Where do you live, Peter?

“Second to the right, and straight on till morning… I'll teach you to jump on the wind's back, and away we go.”

I feel like Wendy right now. You are my Peter Pan, the boy who decided to never grow up. You make faces at me. “Do I look like a ghost?” I giggle and close my eyes, pretending to be scared. You plunge forward at once, trying to pull me after you, off the window overlooking this troubled world. Let’s take a flight, you say, and see where the wind takes us. Let’s see what beauty we can create. You have to trust me, you say. My hand will be here for you when you need it.

I hesitate with one foot floating in the air, another unable to let go of my safe haven. I would love to jump after you, my dreamer, but I am so afraid. What if one day you let go? Will I fall through the darkness, into the world unknown to me? Will I look around and see a crowd of strangers in whose eyes the reflection of war is still flickering? Will I make my way home, up that window, and cry myself to sleep until I have no tears left in me? Or will I stay and carry on the fragile work of peace we have started? Will I be strong enough to one day take that flight on my own?

But you already have, you say, rolling your eyes.

Never this far, I note, sticking out my tongue to taste the rain drops.

You will never grow up either, you say.

I take a deep breath and push the bricks away with the tips of my toes, falling upward.

In my heart, I know I can let go of your hand and do this on my own. But it would be so good to know that someone is there to lean on when I grow weary. After all, it’s not the Neverland we are heading to.


Image credit: Frixin

The other to-do list

To forgive

To listen more carefully

To hide emotions that can harm someone

To be thankful and don’t take things for granted

To be brave about discussing situations when they occur

To think twice before making decisions which involve others

To stay kind even when you are not spoiled by others’ kindness

To let people you care about know it with words and actions

To show passion when it will make someone feel right

To stay silent when no words are needed

To let others be who they are

To be yourself

Released

I’m floating above what I left on the ground
Two shadows bent over a veil of rage
Deception is sweet, yet in it one is bound
To smile through the bars of a miniature cage
I followed the recipe found in your writing
The passion was simmered, the fury got steamed
The mixture of evils was wrongly exiting
An eye for an eye... Stop. Can I be redeemed?

Fire, fire

I see your sky is coming down
with the same color as mine
Oh, it seems to me
you and I are not safe to combine...

So you sit right in front of me, the pupils of your eyes bright, the flashes of your smile sincere, our thought exchange meaningful... once again. I can’t help but wonder, what should I do with you? Should I put you in my pocket and carry around like a notebook full of quotes from a read I want to remember even as I put it away? Can I keep the book itself or will the life library charge me life if I don’t return it 30 days from now? Should I close the book as soon as the words I want to hear become a distraction from what life says should be heard and done or can I flip the pages for just a few more bittersweet hours till the candle buns out and the dawn strikes my eyelids with the sharp awareness of reality that’s so unreal? Can the book be recycled after pages were torn out, torn apart, thrown in the trash and taken out just to be used as tablecloth in the attic of secrets, to cover things that would otherwise embarrass the collective perception with their nakedness?

Or maybe, just maybe, I can put it in the drawer by my bedside and make it my Bible, and take it out each day for a stroll on a path where flowers are grown not of seeds but of minds, and the rain is soaked not by skin but by spirit itself. Maybe I can keep it in the inner pocket of my jacket as I take a bus ride on my escape route from life, seeking the inexistent yet place where the hearts above guide the stalled ideas below, leading them away from being as told to be by life, reminding them to listen instead to the whisper of the single shivering leave on the tree that grew upside down in the most real of afternoon dreams.

Even though this chapter of us may be the shortest one yet, all that matters is how much meaning we are willing to put in each word, how loud we are eager to yell over the gray habitual buzz to help the world hear our voices, and how high we’ll strive to fly to touch the rainbows... even if only once.

...As thousand days roll by
Come for it
Come for it again.


Lyrics used in the post: Fire Fire by Asha Ali