Bikes rides through the neighborhood
Are a very relaxing thing.
Who knew that a task as simple this
Could make your heart feel light and sing?

Scared, lost and utterly confused.
Alone

        sad,  
                   bitter

AND USED.

I hope you enjoy yourself today,
have yourself a really nice day.

Water in my veins, the absence of my blood.
Only then can you breathe, when your lungs flood.

“April Gem”

April 27th, 15 years ago,
A diamond was born in this world,
and here's what she should know.

Spring is a time of renewal,
and birth of life after the winter snow.
The second you showed up in our lives,
you never ceased to shine and glow.

The first born child in the Syed's household
in the Lonestar State, the catalyst for many more,
and into our hearts, you've opened the gate.

Pin straight hair of cocoa brown that's sways
in the Texas wind, and keeps your shoulders warm and hidden;
a flowy mane of coffee- like locks, reminds me
of a majestic horse I've once ridden.

Her eyes gleam with wonder so rare,
so bright and young and pure.
No rope, no pull, no strength or snare can
even come close to that mystical lure.

I'm reminiscent of days when the earth was rich,
and the taupe soil gleamed like those eyes.
I gazed in deeper, and saw the galaxies shine bright in her view,
shaming the dark night skies.

That laugh of yours, high pitched, loud, carefree,
and bright;
seeing the sound of pure joy and glee,
depicts a happy heart, a soul that’s joyful and light.

I love the way your teeth aren’t perfectly aligned,
I love the way how you know how to sign.
Not a day in my life, not a minute I’ve inhaled
have I ever felt so close to someone else,
or felt a kind of love so unable to fail.

I sprint to the phone when I know it’s you,
I love the way you make me smile, especially when I’m blue.
Exercise of any kind generally isn’t fun,
but knowing you’re on the opposite line on the phone will make me want to run.

We’ve known each other since we could barely even talk,
you’ve been by my side to pick you up when learning how to walk.
Memories fill up my heart and show up in the form of tears,
knowing that it’s all safe with you: my hope, my dreams, my fears.

We may not be close in miles, sure there’s some transportation mishaps along the way..
But although I can’t see you everyday, my heart is where you’ll stay.
Thanks for being there for me, when I felt broken and distraught..
no wise person, owl, or scholar can teach me what you’ve taught.




I remember those times, I felt like a vase,
ready to fall off the table,
You comforted me, told me it’ll be okay,
and with more loving words, I again felt stable.

The elementary school years, now they looked like a breeze.
But when I go back and remember it, time just seems to freeze.
Back when everyone was the same and our minds weren’t overbearing,
and the only thing that mattered was whether or not we were sharing.

You changed location, and I did too, all around the place,
From Chicago nights of cold, and the days spent with Asim Mama;
The home of the Longhorns welcomed you and you did it, with a sweaty and excited face,
And I’m sitting here remembering it all in fast forward, like a photo in panorama.

My body is numb, sore. I've felt this way before.

Without you, I am like the sky without stars.
Empty.
Desolate.
Plain.
But you have the ability to make your presence
admirable
               memorable
                                 incredible
and somehow fill up that same empty sky. But this time, with stars that it

once lacked seem to fill up every corner of darkness into shimmery, bright

light, and I think to myself..

"I've seen this before"

Then I remember how your eyes looked and lit up the darkness.

To the girl who never believed she'd get anywhere,

you made it.

Date written:  November/10th/13

29, the age I arrived to this land, saying goodbye to all I knew like the back of my hand.
A single ******, so fresh, so naive- all so different to what I once perceived
My eyes glistened at this new found galore, and just in the airport, there was soon to be more.
My body was aching from the twelve hour flight, but my mind was renewed, yet my muscles still tight.
As time passed on, I knew their ways, and seeing them now, they all look astray.
My heart wanted to run, to escape from these lies and go back to the north , but my mind began to reel in to the things that led to demise, yet I continued to go forth.
The pain was real and the temptation was strong, then came a point I didn’t know right from wrong.
I came from a place that poor and needy, but I’d rather be there than here; where everyone is thankless and greedy.
The pureness of their hearts was more than the change in their hands, and the love for Allah and Rasool (PBUH) was stronger than owning every piece of land.
Here I see their wallets are overflowing with false means, while hoarding wealth and bottomless wants are bursting at the seams.
I was bathed in this filth and dirt, everywhere I went it was there,
but my conscience  kept my head on straight and I continued my daily prayers.
It was my choice (and still is now) to mark my path I know how.
What my eyes once saw may have once been appealing, but the orders sent down were those I obeyed, and everyday I found myself kneeling.
I’m at a crossroads, (or rather I was at the time) but the journey was planned out before the choice was mine.
The Quran kept me going as my native tongue translated, when I read the penmanship and beauty of these words, it seems as if all pain has faded,.
“Faith is what stays in your heart and displays in your act” is a saying far better than charts and facts.
Those words speak to me, as they have to many before- whether changing lives or teaching more. And through this battle, the demons tried to break in, but the Sunnah, Hadith and Quran shielded me from sin.

