The Promises

How many times have I looked up?
How many times have I promised you?
all the things I would do,
and all the things I never would.

And how many times did I break my promise?
And how many times did I speak to nothing?
but distance, and hope, and illusion.

A year it turns,
like my past in it's grave.
and still I wonder;
Where does this restless soul belong?
with the abandoned wind?
or the sporadic rain?
or perhaps in some new terrain?

Does it belong in someone else's arms?
or will it forever roam alone?

Should I promise you again?
and dream out loud ?
or should I forget your fraying clouds?

Is the answer in a book I've read?
or a song I've heard?
A path I've tread?
or a sea I have yet to meet?

Is the answer with a new friend?
My favourite colour?
the latest trend?

Will I make a new promise?
Just to break it again?
Will I become stagnant?
Will I find my catalyst?

Do you care for my promises?
Have you held my hand?
Will I find salvation?
Question marks.
My quest leaves marks.

I'm running out of noise.
I'm losing the spark.
That started the fire,
That lit my dark.

So is this how it is?
Is this how it ends?
or where it begins?

A new promise made.
A new hope to hold.
A new year to live.
A new promise to give.

How many times have I looked up?
Lowered my head?
Promises.
On messy beds.

So I'll promise you this.
the end of all 
my promises.
In case I haven't got it yet, 
the answer is in the disconnect.

200 Days

I once stood on a withered wharf,
and told the singing tides a tale.
I promised them that I'd always try,
and I'd never stop, though at times I'd fail.

I whispered to the crimson moon,
that my name will be in starlight soon.

I also told embracing clouds,
that I would not fit in with crowds.
And the wind agreed,
and brushed my hair.
and the sand it moved,
between my feet.

When sun it shone,
and kissed my skin,
I pointed to my lonely throne,
sturdy in my kingdom of sin.

I yelled towards an empty sky,
for my soul to hold another's heart.
I asked as well,
If loving your self,
was easier when in love you fell.

But as I lay,
with my last thought-
I slept with love, and all it brought;
When I fell in love with tedious days,
When I fell in love with an empty bed,
Full head.
When I fell in love singing blues,
when I fell in love in my dancing shoes.
Gardenia nights,
Turkish delights.

When I fell in love with a stormy vacation.
When I fell in love with random elation.

How I fell in love with nights on the wharf,
with promises made,
and all that fulfilled them.

Then I fell in love with death itself,
with everything that ended days.
I fell in love with living life -
my thoughts becoming crashing waves. 

The Mirage

Hope was born in the water. 

And oh!

how it glistened. 

And they sang her song along the way, 

but not an ear listened. 

And she surfaced for a brief gasp. 

Oh the violins how they played! 

How her faith it gently swayed. 

She surfaced with so much joy.

Anchored with a buoy.

So she played and she played.

Brave little girl. 

Curious in this scary little world. 

She met verity on the shore.

And they skipped through dusty dunes. 

Love letter to her Baghdad. 

Drowned in salty seas. 

Memories like dancing streams. 

Oh the green green grass. 

The sun kissed hair.

She moved on to that cleaner air. 

She even played, in sky scraping land. 

She even walked those Gothic streets. 

She even prayed in passive churches. 

Turquoise mosques,

Not ready for purchase. 

And somewhere along the way,

She forgot to float.

She forgot to swim. 

She forgot to let all that beauty in. 

The sand felt different. 

The water less clear. 

Though she crossed the desert. 

She now wondered with fear. 

She was burned with a question.

Will he ever see?

Peripheral vision. 

Grain of sand me? 

Was it a dream? 

Or her intuition? 

She collected bags of cynicism,

Criticism. 

Changed her mission.  

Oh the water! how it glowed!

Yes,

She was born by the streams, 

but it rarely showed. 

Let me see it again.

She turned to heaven.
Baptised in the illusion. 

Let me believe again.

She would welcome the delusion. 

At least it was hopeful.

At least it was naive. 

At least she could say,

I still believe. 

