There's more to this,
This thing we call living.
Everyone's all about the take,
What happened to the giving?

We take what we can
And still we want for more.
Receive one or two of something
While wanting three or four

There's gotta be another way,
A way to be grateful.
But when we don't get what we want
Everyone acts so hateful

There's a feeling of being owned,
Before we've done anything
A song that needs to be sung
That we can't even sing

Lyrics to write down
To give our thanks and praise.
But instead we wallow,
Depressed for days and days.

*This might just sound like
A difficult way to live,
But wouldn't be great to take what we take
And give all we have to give.

Have you ever read someones poetry
That where you stand your brought to tears
You can feel the heart of suffering
They've endured throughout the years

Where they view themselves in writings
As a soul that's lost and weak
Not knowing to write the way they do
Is a sign of inner strength

Or how many of us they have helped
Seeing our own weakness through their eyes
And the struggles that we all go through
That fill these poets lives

I'm here in rhyme to let them know
Just what their writings do
And how many in our troubled times
They have helped us through

It's fascinating seeing the same worn out faces
on the train
Day after day
Like a routine
Always the same sad look
same baggy eyes
burnt out from too much coffee
It's always the same dull smirk
on the few that are happy
Like a routine
The days don't change
I bet some of these people
Will die on this train
And before I know it
I'm out the doors
And off on the same routine
With tired eyes
And a worn out smile.

When minds start warring
Reason loses its way
Chaos prevails*






© Amitav (Radiance)

It's getting harder and harder to breathe,
Out of fear of spitting the blackening  truths inside me.
You are rainbows; and sunflower meadows,
I am the remnants of a fire pit, burnt for over a thousand lives;
I amount to coals and hot embers havent rolled past for a while.
There is no spark.
I have six layers of skin
Scorched with darkness.
And I am guiltily okay with that.

if every color
could be explained
by an action

if every action
was determined by a letter
could we...

perhaps get a color to be better
when we spelled
something completely profane

the circle of four
colors swim together
but offer no wisdom
rotate around your broken heart
you remain nothing
a blank rock in an empty solar system

I was born into a
Hall of wooden pews and
Sundays full of crinkling satin bows,
Confronted by a stern-faced woman with iron grey curls
Tighter than her heart.
I remember very little of those
Sunday rooms, mazes of correct answers and long half-hours
I was raised through new pews,
Carpeted halls and
Long hours with brown haired ladies
A book 1200 pages thick of
Tradition and my mother's folded hands as I peek
From under my bowed head,
Earning sharp reprimands from white  robed men.

I saw them,
Of course,
Walking in Dearborn, Detroit, Ann Arbor, far away lands of unrest, but
They weren't in little, white, homogenous Chelsea, Michigan,
Of course,
Not them.
Yet I marveled at soft amber skin
And deep chocolate eyes full of
More galaxies than I ever knew existed,
Split solar systems of hushed mosques and mosaics that I was never
Allowed to see.

But I loved it.

My room became a tiny haven,
My dusty mirror showing a soft headscarf wrapped carefully,
Gently,
Over flyaway frizz,
Green cotton matching hazel eyes.
I knew not the complexities,
So I faked them,
Simply kneeling because I could not
Remember all the beautiful
Dances of prostration to praise another name of God.
Foreign syllables try to roll from my strangely
English tongue; I never realized how
Odd and stiff my born language is,
Too full of contradictions and
Double entendres, strict lines of black and white
Inky blood spilled on snowy sheets of paper,
Ancient characters telling me how to live my life.
As far as I'm concerned,
Allah (swt) and God are just two names
For the same deity,
And I simply preferred
Fajr
Dhuhr
'Asr
Maghrib
'Isha
Over the Lord's Prayer and
Hail Mary.
My rosary beads were quiet patches of rakaahs
Though I could not pronounce any of the words.

I kept secrets too heavy to lift into the
Dark recesses of my mental hiding-holes
Instead dwelling in discrepancies and dealing in bargains.
Half of me fit perfectly to each,
A blasphemous picture of the ****** Mary
Transposed to the cover of a Qur'an
I had never opened, like the
Guilt-edged pages of Bibles growing weary
Under my desk.
Two irreconcilable pieces of religion,
Broken images of stained glass crowns
That can't be formed into the intricate patterns of an
"Exotic" heart.
So for today I pack away my rakaahs and prostrations in a wooden box,
And take up my cross again.
Someday, though,
My heart will chase itself through the five pillars,
And I will shake out the green cotton,
Wrapping it carefully over a flyaway soul.

I lay on my back, absorbing the pressures
Of the rocks beneath me, I breathe.
Eyelids resting on now blind eyes, I feel.
I stretch out as high as possible and hold it...
Allowing each fingertip to tingle, arms fall.
A rush of blood and my eyes snap open,
I see colours never known to man,
Unpaintable by all extremes.
Now, I sit cross-legged
Rocking as the wind sways.
The small clearing expands, opening up,
I see more now than two 1800's explorers
Ever did as they searched the world for forgiveness.
Looking up, it has grown dark
A deep blue, a deep grey.
It proceeds to rain, closing my eyes,
I open my mouth as if to speak...
The taste of wilderness rushes in.
Heavier, precipitation grows,
Heavier and birds begin to scream,
Landing at my sides, eyelids open...
I remain still. Screaming songs so intense,
The birds, they start to dance.
A pair with the tango,
Three with the jive,
I smile... I'm alive.
Beckoning me to join...
We danced all night.