Who will love me,

am I out of my mind?

"What's wrong with me?"
I sit down and wonder,  legs propped on my bed.

A million thoughts rush forward and back in my spinning head.
Questions with a deep background, or so other people may think,
I beat around the bush and back, without a second blink.

Should I focus on me, be selfish and vain?
But what about the strife in the world, the ****** and pain?

Living your life in your head is not an easy task,
Live life in the moment just to make it last?
I don't know what to say or to do,
I'm confused about who to listen to.

Who's right, the young or the old?
The books, the stories, the memories that unfold?
My mind, my focus, it's honestly distraught.
I'll do what feels right, and stay away from what's not.

I'm alone, and I'm scared. What matters anymore,
grades and studies, or fun and friends?
The stress that kills me and brings me down,
WHO KNOWS WHEN IT'LL END?

I have goals, no other way to put it.
But why do I bring myself down and simply quit it?
That motivation and drive, it's lost somewhere..
I need it. Grasp it. Keep it. Never let it go.

What do I do, feeling this way?
I don't even know what I need anymore.
I need understanding and relation of heart,
I'm confused and annoyed, where do I start?

I miss the days when lying on the grass
in the backyard was a beautiful time.
Whatever is wrong with me, whatever is faulty,
I am in control of it. I know it. But sometimes I feel it slipping away..

Lists and lists in my mind,
it's always shaking and spinning, on rewind.
So help me God, to help myself.
Breath in and out, you'll make it out.

When he turns seventeen,

I wonder what he sees when he looks in the mirror.

A tall, lanky, star swimmer. Knowing him, his hair will probably be standing up the same way we joked about the first time I actually talked to him on the way in the school parking lot.
Must be the chlorine.

I wonder if he'll spend so much of his time as a seventeen-year-old pining over someone just like I did when I was his age.

Maybe it's gonna be the girl he's dating right now.
A girl that I'm friends with.
A girl who didn't deserve to have her heart broken by someone who truly wasn't good enough for her.
A girl who works hard and smiles big deserves someone who'll love her back.

I ask myself why she even went back in the first place, but then I remember I've fallen for someone I knew I could never have.

Why couldn't I have him? I'm pretty and social and can make most people smile. The girl who had everything, right?  Seemingly. Friends, a disposition of sunshine and love at every angle.
What's missing?
I couldn't tell at that very moment,

Who exactly did I long for?
Him.
Even though it was a crush that I had when I was seventeen, and I'm still seventeen, writing about it. Times can change when you realize what you value. I don't value him anymore.
But nothing is gonna stop me from keeping my eye out for her.

Earth Day Poem- 2014

Every year I write a poem for Earth Day.

It was fresh, it was new;
The soil was moist and dark.
The sky was a crisp, sharp blue;
And was free with song of lark.
The grass grew tall, so high and free;
And these towering stalks were happy,
as they serenaded with the breeze.
Dandelion weeds grew in the sky and their seeds blew with desire,
It was then where there was no war, no hurt, no strife, no fire.
The birds flew free, liberated as they flew within the sky
no one questioned the caressing wind, no one ever asked why.
The sand and sea were brothers, the bark and roots were one.
All the radiance of the world was indebted to the sun.
The poppy was in abundance, growing in the fields,
There was no limit to which happiness that yields.

Its that kind of love that stops everything around you. You're frozen in time, every breath you take is tasted to the most inner depths of its existence and its that love that hurts you so much that when air enters your feeble lungs, there is a piercing pain like no other.. yet you still come for more.

The same eyes that would open at the sound of your voice simply roll whenever you try to win me back.

This three letter word fills our days

with doubt,
sometimes reason

Let it not echo throughout your days and steal your peace

For too much of something is not a good thing, and

doubt
fear
unsureness

are no exception

The curse of fall is embodied in the wiping wind..

my hair flapping about frizzily in the October air.

My jacket provides warmth within its tufts of fluff

and my shoes carry my feet.. seeking moisture that

sweat no longer provides.

My hands cry out for warmth as I bury them in my pockets..
the lines and indentations are extenuated by lack of things soft.

my glasses fog up with steam as my nose touches the lip of the coffee cup.

I fly through the world with my head in the breeze.
I live in the burrow of the tallest tree,
My haven, my guardian, my sanctuary.

The other birds flaunt their feathers like lights,
And whisper their dark secrets into the depths of the night.
With my blessed song I make the choice
To say the bright qualities of others.

