mean

you have so "emancipated" me
that i fear i am spoiled
for the rest of the world
and i will never
be able to deal with it again

With you

i am confident enough
To relax
Or

i am relaxed enough
To be confident

Ever been in

That situation where

Two people are saying the same thing
but because they don't want to
admit that the other is right
Try to out shout each other

the pond that fits

A long time ago,
a serious young man decided the leave the town he was in.
"I was a big fish in a small pond," says my father now.
And he was right, 
For the ambitious young man met his match in the big pond.

I, imagining myself to be my adventurous, ambitious father,
left for an even bigger pond.
And came back, because it was a strange pond.
I don't remember thinking, before going, that I was a big fish in a small pond.
Nor do I remember feeling sad, that I did not make it big in the big pond.
I just did not see the point, of struggling in a alien pond
When life was so much better, in the old one.

And I ask myself, if I had been in my father's place 30 years ago,
Would I have risked all for a plunge into the big pond?

I would not have gone anywhere.
I do not want to live forever like an alien,
like I did briefly, like he still does.

In this big pond he still feels like a visitor.
Like he is simply inhabiting this space for a while.
And that eventually he will go back "home," to the hills he grew up in,
As naturally as a schoolboy comes home from school.


If I had been in his place,
I would have gone to the next big town to study,
been awed by the brave new world, and come back.
To live among loved ones.
To a place where people know me and I matter
And my work is more than a drop in the ocean.

I would have been like the smart young women

That you see so often in small towns these days
The smartly dressed, neatly combed one
with great big inquisitive eyes, idealist heart, and ready speech.
the one that listens carefully to conversations
Reads newspapers, frequents the library,
Attends mother group meetings,
Teaches neighbors about hygiene,
Has the history and statistics of her village at fingertips
"Excuse me sir?" I would have said to the visitor
"Who are you? Where are you from?"

How easily I could have been her !
And perfectly happy I would have been, I am sure!
No matter what the size of the pond I was in, 
I would try to be the best in my pond,
But not try and go beyond.

I probably wouldn't miss anything in that life

And yet i would always be nagged by a desire to wander

Even though i would know in my heart of hearts

That those who wander

Only want to wander back home

(“I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place 

when they can fly anywhere on the earth,  
then I ask myself the same question.” 
― Harun Yahya.) 

Greedy, greedy

crave attention
crib of loneliness
when you are alone

complain of suffocation
when you are smothered with it


You don't just want love
but you want too much of it

enough and more
for you to take it
for granted

What you offer

Is your everything 
As opposed  to
Appendages and peripheries
And trophies
Anyone else would offer

coping with rudeness

what's better?

wearing your heart on your sleeve
and having it destroyed daily

or having defense mechanisms
humor, diversion, sarcasm,
and dying slowly inside
every minute

the accidental migrant

Seeing your parents
struggle, scrimp, save,
put aside their pleasures
for you,

You grow up thinking
this is the way to be

forgetting, all the while,
that your parents

were first generation
they did it because
they had no choice
because they
couldn't afford not to

And when it is you time
to make it in the world
You put off your pleasures
working too hard
taking the next opportunity available
without thinking
that it is taking you away
from what makes you happy
because it is the only way to be
that you know

and you are left with a dry life.
and unlike your parents,
with no narrative to explain
your dry life

colliding planes

It felt very real then,
But I am ready to discard
All that I felt before
As fake

 Though for you,
it still is real,
And will always be

What does that say about us?

The dark one

Brought down
From infinitely wise
To merely clever
From erudite and strategic
To luckily intuitive
From revered and esteemed
To vapidly worshipped
From loved and loving
To lewdly lusty

And yet you,
Do not fail to dazzle
In all your forms

What would the world do
With the real you

The fortune teller

When you dread to hear
Words you said years ago
When regrets
Accusations
Decisions taken
Roads chosen
Are all blamed on
Words you said
Long long ago