In Transit

Between 28 and You, 
I became 29. 
I lost my mind. 

Between 28 and you, I became numb. 
You turned to scum. 

You shattered my glass house, 
Shallow throws. 
But then again, 
I opened the doors.
The love was cheap. 
But I went Deep. 
On that first day,
when I heard you say
"no one will love you if you don't love yourself".
I laughed it off. 
Yes I was on a mission.
Full ignition.

I was ready to lose it all. 
I was finally ready for my fall. 
You attract what you are,
and I was bored in transit. 
I lit fire to my patience. 
I Hastily slashed my dignity.
I was going down, and you were going with me.

I can't say I didn't see it coming, 
but it hurts nonetheless.
I just didn't know,
that you were better at making a mess.

I tried everything to drown my thoughts.
I circled the dark waters.
I gazed at the shiny towers. 
I passed by silent saris.
Sweaty labourers. 
Scantily clad lovers. 
Innocent eyes. 
Indifferent joggers. 

I'm just a grain of sand.
Blowing in the wind. 

Between 28 and 29.
I was just fine.

So I retold my story. 
I just tripped up.
I lost my grip.
Afterall,
How do you rise without a fall? 

And even in transit, 
you can't fall asleep. 
And this transit is long.
And it's making me weep. 
And it's making me strong.
And when I catch the connection, 
you better be ready. 

And there's no better place. 
There's no other time. 
Re-write the story.
29. 
You're just fine.
And you'll be more than that. 
Just take your time. 
Take in his first line.
Forget everything else.
"No one will love you, if you don't love yourself".

Don't fall asleep. 
Remember your connection.
Don't be complacent.
Pay attention. 

Between 28 and 29. 
I was more than just fine.
I was Mine.

I became water.
I became light.
I took flight. 

Of Monsoons and War

I camouflage in laughter.
And I stab them with self-deprecation.
I gun them down with wit.
Yeah.
I'm a hit.

'you're so funny'
They proclaim -
often not knowing my name.
And I grin from ear to ear
As I wipe away their fear.

I cushion them with comfort,
and I battle on through.
Sand bags up and ready,
I continue to shoot.

But if you get close,
you can sense what's off.
And they start to ask 'haven't you had enough?"
"get out of your head! It's not that tough!"
But I wish I could show them,
the iota of love
That stays behind, when they all disappear.
That stays behind. When the silence is filled.
The ringing in my ear, after the grenades dismantle.

Sometimes it's all
Too much to handle. 

You see, it's a fog,
from a monsoon of thoughts.
But I wish I could show them,
how hard it becomes,
To flat with your nemisis.
To live with your hate.
Theres always an enemy,
waiting at the gate.

And then there's the guilt
the guillotine of guilt.
I survive the battle,
but I'm numb to the joy.
and I wish I could give someone else this toy.
Maybe they'd love it more,
maybe they'd use it better.

I soldier on,
Hyperactive funny one.
Bubbly girl, Lively lady. 
Filling the silence,
as much as I can.
Because for a moment,
The sun seeps through.
I see them glow.
I seem them smile.
and I forget what I know.
At least for a while.

The fog is clearing.
The monsoon drizzles.
I forget all my worries,
because my stories are my missiles.

And we finally burned....

Highly Flammable

It's funny, looking back on the post below....I thought everything will be different now. I'd be free and I'd be patting myself on the back.

Truth is, 5 months later, and I'm trying to collect the yellow in a bag of M&Ms. Today was the all time low however. No need to go into detail, because my mind will put that on repeat for a while... but I hadn't cried like this in a long time. I think it was because I finally walked away, not just from my first 'relationship', but from my low self worth, my impatience, my self torture. 

I hope it was a finally, and I don't look back on this post some months from now and feel the same. 

In other news, I turn 29 tomorrow. The last of my 20's. Numbers are starting to matter to me less and less, and I suppose that's the great thing with age. I've always imagined myself with someone by my side on my birthday....singing my praises and toasting to our love....

But today I realized that the person has been with me all along. And thats me. 