I might not have the bright feathers of a peacock
Or the brown of the African crane,
But I have things about me that put me different from the same.

I pray to God five times a day and say the things I need to say.
I thank him for my beautiful ballad
And sleep throughout the bland afternoon.

I find my peace of mind by expressing
Myself through song and speech.
My tune danced out of the peak
Of my bright yellow peak.
I feel the power of nature when I
Fly from tree to tree.

I always make sure to do my best
When life strikes me with tests,
And make the most of everyday.
I love gathering berries and roots
To bring back home to my family.

I fly through the world with my head
in the breeze.
Feeling the gentle sway of wind through
my feathers.
While I sing my song, I am proud to be me,
the nightingale.

My muscles feel heavy, even though they're light.
My breathing feels restricted.. so stringent, cold and tight.
She says "I'm okay".. tears streaming down her burning cheeks..

bad posture
              not good enough
                                aching muscles.
Wouldn't everything just be easier if I was
t
a
l
l
e
r,
prettier..
skinnier?

Slipping away from my fingertips once again.
Beautifully breaking.
Fantastically falling apart.

Days spent pacing with your shallow heart racing just praying for an embracing.
The seasons will keep changing.
Waves will crumble to ashes.
Snow will melt into lungs, indirectly letting us inhale the wintry, frigid weather.
Flowers will be reborn once again and embody scent into our minds once more.
Dreaming of a day when I could rest in the canopy of dogwood and sweet honeysuckle.
Earth is where I'll remain, one with the howling winds and piercing air.
Flowery Aprils and Brutal Novembers.
Burt me regarding the sacred time of my last breath, be it in leaves of maples petals of tulip, crisps of December frost or maybe even crunchy sand in between my toes as told by the trodden beaches of Bora Bora in July.

You painted canvases in my lungs.
The pictures are literally breathtaking.
It's

             hard

                                 to

                                                   b r e a t h e,

even a little, tiny bit.

Love is an imprinted shadow of a dark, lustrous ink.

I can write lists of things to do.. but I won't do them.
Raging thoughts.
Wayward feelings
and THE RUSH OF SOMETHING I DON'T EVEN KNOW THE NAME OF.
Welcome to this world, I didn't know what the HELL I was getting myself into.
Thinking about what other people think way too much.. and then trying not to.
it doesn't work and I try not to.
BUT I STILL DO.

It's better to take the dirt road

rather than the highway to perfection.

"Don't **** yourself", they say.
Past me is still there, but is withering.
"**** what you don't love."
So, I killed what I didn't like,
and like a flaming Phoenix,
I rose once again.

I made it.
Time for some changes, major changes in my life, in my existence.
I'm making changes.
Healing myself, taking better care of myself..
here's to changes.
Small ones, to fight away the thoughts that bring me downwards into a horrible pit of nothingness.
I was in a very dark and scary place for a lot of my life, but sometimes it takes a sullen realization to make yourself feel better about certain things.
I'm starting to see the beauty in things and change things if it seems uncomfortable.

I'm thinking that there's always light in the back of my mind, but even though there are clouds covering it at the moment. I'll get better.

Breathing pain.

Breathe in the pain, love yourself, treat yourself, get lost in it, feel wholeheartedly and whenever you break down in tears- drown in your sadness.

The thing about being 15 years old and struggling with everything and seemingly anything, it’s important that you’re honest and resilient despite your depression.

I can imagine myself, stuck in a room filled with others who have the same thoughts on my mind and let out a silent whisper of

"Am I ever going to make it out alive?"

Why am I afraid of something that millions upon millions of people feel?

I am afraid of falling in love with another person.

I dream about it, think about it, maybe even fantasize about what my future may hold,
            but I am scared.

Scared of having my heart broken into millions of pieces, scattered across the hemispheres of our planet
           Scared of not being able to comfort my lover when times of distress crash upon us, as they do to all
                          Scared of having a relationship that tastes of stale and stagnant wind, one that doesn't flow, no matter how much momentum you wish to be present

I asked myself: "Is something you don't know in entirety something you fear? Or is the fear characterized by the void of not knowing?"

One day, I will know the feeling of seeing the universe in the eyes of someone I'm fortunate to call my own..

But I wouldn't know, for that day is not something I can call mine.

Listening to sad songs doesn't mean you're sad

Maybe you want to explore your range of emotions with a perspective you don't have

Because heartbreak happens when we least expect it

so..

why not be prepared?

In regards to whatever is happening today, I know it's easy to get upset and distraught because of the state of the world. I can guarantee that my voice won't be silenced despite the hatred that might intend to drown it out. Please remember to take care of yourself and don't forget to have hope.

- Someone with faith in God

Falling in and out of love is what we do.

I’m still afraid of giving my heart to someone.

4:28

You deserve every beautiful moment you allow yourself to have.