Digital Namaste

Our intelligence craft our minds and our thoughts are representations of our experiences, beliefs and dreams which also influence our choice of words. When you meet someone, you become a part of their life experience – with often just their polished representation visible and vice-versa.

The words exchanged are a culmination of the entirety of their experience which also encompasses their personality. Throw in a difference of upbringing and variation of culture and you’re already off to separate opinions. Thoughts convert to sentences bridged by words with opinions crafted via the conversed language which may dilute the essence of the information. This simply adds to the complexity of communication where we can’t figure the accuracy of the thoughts exchanged. A case of ‘potato potahto’ with everyone claiming to be right.

Our hearts are instilled with humility when we recognize that we may just be wrong in the eyes of the universe which is why I love digging deeper into people and what drives them. This creates room for debate and potential squabbles but however, kindness and an understanding that the efforts imbued contribute towards the quest for knowledge shall supersede any hiccups. We might be lost stardust finding each other and that may just be why we experience a sense of comfort when we meet certain individuals. These exchanges result in our souls being mended and contributes a step towards finding our peace.

The internet raised us and our apps are our playgrounds where most conversations take place. We have developed new means to ‘talk’ but need to work on methods to adapt our approach to communicate. Each being holds the potential to awaken a truth within us and this is perhaps why I enjoy witty banter and deep conversation where individuals are able to recognize the highest within each other. A mix of child-like curiousity, playfulness, intelligence and maturity that fulfills a much needed ‘real-convo fix’ via texts that are beyond small talk. An electric embrace or a digital Namaste of sorts.

Marla

 

I still remember you
Even though its been three years since we met
Three years since the only time we went out
And how you chose to sit on the floor of that French cafe as we ordered soup
As though nothing was wrong
Nothing was wrong and so I follow suit
Because I found it impressive
Or more like home rather

I still remember you
For your cheeky personality
And your facebook posts about Fight Club where you portray yourself as the perfect Marla
And me, still being Jack’s cold sweat… a bit too distant from your madness

Us being geminis mean that our twin souls could form the perfect ensemble
Of senseless insanity or profound profanity
It’s perhaps a bit too hazardous to imagine
But I wonder what our love would be like
Wild, crazy with a hint of kind
And I wonder what our kids would be like
Wild, crazy with a hint of kind

I still remember you
For the weird texts you’d send once in a while
About the last lame guy you dated and how my replys are full of regretful ‘I told you sos’

You, the Cleopatra of seven sands sprinkled with the right amount of madness like the Mad Hatter
And me, this big town boy unplugging myself from the matrix like Alice and wondering how deep the rabbit hole goes

I still remember you
For how much it took from us getting to know each other beyond our skin
And despite your cocky confidence, how I shredded that arrogance unknowingly
Just because we couldn’t be
Just because we didn’t need to be

I still remember
How before you left you confided how much you’d miss me
And how I told you that if I were stranded on an island and had to choose between you and a pineapple tree, I’d choose the pineapple tree and have cute pineapple babies

I no longer try to remember you
But you still show up on texts I re-read on lonely sleepless nights
You show up on random instagram likes
And facebook memories that somehow keep our memories alive

And it’s only now that I know
How badly I’ve missed you all along

Lost

“GROW UP!”
They would keep saying everytime I’m leading the argument
I don’t think I can grow past 5 foot 6 even if I tried at the age of 26
But if they’ve had to scream, then one thing is for sure
I am winning
Call it a guilty pleasure but I love that feeling of knowing that they’re wrong
Knowing that I have another opportunity for a ‘Hey, I told you so!’
As I smugly rub my facts on their faces like an unlikely messiah they would never be proud of
“I can’t wait to get a Mustang”, I tell my brother to which he replies
“Why don’t you focus on being a better human being first?”
If burns had names, I would call that the Angelina Jolie of them all
But two things – I did get my Mustang
And I feel like a crappier human being