This year I'll sing my praises....this year I'll stop with the empty promises to myself. Its all within. 

I've had enough of running to different countries, trying to find something that's been inside me all along. I've had enough of blaming my mother for all the bullshit, I've had enough thinking its all about falling in love with some prince charming. Everything is in my hands and tomorrow i'm giving myself the greatest gift of all. 

Love. 

In abundance. 

And when I find that self love again, I'll be home. 

Happy born day to me x

The waltz and the devil

Too late I said.

I've let the devil in. 

He grabbed a hold and let me sin. 

I hugged you so tightly, 

I don't know when I broke free. 

But I'm dancing with the devil now -

Why can't I just be? 

We danced the Waltz and the tango,

the horizontal mambo.
Yes I'm dancing with the devil now -

And I seem to know how. 

We took a break and I repented,

Prayer beads in hand. 

You must have known I just pretended. 

The spell of a man. 

I danced with the devil

Stomped all over holy days. 

We shook and we laughed, 

Conscious only when we parted ways. 

I want to leave the party, 

I want to stop this dance. 

Take me back to alone.

Save me from this trance. 

Be careful what you wish for. 

The devil whispered clear. 

Dance a little longer, 

The end is almost near. 

Blood shed on this holy month. 

I murdered all my faith. 

The world it crumbles all around,

I feel it's not my place. 

To ask you for forgiveness, 

To witness your grace. 

But I can't hide my face from heaven. 

The crescent moon still shines. 

And I dance with him every time he asks -

to you it's no surprise.

Please save me I'm in trouble,

I want to stop this dance. 

Dear lord lets pop this bubble -

I can no longer raise my hands.

To pray for your forgiveness - 

To ask you for your light. 

Dear lord this dance is tiring

Its now a breathless fight. 

I'm dancing with the devil,

no words - just conscious pain. 

Inflicted on my body, 

I left him in my veins. 

Original Sin

I have tried to summarize the experiences of the past three weeks into a few words, but I've let go of so many things - that I don't know where to collect these words. I hope I found something in my attempt at disregard. At living. Everyday I woke up trying to find how I felt in words. The ones that came to mind were mainly numb, lost, impulsive. I was a sinner in trance. Mean and lazy... I felt asleep, but I knew I was awake. 

In all this confusion, I watched the film 'Night train to Lisbon', which is based on the best selling book of the same name. There is a lengthy passage from the book, which said everything...and meant everything to me when I read it. Has that ever happened to you? You hear or read or meet someone and they say something exactly when and where you needed to hear it. So, it was this passage which made me feel alive... and I realized, that maybe the only word I need to use right now is Alive. 


"I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need their beauty and grandeur I need them against the vulgarity of the world. I want to look up at the illuminated church windows and let myself be blinded by the unearthly colors. I need their luster. I need it against the dirty color of the uniforms.

I want to let myself be wrapped in the austere coolness of the churches. I need their imperious silence. I need it against the witless bellowing of the barracks yard and the witty chatter of the yes-man. I want to hear the rustling of the organ, this deluge of ethereal tones.

I need it against the shrill farce of marches. I love praying people. I need the sight of them. I need it against the malicious poison of the superficial and the thoughtless.

I want to read the powerful words of the Bible (Quran). I need the unreal force of their poetry. I need it against the dilapidation of the language and the dictatorship of slogans. A word without these things would be a world I would not like to live in.

But there is also another world I don’t want to live in: the world where the body and independent thought are disparaged, and the best things we can experience are denounced as sins.

How are we to be happy without curiosity, without questions, doubts and arguments? Without joy of thinking? The two words like a sword stroke cutting off your head, they mean nothing less than a demand to live our feelings and act against our thinking, they are the summons to a complete split, the order to sacrifice what is the core of our happiness: the internal unity and coherence of our life.

In His omnipresence, the Lord observes us day and night, every hour, every minute, every second, he keeps a ledger of our acts and thoughts, He never lets us alone, never spares us a moment completely to ourselves. What is man without secrets? Without thoughts and wishes that only he, he alone, knows?

