Asma Maryam Ali

Truth is, we spend much of our lives dreaming of what could be-what should’ve been and what would’ve been. We watch the stars at night and trail the setting of the sun with our eyes. We mourn the passing of every great moment, and we torture ourselves with regrets from days long gone. We entertain the thoughts of “what if”, sprinkling our minds with these words assuming somehow if we just did something different our lives would’ve been different. 
 
We would be different. 
 
Maybe more confident, or successful, more spirited or even at peace, or a thousand different things. And in time this word becomes our silent mantra: our daily mental chant to ourselves, like a lullaby that lulls us to sleep every night of a different time and place, a better future: and falling through the cracks we hear maybe… we wouldn’t have made as many mistakes or had as many regrets, and now looking back we see where we went wrong and what we did wrong– errors in judgment that cost us so much or setbacks that set us back for so long… 
 
Or tiny little lies that spiralled out of control, mutating into monsters of ferocious power that somehow turned the tables on us. Until looking into the mirror becomes an ordeal, until seeing the person staring back at you becomes a war you fight everyday, subconsciously, unknowingly. And slowly, but surely, we end up hating who we’ve become. The person we no longer recognize that deals with the rest of the world while our real selves are kept hidden and locked away, in a tiny, cramped corner of our souls. 
 
And yeah, we might laugh off our problems as issues we’ve solved and not something that goes far into the tissues of our very beings–instead turning our tears into ammunition. The kind of fight so critical to our sanity we brush off and turn into soulless jokes of a cheap kind. Hoping to be the center of entertainment, and so entertaining others because it keeps us occupied and distracted from that void within that plagues us to no end. 
 
And just for a few moments we can ignore who we’ve become and instead bask in the admiration of others, seeing as they might. Confident, vibrant, full of life. A light that draws others like moths to a flame. Even though that light burns inside.

Edil Ibrahim

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I would blow a breath

Let it fill the sky and earth with

Life that will never fail

And tie this wandering vessel to

one shore of this expanse

That it might be content

Dig up the old and rotten

To unearth the roots

Which hold us down

I’d know where pain is

And how to create my eden

Here on Earth.

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Where is your face when it matters
Your eyes see much more than you know
You stand tall behind thin air and towers
The time comes, you are empty and cold.

You claim to have so much to give of yourself
Of what matters the most you have none
The world rests on assumptions and patterns
You do well with the worst of them.

Where is that passionate warrior
Who loves more than he fears
Her quiet revolution
Will one day change the world.

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Friendship IXX by Khalil Gibran

And a youth said, “Speak to us of Friendship.”

Your friend is your needs answered.

He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.

And he is your board and your fireside.

For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own
mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”

And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;

For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all
expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as
the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not
love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.

If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?

Seek him always with hours to live.

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing
of pleasures.

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

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Do you know truth?Have you seen light
  in a face?
Heard light
  in a voice?
Resonated with light?

Have you breathed sweetness?
 Has it moved through you?
 A resounding peace.
  It has revitalized you.
  It has brought you to rest.

Have you seen peace in footsteps?
  –Do you know that earth?
  You know it well.
  You speak together
  when you are reduced.
   Now, too, when you arise.

Have you made the connection?
  Felt
  the connection
  They have come upon you
  –answers to calls you never made,
  ‘here, here,
  not there.’

In darkness you are in darkness.
In light you are in light.

Do you know truth?

–January, 2004

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Hope is in you

You the single mother

Fighting for your child

Eating sparsely

But in your choice

To teach morals and love

There is hope in you. 

Hope is in you

You the peace activist

Fighting for life

Facing rejection

But through your pen

Writing, protesting

There is hope in you. 

Hope is in you

You the student

Fighting to be educated

Hardship upon hardship

But in your time

Spent reading, studying

There is hope in you. 

Hope is in you

You the teacher

Striving to educate

Disrespect and depreciation

But in your effort

To teach what you know

There is hope in you. 

Hope is in you

You the human being

Struggling to live

In a painful world

But in your actions

Of kindness and consideration

There is hope in you. 

This is a poem that I wrote when I was 15, and I still have so much hope in You.

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