and sometimes
it is just different.
And you get to choose
who you get to cast yourself as.

You get to pick up those pieces
and place them the way you want to be.
Sometimes it isn't bad, it isn't good,
it's just different.
And that's alright.

I know you're hurting,
and it seems everything is breaking
apart from every angle.

You feel your thoughts,
and emotions are weighing
your mind and heart.

You feel the days
are dragging you along with it.
You want to be alone,
you push away everyone around you.

I know your contemplating
between giving up,
you feel there is no light.

You feel it's tough,
overwhelming and draining.
You feel the darkness in you
is growing, consuming you cell by cell.
and you just don't fight anymore.

You just want it to stop.
But, I just want you to hang in
there a little longer.

I want you to hold on to the people
who love you even though you feel
there aren't any.

You are loved.
You matter.
Even when you feel
no one can save you,
even when you feel
no one can reach you.

But there is hope as long as there is life.
I want you to breathe.
Just have faith.
Because there is
something greater within you
than the pain or obstacle
you experience and encounter.

Dear Sensitive Souls,
They call us emotional, fragile and weak as though these are the only words to describe us. Did they not see beyond the fact that we feel too much? that we are also empathetic and compassionate? Did they overlook all the beautiful qualities that came along with being sensitive.

So often we took our sensitivity as a curse for making us drown in an ocean of emotions. For being hurt by noticing the intricacies in people's body language, attitude and hesitations. For leaving us sore, drained at the end of the day. For making our problems look so insignificant in the eyes of others that we wouldn't even feel like opening up because if we did, word would just spill and eyes would just flood. For making us feel no one would understand the intensity of our emotions. For just letting us feel we were weak because every word, every vibe, every energy would just penetrate right through our heart leaving us to feel broken.

For making us feel so overwhelmed that it would be a struggle to get through the day. For making us face their statements and questions "Why are you so emotional?" "You're like a volcano ready to just explode" "Just toughen up" "You're such a mess". Sensitivity initially left me feeling so weak and broken for being affected so easily at the littlest of
things.

But over the years I met beautiful and kind souls who admired sensitivity as one of the rare and crucial part of humanity. Spending time with them changed my perspective about sensitivity and started to embrace it as a part of me.

The word "Sensitive" that once sounded like an insult became a compliment. The sensitivity I used to once spend my day hating became something so beautiful to me. It was when I started to embrace my sensitivity did I allow my emotions to be acknowledged, felt and be expressed.

A masterpiece of intricate mosaic,
a beauty underlied with chaos.
She lets them see,
what she wants them to see.

I don't understand how the victim is the one to be blamed, as the predator goes off easily. The sensitive ones blamed for how they feel as their reaction are blown out of proportion while the predator gaslights and walk off with no responsibility or consequence for their action. Why is that salt is added to wound, trigger pulled on a trigger while the perpetuators, manipulators walk off free. I don't understand why the victims suffer, while the predators are glorified. I don't understand, and maybe by breathing naivety never will.

- To the many things, I fail to understand about this world

I drank poison
of hate and resentment tonight.

I wonder whether my eyes
will be tumid tomorrow
of all the tears that were shed
and glow with malevolence
or wouldn't event want to lift an eyelid.

I wonder whether my
tongue will spew the vile remaining
or it wouldn't even utter a word.

I wonder whether my muscles will
fulminate with the energy of hate
or it would be too heavy to get off
bed tomorrow.

I wonder if my mind will be raging
tomorrow or would've drowned and
been dissolved by the venom coursing through me.

I wonder as I slip into sleep.

How do I explain to you the feeling of
inadequacy when someone loves or compliments?

How do I explain to you the fear of being a disappointment
or not having climbed up to someone's level of expectation?

How do I explain when without warning I am plagued
with self doubt, layered with chaotic-heavy-blues
and harboring insecurities?

How do I explain when I don't want
these thoughts to matter?
when I just want them to be deprived
of care that they die within,
and never surface to my skin.

But somehow like the crashing waves
they envelope me in the depths and like
the black hole **** me from within.