Who could in all seriousness want to be immortal? Who would like to live for all eternity? How boring and stale it must be to know that what happens today, this month, this year, doesn’t matter: endless more days, months, years will come. Endless, literally.

If that was how it was, would anything count? We would no longer need to calculate time, nothing could be missed, we wouldn’t have to rush; It would be the same if we did something today or tomorrow, all the same. A million omissions would become nothing before eternity, and it would make no sense to regret something for there would always be time to make up for it.

Nor could we live for the day, for this happiness lives on the awareness of passing time, the idler is an adventurer in the face of death, a crusader against the dictate of haste. When there is always and everywhere time for all and everything. How should there still be room for the joy of wasting time?

A feeling is no longer the same when it comes the second time. It dies through the awareness of its return. We become tired and weary of our feelings when they come too often and last too long. In the immortal soul, a gigantic weariness and a flagrant despair must grow in view of the certainty that it will never end, never.

Feelings want to develop and we through them. They are what they are because they retreat from what they used to be and because they flow toward a future where they will diverge. If this stream flowed into infinity: thousands of feelings must emerge in us that we, used to a foreseeable time, cannot even imagine. So that we really don’t know what is promised us when we hear of the eternal life. How would it be to be us in eternity, devoid of the consolation of being someday released from the need to be us? We don’t know, and it is a blessing that we never will. For one thing we do know: it would be hell, this paradise of immortality.

It is death that gives the moment its beauty and its horror: Only through death is time a living time. Why does the Lord, the omniscient God, not know that? Why does He threaten us with an endlessness that must mean unbearable desolation?

I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need the luster of their windows, their cool stillness, their imperious silence. I need the deluge of the organ and the sacred devotion of praying people. I need the holiness of words, the grandeur of great poetry.
All this I need. But just as much I need the freedom and hostility against everything cruel. For the one is nothing without the other. And no one may force me to choose". 

Spoken word.

Love, you are in need;
My back is bent and I taste defeat.
Pouring bullets -
so I learn to retreat.

For what is your past without pillars?
What is your ocean without waves?
The shores that define you,
now hold your graves.

Oh sweet tragedy!
Blessed with resource.
I learnt to follow hate -
because you showed me no recourse.

Yet here I am beside you brother -
To pull gently at your ear.
Because we're going under brother,
They made it pretty clear.
That all you have is fear brother.
All you have is fear.
And I can't blame you brother -
When loss is all you know,
and Haram is all you hear.

But I brush away the ignorance,
I want you to trust this.
And you can't look at that word brother;
Cos Power don't hold hands with Justice.

Reeds of the river,
dates in the trees.
Your beauty once brought men to their knees.
And when I recount your youth,
they all say 'oh please!'
They can't imagine this land at ease.

Your smell is deep inside and I can't disconnect.
Nostalgia is everything they haven't killed yet.
Your smile when the night died,
as the copper sun beamed.
And the sound of morning prayer -
good lord it streamed.

Brother I know your back is bent.
But lets not lament -
and hold on steady like cement.
Baghdad to Damascus,
Tehran to Beirut -

They stir and we uproot,
but brother your soul;
they can't dilute.

Organic

Sometimes it takes as long as a million revelations and the constant rocking back and forth to reach this moment. Where all things stand still and swirl in the same instant. And life becomes so painfully simple. That deep breath in when you finally recognize your face in the mirror and reclaim your soul. 

(2.36 - 2.45): 

"...and remember my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others...". 

Iron sky

We are proud individuals living on the city,
But the flames couldn’t go much higher.
We find God and religions to,
To paint us with salvation.
But no one,
No nobody,
Can give you the power,

To rise over love,
And over hate,
Through this iron sky,
That’s fast becoming our minds.
Over fear and into freedom.

Oh, that’s life
That’s dripping down the walls
Of a dream that cannot breathe
In this harsh reality
Mass confusion spoon fed to the blind

Serves now to define our cold society

Hibernate

 I wanna go south of the river, glacier slow in the heart of the winter. 
I wanna go south of the river, facing alone in the heart of the winter.

