~



Sunday, March 31, 2013

A love confession p 6

No, do not take off your chains
Because the way you carry them
Is what makes you beautiful

But just remember
Outside the bubble of names
Free from the narrow confines of words

Free from the whip of the egos in our soul
Outside judgment and superstitions

There is a place where "you" and "I"
Are just leaves blowing away with the wind

As we teeter totter
Over the edge of joy
And the brim of delight

Sharing one soul
In two different forms



Thursday, March 7, 2013

confessions from planet Earth

Part I

I drank in the stars on those summer nights
I proposed to the Moon
Declared war against the Horizon
And tried to beat him to her every night
I ate and was given birth to with every bite
I was the one that had to experience everything for myself
I fell in love with the stories but had to make my own
I grew with the morning and made the night my lover
Because She tasted of something like astonishment
The old stories were true
Science was not born, Magic did not die
The beauty of the unknown remains our guide
I sang a lullaby to the sky from the mountains one time
And caught the world dreaming of something impossible
Something just like itself
I once tried to blind the Sun with its own reflection
I dipped into the recesses of my heart until I wrung light
Out of that tattered cloth passing itself off as me
I left pieces of myself everywhere I would go
Because I encountered pieces of myself everywhere I went
I preserved each love with the salt of tears
I broke fast with the hungry and the sated
I waltzed with the heavens, I stomped with thunder
Roared at the ocean and it swallowed me whole
I don't care what they say
I was a witness to an act of love so great
An entire Universe was born for its [story] telling


Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Stockholm syndrome

We stifle each other with
I care for yous
in a confessional booth

I adorn her neck with fingers interlocked
a chain of caresses choking out her sigh of pleasure
She handcuffs our hearts together
flushes the key down the toilet
and we smile

We seek comfort behind bars and locked doors

We are the miserable prisoner
dreaming of maximum security
and the watchful guard
threatening solitary confinement

We wear our shackles proud
We cannot stand to be alone

We drop anchor in the shallows
and long for the deep sea
We drop anchor in the shallows
and wonder why we flounder by the shore
We drop anchor in the shallows
and wish for the horizon to swallow us whole


Thursday, January 17, 2013

thank you p 3

How does someone from almost a thousand years ago drive one to the brink of madness and joy...? I brought an 800 yr dead man a basket of tears and he left me with only love and joy.  
I am accustomed to seeing the world with my eyes. But you are revealing to me more and more beloved, that love truly does not die.

http://jamilahammad.com/rumiandshams/conversations.htm

a love confession p 5

They tell you
in so many subtle and discrete ways
that you are not worthy of love, of joy
And after a while, you begin to believe it
and you tell yourself
in so many subtle and discrete ways
that you are not worthy of being loved
of living each moment on the cusp of joy and brink of possibility

Let me remind you dearly beloved
that you are worth more than a sea of diamonds
you are worth so much more than any worldly treasure
Let me remind you dearly beloved
you are worthy of love, of joy, of being loved
copiously and unapologetically.
You are the flowerbed, love is the water
so drink beloved, drink and dance and sing
because we are here for this very purpose.

a love confession p 4

my mouth was broken at birth
i have nothing to offer
save this longing in my chest
for which i would raze my world
just to be with You

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

confessions p 25


I heard a love story
When I was a child
Or in the womb
Sharing my mother's dreams
And since then
I haven't stopped
Looking for my own.
As with so many stories
There was no beginning.
One day, like any other
I heard a whisper of the unnameable
Breathed in the fumes of its scent
Like water, and it was invisible
But it filled such lungs in me
That I knew nothing in an instant.
And just like that, I was in love
Though I knew not at the time
Because being in love
I couldn't fathom being out of it.
And I don't have the words
Not in a dozen lifetimes
To describe what happens in my chest
When I hear the faintest brush
Of my Beloved's skirts.

***

Soon She will send an army
To taste the color of my blood...
They will assume the shape of my fears
They will wear my face
Speak in my twisted tongue
Words from my own broken mouth.

