The Other Side of Love ~

She was that girl on the other side of Love

Her radical heart falls for destructiveness

She rushed like a little girl into rosary illusions

With an eager pace, with that thirsty half smile

Enchanted by half-cares, by glossy small talks

By pseudo-promises, and fickle attachments

So unloved, yet she loves so …

Her heart-breaks became redundant rituals

Of self-deceptions and phony intimacies

She was the girl on the other side of Love

 Hopeful in her numbness ..

Dreamy despite her thwarted fantasies  

Her heart-failures …

A Tale through - The Symphony Within ~

                                               Ode To My Violin

(Photo Credit: Hamza Butt)

They say that the violin is the most human of all instruments ...  Wordless it is, but it can reach the deepest realms of the human inner landscape …It can also portray the human being’s journey through a wilderness, through Life itself …

When we first touch a violin, we are stepping into an enigmatic wilderness where anything and everything is expected … Our attempt to locate an eery note on a black fretless fingerboard is similar to our continuous attempts to locate ourselves in a dark and mysterious wilderness …

 It almost appears like our consistant trials to find ourselves in life and discover our special spot on the universe.

The note escapes us at first, just like our vision becomes blurry at some point in life. Approaching a violin is approaching Life …

When we make those scratchy sounds, those painful first mistakes, we are experiencing our first wounds in a wilderness, our first slurs, unfortunate falls and mosquito bites … We lose our way, we stumble and we fall into a pit, perhaps like mistakenly touching a lower string …

All these mishaps seem to be a lot like our failures, disappointments, wrong turns, plot twists and clumsy decisions in our existence on earth …

We humans often make bad decisions because Life presents us with choices, challenges and possibilities that leave our minds in wonder and hesitation; Just like when we are lost amid a hostile forest and we need to choose a direction that might lead us to the safe shore …

Its roads are dim, hidden and ominous. Its bushes are dense and scary, its awe-inspiring trees are impregnated with danger.

 These roads are reminiscent of the multiple paths of Life … And this image calls to our minds the four long strings that constitute a violin.

Each string encapsulates a number of notes and these notes are translated into unique and distinct sounds … We get grave and deep sounds if we choose an upper string and softly lyrical sounds if we choose one of the lower strings.

The melodies we produce are the outcome of our choices in Life, of that particular road in the wildness … They can be beautiful, rich and heart-warming or cold, vacant and mechanical … The musical shades that color our days …

However, this wilderness does not remain forever hostile … A rigid earth needs constant care, it requires daily efforts to blossom, it needs to be sowed with love in order to reap beauty and harmony …

This is how we proceed in Life, it gets more familiar, gentler and clearer as we carry on our existence, we begin to understand it, to undress it and to embrace it. Isn’t this how we build a precious bond with the violin ?

The farther we go upon those strings, the more comfortable we get in our skin touching that wooden piece of magic … We acquire deeper knowledge and we sink into intimacy with our instrument …

As we gain more wisdom advancing in Life, we become almost one with the violin when getting closer to the bridge, our final stop …

And that good old wilderness is not that wild anymore; it is soothing, therapeutic, loving and abundant. 

This humble piece of writing was inspired by Hamza Butt, a dear fellow Pakistani violinist. 

In-betweenness ~

She is a girl in her early twenties

 The roaring twenties

But they want to tame her

They say “You are a big girl, act like it”

Thing is “She’s not a girl, neither a woman”

Funny how a Britney Spears old song crossed her mind that day

It wasn’t a dying thought; it was Illumination coming her way …

She paused for a moment, trying to frame what suddenly hit her

It wasn’t an afterthought, a vision, a random image or a déjà-vu

It was a new conviction, a strong belief that seized her entire being

Her eyes probed the blank space

Her body muscles loosened

She sat on the edge of her bed

Carelessly playing with the strings of her violin

Repeating to the empty room: “I’m not a girl, neither a woman”

As if she’s trying to compose an ode to celebrate her liminal self

Her “Liminal Self” .. 

They taught her that liminality is a miserable state of being

That inbetweenness is a lost soul, a faceless body,

A heart that wants to belong somewhere …

Thing is, she didn’t want to belong anywhere

She is in-between , she is unlabeled, she is free

She’s not a girl, neither a woman

She’s this and she’s that

She’s both and she’s not ..