When I write in this blog, sometimes funny things happen. I came very close to destiny a few days ago. Fate and serendipity and love. But it was not mutual. It was not exclusive. It was a rare and unexpected connection with a young man. He was everything I thought I wanted. That meeting taught me a lot about how I sabotage myself, because as much as I say I want to be in love - I'm not ready for it just yet. For years I've focused on all the wrong things, and I've forgotten to live in the moment. I've forgotten gratitude and goal setting. I was consumed with the idea of love. The past two days fate gave me a glimpse of what might have been, and how unprepared I was to allow someone in. The insecurities, the rush and the need to handcuff any hint of love. It was emotionally fulfilling to be so open with him, yet so draining at the same time. I realised that I have to deal with the fact that I may never be your first, but you will be my first everything. I have to be ready to embrace that - to see that fact in a different light. God sends you these people - momentarily, for a while or forever - and time will tell you the difference.  It was deep. We talked about fear. I almost got real....but not quite. 

Application Generation

I long for the days when someone would see you across the room, and fall madly in love. Make an effort. Flash you a smile. Even walk across the room, entranced by your aura. Just to talk to you. Conversation. Connection. Seeping through your senses kind of elation. Not a temporary high. Not a disposable encounter. I long for the days when chivalry was alive. When men had standards. Are these just stories for movie scripts? Or was there a time in the past when love existed? When you didn't have wassap, or an Iphone, or Tinder or facebook. When you had to rely on the art of conversation. The whirlwind of wooing. When you felt like you were worth something. When passionate letters were exchanged and longing glances where immortalized. Nothing was as easy as the swipe of a finger, the click of a button, the facade of a text. I feel like it's finally time to stop wishing and waiting for an era long gone. 


It was a sad day when I let you go.
All naivety and desperation, out the window. 
It was a sad day when I finally shut the door.
When I finally picked up what was on the floor.

It was a tough morning when I dressed for myself.
When I made myself pretty for me and no one else. 
When I ate right, and thought right and returned to heart.
When I ran for my mind. 
And walked for my soul.
And you were still gone.
And I was still trying to balance hope and reality.
Oh the vanity.  

And it was agonizing to continue this way. 
To erase something that was only ever written with lead.
Sketched inside my head.
I was using the wrong stencil.
I sharpened the wrong pencil. 

It took longer than a while, patience tangled;
but I came home.
And I wasn't going to draw you again.
But the door was unlocked, and the ceiling shone. 
And you walked in -
Your best form.
Real and uninhibited.
And you saw love.
And it was unapologetic, and it was sure.
and it raised the bar and you weren't afraid.
Pull ups galore.
It wasn't double guessing.
Like a statute in a square. 
The war was over.
And I was there. 

I don't know where I'm going
But, I sure know where I've been
Hanging on the promises
In songs of yesterday
An' I've made up my mind,
I ain't wasting no more time
But, here I go again
Here I go again

Tho' I keep searching for an answer,
I never seem to find what I'm looking for
Oh Lord, I pray
You give me strength to carry on,
'Cos I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams

An' here I go again on my own
Goin' down the only road I've ever known,
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone
An' I've made up my mind
I ain't wasting no more time

I'm just another heart in need of rescue,
Waiting on love's sweet charity
An' I'm gonna hold on
For the rest of my days,
'Cos I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams

An' here I go again on my own
Goin' down the only road I've ever known,
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone
An' I've made up my mind

I ain't wasting no more time

Single Status

It was December, when I said yes to love. 
When I found out, that inside out is where I'd begin.
It was December when the room was full of light.
Fruitpunch delight. 
Emancipation in Hazy Sight. 
No longer Nostalgic.
All I gotta do is fall in love,
Stop with the self titled tragic. 

And it was a morning in December.
Scraping the edge of a new moon.
Mid afternoon.
When I decided, it was time to fall in love...
with you.