Poetry

Allah loves the immigrant

Last night
Last nite I
Last night I was awoken
Last Night I was awoken to the cadence of another argument on the street.
This one in Portuguese.
And due to my ability to learn languages ably by ever so sharp receptivity to tone.

A-gift
A gift bestowed
A gift bestowed unto me by PTSD.
My indigeneity became a violence remind to the immigrant of my own belonging.

I could hear the music in the meaning and the meaning in the music of the cadence of this man during the concert for his love.

To the
To the liquid pleading
To the liquid pleading for the pleasure that a single understanding could be encountered if we just try.

He discovered in the place that for one to be recognized as a lover who could not be replaced.
Could
Could not
Could not be replaced as a lover of the affair
if recognized to be a lover.
A lover of the affair. Then that may be enough.

All this
All this communication
All this communication in vibrato often repeated in a language I don’t know but in a tone I comprehend.
Witness to the refran; “mas ha amor, MAs ha amor, MAs ha amor Ali”

I am awoken to the authority of a man pleading with authority…..
Something about sleeping and emptiness somehow all sounded dignified,
like a man who seeks forgiveness when he carries nothing to hide,
a man transformed by submission into what was never wrong,
an immigrant to his own heart begging to be let back in inside.

YAllah please let me love again.

The shortest journey isn't measured in miles, but in the distance between Mr. and My. Even sunrise and sunset whispers the same question "when will 'Mr.' become 'My'?" 💞

Love is a choice.
It chooses to stay,
to remain,
in the right heart,
not the ready one.

Your gaze will move to someone else.
I can live without that gaze that once used to be mine.
You will be someone else's.
But I forgot how life is without you .
Why did you weave empty dreams?
I thought you were the peace I longed for but you turned to be the one who took away my peace.

The Person I Used to Be
Sometimes I wonder how many versions of me have already lived and quietly disappeared.
The child who thought growing up would answer every question.
The dreamer who believed every goodbye would eventually become another hello.
The one who thought there would always be more time.
None of them are here anymore.
Yet somehow, they still live inside the choices I make, the prayers I whisper, the regrets I carry, and the hopes I refuse to bury.
Perhaps growing older is not becoming someone new.
Perhaps it is gently saying goodbye to the people we no longer are, while asking Allah to make the person we are becoming better than every version we have left behind.
And if one day I am remembered at all,
I hope it is not because I lived the loudest, owned the most, or knew the most.
I hope it is because, with every passing year, I tried to become a little more sincere, a little more grateful, and a little closer to Allah than the person I used to be.

When the Sun Smiled
When the sun smiled,
the moon shivered.
It watched from a distance and wondered,
How can you smile?
You burn without warning.
You stretch your warmth until it becomes too much to bear.
You leave the earth thirsty.
You make tired people search for shade.
You remind everyone that even light can hurt.
So why are you smiling?
The sun smiled again.
The moon grew angry.
Not because of the smile,
but because it could not understand it.
It thought a smile could only belong to someone who had never carried pain.
It thought warmth meant ease.
It thought light meant peace.
It never stopped to ask
whether the smile was hiding a thousand quiet battles.
Perhaps the sun was not smiling because it was happy.
Perhaps it was smiling because it had learned that the sky would still expect it to rise,
even on the days it felt too tired to shine.
And perhaps we are not so different.
How often do we look at someone's smile
and mistake it for a life without sorrow?
How often do we expect people to carry themselves
the way we think they should,
while forgetting that we, too,
fall short of the very expectations we place on others?
Maybe wisdom begins
when we stop judging the light we can see
and start remembering
that every heart carries a night
it rarely speaks about.
Sometimes the brightest smile
is not joy.
It is courage.
It is someone quietly choosing
to rise again.

Give man bread
Give man game
Keep him distracted
He will never complain

Meanwhile his brothers
are slain
Recorded and shared
In sight plain

Is this real?
Am I going insane
We strived to be Abel
And instead followed Cain

“Freedom of speech”
Is what they preach
Sucking your soul like a leech
your attention is under breach
Technological warfare
And biological Seige

Where is the ummah
We are on a dopamine high
Neglecting our inner
No unity it’s “me myself and I”

Let’s sit below the clear sky,
On the carpets made by God, with nothing but a sigh.
While you bring chairs and I bring chai,
We don’t talk, just stare into the abyss
I blow my smoke while you watch the stars drift by.

The night grows cold, but neither asks why,
Some silences speak what words only deny.
Your eyes hold questions; mine quietly reply,
And for a moment, beneath that endless sky,
The world feels small.......just you, the chai, and I.

Aao, is shaffaf aasman ke neeche baithen,
Khuda ke bune hue qaleen par, bas ek aah ko saath liye.
Tum kursiyan le aana, main chai le aaunga,
Aur hum apni khamoshi ko darmiyan bitha denge.
Na tum kuch kehna, na main koi lafz chhedunga,
Bas khalaa ko takte rahenge, jab tak woh hamara aks na ho jaaye.

Main dhuen mein apna bojh falak ko saunpata rahunga,
Tum sitaron ko aahista aahista hijrat karte dekhna.
Raat sardi odhti jayegi, magar hum sabab na poochhenge,
Kuch khamoshiyan woh iqraar hoti hain, jinse alfaaz umr bhar mukarte hain.

Tumhari aankhon mein sawaal thehrenge, meri nigah chupke se jawaab degi,
Aur ek lamhe ko, us la muntahi aasman ke neeche,
Saari kainaat simat kar bas itni reh jayegi
Tum, chai, aur main.