Them Green Days - Part 1

Witnessing that grass blade come unstuck from my palm punctured my brain with steely memories of cool hate. Feeling warm this picnic happy day, I further synthesised into a confused mind-state, the paradox and wedge between emotions and environment engendering a parenthesis of despair. Free-associating a get-out plan, I scamper to a walking position.

Get ready.

Get ready people, I tell the muted voices surrounding my being. One single individual eyes my gaze before turning around. I wave towards the darkened body embracing the wind around us all.

"How are ya mate" the body yells.

Normalcy marries pithy pity in my interactions with the friend.

Today was indeed, in fact, filled with mediocre attempts at relaxation and living, as recommended by therapist number 4.

Breathing exercises, fast walking and social happenstances are supposed to give me light, not disintegration of speech and thought...

On the contrary, I have crawled into the little forbidden box situated in my gut that disapproves of the world at large, and of the moves I need to check-mate the catch up game.

- By Laila Ali Haid

Love and self care, one more time

You should give self-love a second chance
in the game of heartless tugs and thrifty hugs,
you should give your gaze a minute's moment,
to escape prosecution in its explanation,
you shouldn't hate yourself
those platitudes have sighed
the whole world hates you
so why shouldn't I?
the pointing game has always been rigged
against compliments to you
but can you solve this rubiks cube,
of 'universal' beauty standards,
and love you?

- By Laila Ali Haid

The silver thing

A slip of a finger,
into the everlasting hole,
she's now tied
to the long-term war for human independence.
She breathes in baby breath and
exhales argumentation,
to the winded beats of blood filled drums
she cries and soon comes a speedy divorce.
temper, a tremolo pad and a quick exit
she finally makes it to the world of realism
which reveals as another one permanent headache
can you split from your self?

- By Laila Ali Haid

27th of Ramadan

The nights allured us to make prostration and beg,
our Creator gives us these opportunities to not forget,
the jewel nights sparkle with anticipation,
the odd nights make loose of our daily trepidation,
the 27th brings a dearth of tears and moans from the earth -
and as the dawn pushes the sunrise to its birth,
signifying a return to the Creator, a tearful and penitent jama'ah,

harking back to the Hira cave,
remember their purpose.

- By Laila Ali Haid

Shedding Sin, Deep Breathing and Loving God

By Laila Ali Haid- 

The title infers that reaching a balance in spiritual life, good intentions, and open will is easy. The preceding sentence is merely a juncture between the title and this current line, a part of my next inchoate facade of substance beating style, but not really.

To get to the juiciest flesh bit on the bone, I must explain the actual point of this post.

I want this post, in sha Allah, to come to a conclusion on how live happily, healthily and introspectively (to an extent).

I don't want good living to be a notion in the air, a calculation of postulations that never reach ground.

I want the good life to be available to potential readers as much as myself.

As such, this post will articulate a guideline on how to find goodness in your life without changing your being, which I believe is static.

I accept that the concept of true happiness has been overly pontificated upon by everyone who has attempted to define it.

This is why I will give only 3 points, spread over a couple of posts, on how to claim the lofty idea of achieving happiness in simple steps and thought-shifts.

You all have a destiny, and the Lord is merciful. 

The story of Prophet Yusuf (Joseph - Peace Be Upon Him), is like an aromatic bright flower that is adorned in layers of vividly colored petals, and cloaked in a beautiful scent.

This Prophet's life is encapsulated in Chapter 12 of the Qur'an, called 'Surah Yusuf'.

This chapter has come to anchor my hopes, and I come across 'Surah Yusuf' many times ,when looking for help from Allah whilst reading the Qur'an in many of my stressful days.

Actually, there is one verse, which always undoes the despair which underwrites my slower days.

The verse (or Ayah as it is called in Arabic) in question is Surah Yusuf/Chapter 12, Verse 100:

And he raised his parents to the throne and they fell down before him prostrate. And he said: "O my father! This is the interpretation of my dream aforetime! My Lord has made it come true! He was indeed good to me, when He took me out of the prison, and brought you (all here) out of the bedouin-life, after Shaitan (Satan) had sown enmity between me and my brothers. Certainly, my Lord is the Most Courteous and Kind unto whom He will. Truly He! Only He is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise."

There are a certain ways in which this verse makes me feel that life truly has not only meaning, but a hidden structure.

Firstly, this verse/Ayat shows how fruitful a believer's life is, and dispels mundane existential worries over our living.

For example, in Surah Yusuf, Prophet Yusuf/Joseph (peace be upon him) recounts the events that happened after his enslavement, until he was beautifully reunited with his family.

But ! In this Ayat, Yusuf links these occurrences to a dream he had in childhood, which his father Prophet Jacob comments on at the beginning of the chapter:

وَكَذَٰلِكَ يَجْتَبِيكَ رَبُّكَ وَيُعَلِّمُكَ مِن تَأْوِيلِ الْأَحَادِيثِ وَيُتِمُّ نِعْمَتَهُ عَلَيْكَ وَعَلَىٰ آلِ يَعْقُوبَ كَمَا أَتَمَّهَا عَلَىٰ أَبَوَيْكَ مِن قَبْلُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْحَاقَ ۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ -
12:6 :
And thus will your Lord choose you and teach you the interpretation of narratives and complete His favor upon you and upon the family of Jacob, as He completed it upon your fathers before, Abraham and Isaac. Indeed, your Lord is Knowing and Wise."

Thus, in achieving the dream's prophecy, Yusuf (peace be upon him) gains recognizance of the immense loveliness and beauty of Allah's guidance, favor and Guardianship.

Thus, Prophet Yusuf's story is a guidance for the drifting, down-beaten and lost Muslim. 

To Be Continued...

Marmalade

Let it marmalade
but conjecture into the whitened abyss,
Let it marmalade,
let it be sugar to your lips,
Let it be lovely marmalade,
the pink dust flies for the brightened wayside,
let it be nice, marmalade,
and cry for me in a life tried.
Please marinate the gritty soul song and
sway your great hips for tradition,
for what is life,
but a sugary bowl of cereal at night.

- By Laila Ali Haid

The pavement flood

Brown beaten sneakers slide up the waterfront

the glass sea explodes with one crunch

its ceiling cries out from all its burdens proclaimed

the teardrop rain carries on its war of flames

Miss sneakers travels up to the arid ex-marsh

and is martialled to salvation by a truth sheathed false.

balls of glass jade hit her skull

she sulks to the land

with her imagination in hand

to the reality of pavement pools,

puddles and floods. 

- By Laila Ali Haid