***

I heard the sounds of Her army
as I was layering on warpaint
expecting a sea of swords
ruthless killers with my eyes
my own words morphing
into indescribable beasts, many-headed dragons
and everything else that dogma
had my mind imagining.
But just before the shadows of my fears
became solid reality
a crepuscular ray broke through the clouds
and what seemed at first a sliver of light
burst through the veil of the sky
It was like seeing the sun for the first time
like stepping out into color
from a cave of black and white shades.
And I saw Her army with eyes
no longer filmed over with veils
and instead of a sea of shields and swords
there were endless rows of roses
petals blossoming over and over
impossibly closer and closer
until they were opening up inside me
opening me up from the inside
opening and opening
and words failed me
there was just that burning longing
white flames licking at the home
I had carved from fear
and I wanted to weep it was so beautiful
but all I could hear were peals of children's laughter

***


(Love does not require bloodshed and empires
To test vows sworn in Her name
But She demands the whole of the heart that speaks them
and that is the greatest battle of all.)

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

a love confession p. 3


I want to tell you I love you
but I know how easy it is to love from afar
and I want to tell you I love you when the shit hits the fan
when there is nothing to win or lose, nothing left concealed
I want to tell you I love you when there is no distance between us
when proximity has demolished the museum display in my heart
and when those three words are no longer another step
in a ladder leading to some heaven of my imagination.


Saturday, December 29, 2012

a love confession p 2

Little by little, and in volcanic eruptions
we drifted apart like continental plates.
Said we loved the sea so we let it come between us.
We followed the flow of the tide with the full moon
tattooed in blood and water on our foreheads.
Agoraphobics, we couldn't fill spaces between us with enough stars
so we blamed proximity, too far, too near, too distant, too dear.
Accused the sun and lunar cycles for the failing of our sight
pointed fingers at the winds and they carried away our excuses
graciously left us in silence to listen to the beating of the heart's sea.

Can you hear them? The waves pleading, raging, roaring, seeping
they spend their lives through storm and salt, ice and vapor
man made pollutants and all manners of filter feeders
looking for something they have never seen
And one day, they find it, crashing upon it to kiss its' shores
before faithfully embarking on the return journey
each hoping they may be worthy of reunion with the ocean's core.

confessions p 24


No.
Not the heavens nor the hells.
No.
Not the words of scripture.
Nor the ideology of man.

I can not explain the endlessness
that taught my knees the speech of the ground.
I know just as these words are only shadows of tears
So too is this reality a mere shadow of the next.

before bed

Now that the day has ended
what do I have to say ?
Have I done all I could?
Have I gotten better at something?
Have I overcome a fear?
Have I tried a different approach to the same problem?
Have I been truthful to myself?
Have I reached out to a friend?
Did I really listen when spoken to?
Did I strive for excellence in some way?
Did I test my boundaries? challenge my perceptions?
Did I train my body, mind or soul?
Did I commit? Did I make a vow or renew an old oath?
Did I keep the word?
Did I pay respects to my parents? the elders or ancestors?
Did I maintain the sacred bond of friendship?
Did I chip away at the mountain on my back?

Heroes

Remember your heroes
Remember their journeys
The upward slopes they navigated to find themselves
Their rites of passage, how they yearned
Remember their blood, their hearts ablaze
As they burned, for something which even they couldn't yet see.
Remember your heroes
Their memory is sacred
They have been pre-sent to you
As roadsigns, maps through which you may discover yourself.

Remembrance is divine.
It is a spiritual goldmine
It is braille for the blind
It is the cover of darkness for Love's fugitives
Remembrance is divine
It is your holy book that is yet to be writ
It is the light of the sun, it gives and gives.
It is the sanctum of the spirit in decline
It is the elixir of madmen and mystics, the lover's wine
It is all of your heroes cheering at the finish line
It is a friend's encouraging hand
Remembrance is divine
It is a garden in a wasteland.
It is the relief of speech in a room full of mimes
It is a captain in a ship left unmanned
It is the price of the soul's truth paid back in kind
It is a life raft for the sea stranded
And a candle in a prison cell for the damned
It is you and me as one if you would be so inclined
Dear wonder of the stars, leave your fears behind
And remember your heroes
Because remembrance, is, divine.