Oh, what would it take for this soul to command the neurons in this brain to fire up the nerves within my spine to charge these fists to curve up against my ears and listen
Just listen
To those who tread past me on a road I didn’t entirely choose but I’ve had to make my way through this life I don’t seem to nearly want somehow
As I drive through this highway eagerly looking for a sign
Any sign
That can tell me which exit to take or which intersection eagerly awaits my arrival
For all I imagine my destination to be is some sort of a ghost town
Riddled with the souls of ancestors I did not know
I wish
I wish I could just hold those wise palms of my grand-dad again
And let each wrinkle tell me a story
Of how he lived his life as a 26 year old
Of how he found his exit
Of how he held grandma and told her how he loved her for the very first time
A grandma I never got to see
And even if came to it, I would want that palm to slap this face a bit
Straighten me up a little bit
Let my ego take a hit and tell me to stop feeling like

Shhhh…

It all comes down to this
I ain’t no knight in shining armor
My armor is rusty and bent as I stand in a battlefield
Fighting against this cancer in my mind that just won’t let me grow up
That tells me the truth of being born as a second generation Asian immigrant in an Arab land immersed in western media
I realize that I don’t even know what my accent is supposed to sound like
And then I’m caught in between ‘being yourself’ and ‘being different’
But in the quest of being too different I ended up losing myself

I have begun to realize
That just like a colourless rubik’s cube
There is no point in figuring me out
A black and white rainbow
That shines for none
And I’m forced to show you only two shades of me
Leaving the rest for you to seek
So tread carefully through the spectrums of this perfectly lost soul

I know I didn’t choose these cracks or scars
But all I can do is accept them since they are a part of my reality
And ignorance won’t ever keep the promise
Of making the stains disappear
I smear new colours over them
And dab on the canvas of the moment
To create a bigger picture

That’s the only beauty that remains
The beauty of this abstract mess called ‘life’

Exit

With every passing day, I look forward to death in a world where everyone is consumed with the thought of living forever without having lived in the first place

Every single day
Like peeling away the ‘fake assurance’ warranty sticker over and over again
You may recall your manufacturing date and place, but have you been promised a fancy deathbed with flowers
Or appropriate reasons for yet-to-be tears

Will location and season matter? Oh, is it too early you wonder
I’ve taken my guesses, perhaps splattered across the highway with my blood washed off from the tarmac by an officer with a bottle of cola
Or
Scarring the occasional ‘anniversaire’ routine with the uninvited heart-attack
While being rocked back and forth battling traffic in an ambulance with my eyes popping wide open with every helpless pump of the defibrillator
How about being taken away in a choke of an instant after an innocent meal with family?
Giving into years of battle riddled with syringes, chemotherapy and prescriptions
Never actually contemplated being killed but hey, anyone of you could pull out a piece
Or even alone, while asleep, between incomplete dreams
NO, no, not any more reassuring, probably far too painful to weep

An impending journey that shall be embarked by one’s own
Inescapable, that pre-booked single one-way ticket
What would you wait for? The perfect moment? An opportunity to rewind, go back and correct all the mistakes
Add those commas, edit those typos, re-write entire paragraphs
And all of a sudden, it all seems unaffordable more than ever
But I don’t know that yet
What I do know is that pain won’t be an option
And although you’ve desired the audience and have fed off their fictional reaction
None of them would eventually matter, for the guest list would guarantee just one
And he will visit

Having brushed past me ounces away in the form of near misses
He echoes in screeching brakes, drowning bubbles and earthquakes
And when it’s eventually time, it could be a knock on the door
Or a break-in
Or maybe he even sits beside you at this very moment with the question
‘Any final thoughts?’

For a life that hasn’t celebrated much, I have nothing to grieve
For a life that hasn’t accomplished much, I have no regrets
For a life that hasn’t dreamed, suffered, strived, cherished or loved, I have nothing to lose
And hence every night before I sleep, I silently whisper to him with my head held high,
‘Whenever you’re ready’.

Infinities

Days I’d up the ante

Are what I seek to remember of this world

Where you breathed excitement

Into this black and white soul

 

It’s like flying

Doing what you’re born to do

Knowing that each second is a memory

Imprinted into finite ‘infinities’

 

And at least in these moments where I’m complete

I won’t need to remember what it was like

To have existed before you

Pizza Boy

The pizza delivery boy got off the elevator and made his way across the eery corridor past flickering tubelights. Room 303 was the furthest door and there was nothing but silence.

