I sell for a living.
But not the kind of selling
you do at the supermarket
and not the kind you do on the net
but the kind where I give parts of me
to strangers I will never again see.

Strangers like the boy with the pretty eyes
and the woman shedding tears
and the gentleman with many stories.

I give away the parts of me
I think will make others smile
an ear for you sir
and a part of my heart to you madamme
would you like a hand? a dimple?
Let me know because I give it all
and when you leave
don't say goodbye,
let me believe
and dream that one day we will meet again
and you will give those parts back
so I can be whole once again
for the one who would have cared

If they made Holy Scriptures out of our deeds
How many would we put on display for everyone to read?
When Bani Israel was frozen in time
within divine words,
they did not know
they would become timeless lessons
for generations to come.
Not the liar when he told his last lie,
nor the careless while laughing at the cow,
not even the pious while he raised his staff.
Yet today, we read their stories
With heedless hearts ,
forgetting that we too will be written
in pages heavier than stones
on scales worth more than mountains of gold.
So, why do we pretend that our time is infinite?
As though tic tocs were nothing but melodious beats
synchronized to our pulse.

wal Asr
And by time
Innal Insana la fikhusr
Verily mankind is at loss

How can we not think of yesterday as an effigy,
And tomorrow’s uncertainty as a form of art?
We are artists.
And when our hair strands start to reflect the silver moonlight
When our eyes start telling century old stories
When our joints start pleading with time
Will we then finally ask ourselves:
What will there be left of us?
Originals,
or mere copies?

There is a storm
That is turning hearts into story tellers
And Wise elders chanting an ode to sadness
Hoping its fists could claw a way out
Of their sullen eyes and stretch just far enough
To polish the clouded thoughts of quiescent beings

A storm of gray splatters on otherwise perfectly blue skies
Filled with reflections of first school days, and Makeshift street stadiums
A storm of children turned into ghosts
Haunting the mausoleums that these streets have become
As the gray splatters slowly turned into ****** ones
And the trust of men was put into guns
Instead of other humans
As though cold lifeless metal
Could compete with a beating heart
As though men who happen to be white
Are most appropriate to decide who wins the battle
No body wins the battle, No body wins in war
There are only rubbles, and catacombs
For the comfortable ones, who convinced themselves
That they were bestowing favors on the dying


Fleeing death is apparently not a good enough reason
To be deserving of a land that was never even ours
And mourning little boys found on shores
is only good until the hashtag is out of season

so you tell me, does sadness reside in the pity
of a heart seeking reassurance of its goodness
or does it surrender when it meets the resilience
of children who made their roofs out of starry nights

There are songs that no one sings
Yet they are still heard as melodies

And smiles no one paints
But it doesn't mean we can't call that art

And then there is my heart.
How it quivers at the sound of your name,
and how it loses itself in the thought of your smile.

I saw the mountain
and left my heart at its feet.
I didn't even want to climb
but I wanted to hear its own heartbeat.
I wanted to be earth,
and remain so for as long as it was mountain.

I wanted to bury its worries,
whisper gentle words and let the vastness of its spirit
resonate and echo melodies
made of written realities
only known to the skies.

There are watchful eyes
overlooking its standing
but what a strong mountain it is.
The sap of its inhabiting trees
circulates indefatiguably through its essence

as though nature forgot its laws
when it nurtured this soft cored rock
and placed this earth,
with a flawed heart at its feet.

That was all to say, that it is in between the two
where The Divine is met,
that it is in this landscape where Decree is set.