She wants to sing with her scratchy voice

And play with her hair

She wants to sleep with her mouth opened

And her hands spread on the pillow like an angel

She once believed in that, she wants to believe again

She wants to wear unmatching socks and giggle with her friends

She wants to dance barefoot to her favorite song

And hide under a tent made of tiny pillows

She wants to make random decisions while she still can

“She’s not a girl, neither a woman”

She’s a light essence, strange yet familiar

Innocent and wise, clumsy and classy

A little girl in high heels 

A rebel with a black hair and bitten nails

A shy girl with granny glasses

A smartypants kid making faces to strangers

She’s this and that

She’s all and she’s nothing ..

She keeps revolutionary books

She wakes at dawn to write poetry

She plans her week on sticky notes

She bites her lips when she gets an idea

She keeps a teddy bear when studies

She’s almost a woman with the heart of a child

She’s this and that

She’s all and she’s nothing

“She not a girl, neither a woman”

She holds fierce thoughts

But she quickly blushes

She gasps when she cries

Her lips quiver when she lies

She lifts her head up into the air when she laughs

She grins when she wins an argument

She’s a so called “young woman”

 But her younger self refuses to leave 

She’s this and that

She’s all and she’s nothing

"She’s not a girl, neither a woman” ..

In limbo, she wallows in carelessness

She rejoices in her inbetweenness

She’s uncategorized…

“To define is to limit”, her Oscar Wilde whispers in her ear

She is limitless, fearless, unbridled, unbounded

She can go on a random road trip with her retarded friends

She can stay up all night re-watching her favorite show

She can have breakfast at lunch, take a nap into the evening

 Go for a run at night, do laundry while dancing to music of her neighbors’ party

She can discover the guide-less corners of her country

She can give free hugs in the street to make a point

She can learn a new language, pick up a new instrument

 Dream a new dream, set new goals ..

She’s undecidable, irreconcilable, uncertain, uncontrollable

 She’s happy because she’s unclassified

She’s strong because she’s undefined

She’s Invincible because she’s self-sufficient

She is not bound to state or a person

She responds to her impulse  

She follows her heart

She acts upon her nature ..

She’s unthinkable, unpredictable, undefiable , unstoppable

She wants to age is no regrets

“Now is good”, now is the only possibility

She cherishes her liminality

Because liminality is not a loss 

 Alienation or estrangement

Liminality is a soul found,

 Innocence celebrated, memories made …

In that old negation, she has found her elation

“She’s not a girl, neither a woman” ...

She Is Made Of Music ~

She slipped from under the warm pile of her bed sheets, for once she was reluctant to  wallow in her daily ritual of lazy and empty mornings. The wooden floor was cold under her feet, but she did not walk on her toes as was her ordinary girly habit. She marched steadily with a shadow of a smile almost touching her cheeks. She had a confident air that day, her eyes wore the color of morning and her skin wore the color of summer. Her brown hair embraced the breezy light as she stepped into her small balcony. It smelled of bitter coffee and old books. She remembered the night before, expectation kept her awake till the aurora light started to beam.

 Her eyes examined the street before her as if watching a surreal painting. The city seems tired and  drowsy, slowly ushered towards its daily demise. It will rise again, but the idea was not exciting. Every morning, it witnesses a battle of souls; the safety to remain in one’s shell,  or the risk of toiling to no avail. Routine, like a subtle monster, gently coaxing the moving bodies to settle in their cubicles to make money and produce a standardized brand of happiness.
  

Her young soul acquired the habit of reflecting upon these old-new miseries. She had an eye For the underlying pains of commonality. However, this time, her whole being was directed towards the promise of a sunny afternoon, of a new love, of holding hands without fear of letting go.

She was made of disappointments, but molded to dream again after every fall. She was familiar with the act of crumbling to the floor; it took stages and phases foreign to medical explanations. The naked eye only beholds weary muscles and bent figures. It is the labor of the spirit. Healing makes the spirit ancient.

 First, she becomes numb; she sits on her bed for hours, her head resting on her bent knees, her eyes staring at nothing .. then she suddenly closes in focus as if listening to a soothing lullaby stemming from earth .. she tries to word her pain into some fragmented lines on a rugged paper, but letters soon desert her .. It is not easy to capture a feeling, depiction is betrayal, her hand loosens the pen .. There is a peculiar symphony of sadness that only the miserable can hear, notes so furtively played at the back of her mind, she can see their harmony with her mind’s eye, she can feel  their relevance with her resigned pulse .. At last, she crawls into herself and listens to the symphony that cries her being .. She survived.