At times,
I find myself
tearing my fibers apart.
Picking out one neuron
from another,
and wrecking myself
from within.
To find,
the next morning,
I have been
built once more.
This time,
just differently.

I need to teach myself
that when they leave,
when they fall out of love,
when they reject,
It's not always because of my inadequacy
but rather it speaks
volumes about them.

When we don't receive attention
from someone,
we search for it in others.
But rarely choose to look
for it in ourselves.

My dreams are heavy,
that I often wake up
gasping for air.

My dreams are dark,
etched with loss and heartaches
that I wake up searching
for happiness.

My dreams feel real,
that I often **** up
trying to soak in reality
when emotionally and mentally
I feel the residue of the trauma
of being dragged through those lands.

Why do you
keep going
back to the ones who've hurt you
wasn't the memory enough?

Why do you
keep going
back to the toxicity
wasn't one inhalation enough?

Aching void,
what do you crave?
What will satisfy
the emptiness that expands
and throbs?

My thoughts are on a merry go round,
churning my mind in perpetual cycles
till it has been named chaos.

A certain memory rings in my ear,
deafening out the world;
as it climbs and slithers down my spine
echoing through the hollow shell I've become.

Maybe,
I never felt deserving
or enough
for love.
So, I let
my mind break my heart,
before you get a chance
to break it.

I am tired of
the constant cycle of
aching and faking,
hurting and feeling,
breaking and healing,
fixing and mending,
It's like a never ending cycle,
and I am just tired.

I can't close my eyes,
I can't close my mind
as my thoughts keep me awake all night.

I toss and I turn,
trying to find comfort in my bed.

It's past midnight
and my thoughts have been rung
with gasoline
and been set on fire.
It consumes the small pieces of
happiness that I picked up during the day.

I gaze and think,
as there is no save tonight.

So I lay with a heavy mind
and empty heart
waiting for my eyes to slip to sleep.

A smile masked on her face
concealing the grief that poured
out of her face.

You shone out of nowhere,
in the everlasting depths of darkness,
reaching out,
and stealthily pulling me to the light.

My emotions began changing
ever so swiftly
with the every pump of the heart.

My eyes blinding with such brightness and joy
For I wonder was it because of you
or the world now I saw?

But, then you left
for there were many who walked in this world,
Even when alone,
I thanked you for showing me another world,
Feel the depths of happiness
and the light which lit my skin.
But solitude in the world of
happiness was not my place.

Then came my old friend,
darkness that lured me back in
'Welcome back'
for it wrapped me in its comfort
And said 'here you are to stay'

Escape ,
that's what I would do
when things would get tough.
I would binge,
dream, eat, read & scroll.

I would create another world
where I would live,
free to be.
The place I would
forget about my happenings,
but this was not reality.

I would procrastinate and escape,
but my reality would await
to cuff me away.

With every escape,
my reality would become
a struggle to face

To everyone I was living life
but was I?
For my body was anchored to this world
While my head flew to another

Then came a time
When I no longer wanted to hide
Even though I knew
I did not have the appetite
Because my reality had
become so hard to emotionally swallow
But there was no choice
but to face

Courage
Step by Step
Patience through it all
Change finally came across
And my reality had become a better place

My soul screams to speak,
but my lips remain sealed,
as no word slips.
It is just dead silence.
My head tenses,
as I am unable to utter words.

I find my tears
weighing all the emotions
as they trickle down my cheek silently.

Exteriorly, it is silent
even though there is chaos screaming within.

We were similar,
we still are.
We used to understand,
and support one another.
Stripping vulnerability,
over vulnerability.
Our friendship was deep,
our trust rung strong.

But then you grew thorns,
that would *****
when I would come near.

I just wished we helped
one another bloom rather
than let our insecurities
strive us to compete
as to who will bloom
better and faster.

Somedays,
I wonder how do you go back
to being strangers with someone
who has seen your soul?
How do you go back to being strangers
with someone who used to spend every moment
of everyday with?
But seeing you,
answered all my questions.

Her demons,
wiped away her fear
as they made her fall in love with them
and dance with them
when the only comfort in her
loneliness was them.