Sometimes inspiration is free
Other-times it costs you the world
In our abandon we seek
Divinity, eternity
And often the meaning
Of our words
Eludes even us
Are we an author?
A seeker?
A valiant warrior
Braving the darkness
Seeking for such elusiveness
It sets the mind free
Within that darkness
Lies the eternal
A place without form
A castle, a dungeon
And for the unwise
A prison without end
And only those
Well acquainted
With their own madness
May tread its murky waters
To pluck that fruit
Whose shape is an omnipresent
Kaleidoscope of meanings
And to solidify its form
And cast it onto sprawling page
This is our work
Our bottomless pit
Our greatest weakness
And our ultimate triumph.

-----

Reformatted version:

Sometimes inspiration is free
other-times it costs you the world
In our abandon we seek
Divinity, eternity
And often the meaning of our words
eludes even us
Are we an author?
A seeker?
A valiant warrior braving the darkness
seeking for such elusiveness
It sets the mind free
within that darkness lies the eternal
a place without form
a castle, a dungeon
and for the unwise, a prison without end
And only those well acquainted
with their own madness
may tread its murky waters
To pluck that fruit
whose shape is an omnipresent kaleidoscope of meanings
and to solidify its form
and cast it onto sprawling page
This is our work
our bottomless pit
our greatest weakness
and our ultimate triumph.

Think the saddest thing about this land
Is how hard it tries to live
To hold, to let go— how it
Stills in the middle of a catastrophe
How it sings
Only when no one’s about to hear
How its silence
Is never wholly true

How the clouds go by
And the suns
The crescents grow up and pass
And people—
Yet it, shuddering, remains
And how it struggles
To weave peace out its
Wavering fields

And ever-dancing cities—
The dance of a Persian woman
In shackles
How it slaughters its own flowers
In search of their seeds
How it breaks apart
In the middle of a night
In the middle of a little girl’s question
In the middle of a smile

How the maidens
Keep on hanging their dresses to dry
And children keep hunting
For helpless worms
And snows melt into grasses
Till they too sail away
Yet it, shuddering, remains

How it will gnaw away the town
It carved itself
Feast upon its own beautiful bones
How hard it struggles to stir
In its own queer death
And how it will wither
And wither, and wither
And not tire—

It is its own hateful god.

Wilted jasmines look like popcorns
… that wasn’t very poetic, right?
I was just watching the bushes sway outside my window.
There is no wind today
Just the hot air breathing
I have turned on the A.C. and the fan grumbles quietly

I feel as if my heart is in my stomach
Huh.
**** it,
I really am forcing it out today..
Whatever
I rested my palm on my stomach
As Faizan’s strange playlist chattered nonsense
Outside the blanket shroud I had built
Around myself
And I could feel the beat
The rhythm
Like a drum or a gong
I don’t know why it matters to me
Maybe because I feet as if nothing else does
Right now
I know that sounds exactly like something
A sentimental teenager would say

I don’t know
I want to talk to myself
A heart-to-heart
I want to ask that *****
What is going on
What is wrong
What the **** is wrong, girly!?
I want to hear her ramble on about stuff
Be bored of her talk, but feel kind of happy
That I’m the one she’s confiding in
I wanna give her a hug
To show I don’t have words good enough for comfort
Which I probably do
But am too lazy to fish them out my gooey head
(Besides
I think the poor **** needs a hug)

I wanna zone out and nod along to her words
Just so she can let it out for once
But that *****’s a *****
She acts tough and all smart
But she’s a sappy preteen girl inside
I say,
“Yo, Ayesha, you can cry, you know—”
And she goes,
“Yeah, I know.”
A flip of that inexistent hair
That she long ago butchered
And, bam, she gone.
She tells me
"Yo, Ayesha, you can cry too, you know?"
"I know" I tell her.
I don’t know what to do
So I lie around
Feeling this stupid ***** dance in my stomach
In my wrists
In my temples
I run my fingers down my neck,
Feeling for the echoes of the gong
That keeps talking, talking, talking
Untiring
As if calling me to my people
gathering us together for a battle
that is yet to be fought
yet to be fought—
yet to be ******* fought

And, hey, my
Money plant doesn’t even look rich
That *****—
(Hey, I got a rhyme!)