The hallway began smelling like cheese and peperroni fresh out of the pizza box spinning in his hands as he jived to Nirvana blaring in his headphones. The door finally stared at him and the voice was quick to respond to his 3rd knock. “The key is on the door. You may unlock it.” The shrill voice said with uttermost calm.

Perplexed, the pizza boy noticed that the door was locked from the outside with a rusted key holding room 303 from the world. He stopped his iPod and wondered what this was all about. “Worry not”, said the voice again. “Money is under the mat. Keep the change and drop the pizza in.” With his heart at his throat, the boy reaches for the rusted key and turns it.

A quick flick and the door creaked open. Before him stood a wall with two passages on either side. It looked completely neat and sterile with a bright white bulb hanging from the ceiling in the middle, silently lighting the whole place. “Hurry up now. I’m famished!”. The voice jolted the boy. He rested the pizza box on the clean floor and quickly shut the door.

He then lifted the dusty mat that was pretty much glued down by cobwebs to reveal a hundred dollar bill. “I can’t keep all of it”, he said. The voice then replied, “I’m only kind when I’m hungry”. He tucked the note into his left pocket and couldn’t decide on what to do with the key stuck on the door.

All that was heard in the hallway was a quick click and the footsteps of a boy running to the elevator.

Spin

I saw the universe stir in her eyes
As her thoughts started to spin
Faster than ever
Accelerated by heart-beats
A choreographed symphony of atoms and molecules
Rehearsing their routine

The next beat commands me to back away
And leads her into a spin
Gazing into the heavens
She gracefully initiates our next turn
Into the unknown
While the planet is on a dance of it’s own
With the moon as company
In the sun’s merry-go-round
Orbiting tirelessly

Our solar-system may just be an extra
In the grand play of the milky-way
With billions of acquaintances spread apart over light-years
In an endless flash-mob
Chasing and running from each other
In universal harmony

Perhaps our lives hitting turbulence
Is the universe missing a step
Fumbling and gathering itself back again
To continue the dance
In this silent, celestial musical

From storms in a tea-cup
At the mercy of a mere spoon
To a whirlpool the size of seas
Birthing hurricanes and tornadoes
No spin shall be underestimated
For you never know what’s possible

It takes a few seconds
For us to be still again
As we look into each other’s eyes
And let our thoughts intertwine
It’s no wonder why
We go around in circles

I’ll be more of you
And you’ll be more of me
I’ll be where you’ve been
And you’ll see what I’ve seen

Thus, we dance with the universe
And the universe dances in us

Sunsets

This was a different dawn
Where I would rather usually be
Asleep in the darkness
You woke me to a new sunrise

In silence
A silence we befriended
To escape the chaotic loudness of our lives
And once again, our beloved mutual friend
Whispered to our souls, conspiring
To bring us together
Like two comets that pass each other
Every few hundred years through abstract space
Being the brightest light for the other
On a journey through darkness
But I believe in our fate being rooted to the stars
And that seals the real deal
If only they would align within this lifetime
So that the comets will eventually intertwine
Into a cosmic dance
A stellar show for no one else but us

In silence
Without another soul for light years
In our own heaven
We will find each other
After having travelled a lifetime full of adventures, stories and conversations
While having lived as poets, nomads, painters and troubadours
We will have more stories to tell
About all the sunsets we saw
And all the times our feet kissed the sand
As we learned to run on the beach

Alone
On different corners of the globe
But stronger with each stride
Not knowing where we would be tomorrow
Each step taking us further in life
Yet closer to each other
Or we could only hope
Because we would have to come home soon
A place where we eventually belong
No matter how far away from now
A home which isn’t limited to a geographic location or a memory
But a home our hearts yearn for with every dying beat
Where we would be alive more than ever for the rest of eternity

Let me call this the furthest moment
Because as each second passes
I know it would mean a second closer
To seeing each other again
Whenever that may be

For if it were truly destined
Then let this feeling be temporary
This life be perished
And we shall wait until the end of time
For our souls to play tag
Endlessly between the edges of the universe

With this, let me tell you
That home isn’t where the heart is
But where each heartbeat leads the soul
To the rest of forever
And I promise to be there
Before the beat stops

I’ll see you at sunset