Sam.

Dearest Sam, I know it's been a while since I've written, but you always said that complacency was the enemy of our condition.

How are you doing, my beauty queen? I hope that you and Moona are dancing on the sun,
that you have seen the world together, and that you are having endless fun.

It's been nearly four years to the day that I last saw your face, when your soul expired and decided that you'd had enough of this dreary place.

You were barely forty, a life taken from us far too soon,
at night, I lie awake in bed, and imagine us running hand in hand, exploring the surface of the moon.

Even though you may be gone, you have never been this alive,
your laughter in my mind is so loud sometimes, that I can almost swear that you survived.

Living in this city that we shared, everywhere I go is home to your ghost,
those are the moments I hold on to the tightest, that is when I miss you most.

The heartache of losing you will never disappear,
although I accept the loss, it is still my greatest fear.

You raised me to be strong, showed me how to stand taller than the rest,
the least that I can do to repay you, is ensure that I stay blessed.

My confidence was lacking until you showed me how to love myself,
I swear I would not be the man I am today if it weren't for your help.

I watched you from a distance, emulated your communication style, and even the way you only revealed your troubles to your pen,

more than just losing a sister, I grieve the loss of my best friend.

Sometimes, I am perfectly fine then suddenly reminded of you,
then these tears escape from my eyes, even in public, and drown me in the blues.

It could be in something as simple as hearing a song you loved, or the fragrant smell of jasmine, which was always your favourite scent,

even meeting someone with your name fills my heart with wistful merriment.

Either way, my darling girl, please know, that the absence of roses on your grave does not mean that you do not reside in my heavy heart,
my soul belongs to you, my eternal beloved, and awaits the day when we are no longer apart.

With all the unconditional love in the world, your brother Kashif.

❤

Lifespan.

In the beginning, we were like little children

experiencing blowing bubbles for the very first time. 

Our innocence was endearing,

as we discovered what it meant to feel alive. 

Every breath contained the promise of adventure,

and every conversation revealed hidden treasures. 

I was so foolish, in retrospect, to believe that we could not run out of pleasure.

You found me, and it was like our hearts had always beaten as one,

I could’ve sworn we shared a pulse, our days were filled with endless fun.

Soon, we would finish one another’s sentences,

and knew each other inside out. 

I could name all of your favourite songs,

and retell stories of your childhood without getting any details wrong.

We were accomplished lovers, and communicated with great skill.

There was no need for roller coasters, you already filled me with such thrill.

Our friends would often refer to us as a pair,

and whenever I needed you, I’d turn and you were already there.

We were as natural as the birds and the bees,
made as much sense as music on MTV.

You were the only one who had ever made me feel this way,
as my days were filled with visions of the children we would raise.

But all good things come to an end, they say,

perhaps I should’ve listened more.

Our laughter was quickly silenced by the injustices of war.

I would look your way, searching for the kind eyes that made me fall in love,

only to be met with fine lines that spoke volumes about exhaustion and mistrust.

I know I am not easy to love, I told you from the very start,

yet somehow you still wanted to capture my fickle heart.

It was due time you told me you were unhappy,

with tears streaming down your cheeks that summer day.

You said, “We need to talk,” and I started to dig my own grave.

I thought that you were everything, but it turned out you did not feel the same.

As we let go of one another’s hands, and went our own separate ways.

In the aftermath of us, colours hardly seem as bright.

Although there is still electricity, there is not much light.

It took me ages to accept that you were gone,

I would’ve easier made peace with losing one of my arms.

My mind will not seem to let go of your relentless memory,

each one terrorizes me, as they replay in my head incessantly.

I was jaded for a while, but now my head is raised way up high once again.

I stand tall, now that I’ve remembered all the love I once had for myself.

Strong enough to appreciate our shared experience,

wiser now that I have been reminded of my resilience.

I am happy that we lived it, and wish you nothing short of the best.

It turns out I was not missing you, but the man I was before we met.

Missing.

I sifted through white sands in coastal cities, longingly searching for an
answer; explored every cave, and even sailed all over the Atlantic.
Asked every soul that I encountered, but it was all in vain,
there was no single solution that would soothe my pain.

Shared stories of my travels with priests in churches, and in temples,
traded secrets of my findings, with my fellow weary-eyed wanderers.
I picked up every pebble, and peeled through blades of grass,
climbed ancient trees silently hoping my sadness would not last.

Tribes indigenous to Africa taught me how to be free,
through them I learned that life could be just as peaceful for me.
Ventured to the corners of the world to no avail,
escaping from the truth could not change the fact that we failed.

I meandered through the Sahara, without a caravan,
then risked everything as I narrowly evaded death in Iran.
There is nothing that compares to the deafening silence underwater,
but even there I was unable to swim away from my problems.

I closely examined the faces of everyone that I met,
looking for something that reminded me of you, so I would not forget.
I pored through the pages of ancient manuscripts and texts,
for divine guidance on the steps I should take next.

There was no cure in the Amazon, nor did I locate it in Peru,
the Andes mountains only intensified my longing for you.
I left no stone unturned on my quest,
yet I was still unable to dislodge our love from my chest.

Restlessness prevails without an end in sight,
you will remain lost, another casualty of life.
This vagabond heart of mine rages to let go,
alas, it seems there is no remedy for missing you.

Current Events.

Society is in decline, the blind are leading the blind;
fear ignites the masses, then sends the least evolved among us into frenzied states of havoc. 
History is repeating itself, as certain lives are still worth more than others,
in two millennia we have not accepted that we are all brothers. 

Race was created to divide us, then the class system created larger rifts,
and somehow we cannot agree on what the damage really is. 
Unnecessary evil is broadcast into our homes,
as the media controls so many of us who hang on to its every word. 

Incited by bigots that are hiding in plain sight,
we have lost the ability to distinguish between wrong and right. 
Their hateful politics are the same ones future generations will condemn,
unless the world continues on its fall from grace into mayhem. 

Tricked into believing that democracy exists,
the enlightened need to revolt to save us from this infernal abyss.
Truth is such a rarity now, that it may as well be obsolete;
we survive on a diet of lies, and for dessert we eat deceit.

All of this corruption and chaos are a socially transmitted disease,
caused by counterproductive us vs. them ideologies.
When you treat the privileged equally they think they are being oppressed,
anarchy would even be more structured than this mess.

It’s no wonder why many turn to their faith for guidance,
in this age where human lives cost less than diamonds.
Despite looking out the window and viewing all the widespread decay,
we are still being brainwashed into thinking that everything is okay.

The very definition of insanity is repeating your mistakes,
then somehow expecting different outcomes, on different days.
Disillusionment has drowned us, we have become desensitized to war,
thousands of civilian deaths are worthless because a terrorist in the west killed two of our own.

Is this the world we want to leave for future generations,
whose innocence had no part in creating this desecration?
It is time to break the cycle, so that we can remove these chains
that bind us to our past failures. We must finally learn how to be humane.