Happiness – lonerloaner

broken hearts are my calling

It starts with brokenness,
being married to a silent wail,
having all the words at your disposal,
and no ears to receive them,
being so melodic,
that heaven yearns for you,
and yet so detached from everything and everyone,
that you’d never be missed.

I see that,
more so, I feel it.
I ache to connect to it,
to let it know, that I know,
and yet it remains,
forbidden fruit.

I’m not at all inspired,
by people that have no room,
for being empty,
people that flee from broken heartedness,
people that don’t know,
watching you grow and rebuild,
is what is most beautiful about you.

W.E.

Music by Dhafer Youssef Quartet – Les Ondes Orientales

Three ways I’ve learned to be calm, yet utterly confident

Like a surgeon, I’ve cut at myself to remove doubt and fear. I liken it to cutting because it takes an utter and relentless, fearlessness to go past your inner comforts, to the place where you lie to yourself over and over and then to stop that lying dead in it’s tracks, by either cutting or fighting it with all you have, to be able to learn calmness and confidence by default.

I’ve done so in three ways.

ONE

I learned about my origins and my end.

If you don’t know who you are or where you’re going, you’re never going to have your compass calibrated. Your navigation will always be off. People can poke fun, mock, sneer at religion as much as they want, but nothing aligns a human in the right direction as good as a decent attachment to a religious practise.

Here’s a shortcut, get busy with learning about the unknown so you don’t fear it and are not anxious about it. The unknown is both everything before you ever were and what will subside when you physically pass from this world.

When you do, you relinquish the struggle with control and power and give it back to its rightful owner, and make no mistake, that is God, period.

TWO

Secondly, learn how to be alone.

That means occupying yourself with activities that fine tune the frequency of your inner voice, yes even the ones that the quackery of psychiatrists and psychologists have you believing aren’t normal.

We all hear things, we all have inner voices, an ego, a vice that commands at us, entices us to good, evil or both.

Learning how to quell or amplify them is an art and a skill and like all arts and skills they take repetitive engaging in to master. You’ve got grand delusions if you think you can sort yourself out without hours of devotion to your crafts.

Unfortunately, group activities don’t count. Comfort in your own skin and lone time is the only way. Consider it a reset button and dedicate at least 8 to 10 hours a week in total isolation.

THREE

Lastly, expose yourself to dire situations where you are pushed and tested. This can be done in groups or done alone.

In my experience people should partake in a 70/30 split, that is 70 percent of the time doing those dire things alone and 30 percent in a group. They should be physical, spiritual, physiological, and mental.

Examples of physical involve training, sporting endeavours or physical activities that require a high level of output.

The best of them where your physical safety is threatened and I have found no better thing than the fighting arts, be it wrestling, traditional martial arts or boxing.

They involve the greatest violation and the most immediate danger to one’s well being. Getting through the hardships and struggles that come with the aspects of sparring or fighting as well as torturous training if one is dedicated and serious enough, is unmatched.

For the spiritual, it means following with utter sincerity and devotion to the principles of a sound religious practise without fail and if one does fail, they make amends, continue to improve, and resort immediately to re-applying themselves wholeheartedly.

Physiologically, I mean depriving the body of its gluttonous nature. That is, water and food and most especially foods which harm the body, mind and soul.

Further to the normal unhealthy foods one should deprive themselves of, they should make two days a week and at least a month a year by which they totally limit to near nothing the nutrient intake for at least half a day not including sleep time. The benefits of fasting in all it’s applications are too numerous to list and science is in total agreement of the simple ability of fasting to have the most immediate health rewards.

This resets the immune and other physiological systems and keeps unwanted weight off and the mind and body free from ailments.

Lastly the mental. Without a healthy appetite for learning and improving one’s understanding of the world around them, we, as a whole, most especially cerebrally, like all created things wither away. The adage of ‘use it or lose it’, applies to every thing that makes you. Your mind is no exception.

We are vaguely worthy beings at all without a concentrated effort to be a being in the first place, but these simple three things will give you calmness and confidence in life and in all your endeavours.

It is what I teach my children and offer to any ear that is sincere enough and patient enough to listen. It is what I teach my students as their minds are ready to give up in training. It is not for the lazy or procrastinating.

I understand that some people just want to surf waves but some like swimming under water. Others are not satisfied until they’ve dived deep enough to see the ocean floor.

Without judgement or prejudice, you are free to do as you will, but if you’re honest enough, at times, you will struggle and these three simple steps will help you get back on track in no time.

Wesam El dahabi

Homoeostasis is not an option

It daunted on me,
we’re all seeking reconciliation,
this thing of balance,
that has fascinated me since I first learned the word;
homoeostasis!

The state of perfect balance,
what else is it,
than stars aligning,
breath,
syncopation,
harmony,
hormones,
things that just work,
everything making sense.

We slip in and out of chaos,
attempting to find meaning,
perhaps in extremes,
testing waters unknown,

But all I want to do is write poetry with a piano,
paint happiness with my fingers,
caress loneliness with branches of an olive tree,
I know I can make things work,
vital things,
I have an uneasy truth in my lungs burning,
and it billows with rage and crackle.

I have waves of jealousy,
watching others throw things off,
it’s the imbalance that hurts so much,
people wallowing in it,
people reluctant to un-smear the mud off their face.

I just want to give my eyes to one person,
and if that’s not enough,
my mind,
and even then,
my heart.

Then they can feel this engulfing,
and incessant need for balance,
and why I strive so hard,
why at three a.m. I’m just beginning,
and they’re deep in waters,
drowning in mediocrity,
I don’t need their normalcy,
because that is anomaly from brilliance,
and brilliance is a stretch of possibilities,
a promise to the universe to make it work.

I have given my oath to truth,
to musk in the air of the forest,
to the oft return of spume dancing,
and to grace in the pegs of a mountain.

I’ve given my oath, means I’ve given my oath,
and I’m the most persistent subordinate you’ve ever seen,
you’ll soon wear yourself down,
in disheartened vain before I conjure a pause,
I’ve yet to see commitment like mine to homoeostasis,
a warrior,
a poet,
a healer,
a man uncaring for the discomfort of others,
if it means they’re happy being mundane,
so be it!

So be their offence and disbelief,
their pursuit of an apology for relief.
I’ll give them ten,
and they’ll still find a scapegoat of victim-hood.

I’m uninterested in it all.
I just want truth,
I just want homoeostasis of fine, fine things,
intimacy with the marrow of me,
until it’s my marrow that manifests on my tongue.

Because in the end,
that’s what it’s about,
this oneness,
this wholeness,
this balance,
pursuit to one.

The more you love,
the slower things move towards you,
and that’s not bad.

You want to be able to scrutinise,
synthesise,
accept with maturity everything it is and isn’t.

Slow things are observable,
fast things are tunnel visioned,
and I want them both.

So that with the speed or surety,
I will accept all I observe.

I love the world,
all that is in it and the One who created it,
He knows balance,
and I just want it all to equalise,
under the purity of its primordial nature.
ITS NATURE,
not ours.

I can handle a truth,
that manifests on the tongue of my challenger,
I can’t handle a lie,
in the heart of my loved ones.

Slay me with truth,
and I’ll give you my neck,
comfort me in lies,
and you’ll feel no end to my wrath.

I welcome rain just as much as I do drought,
nature knows what to do,
but we,
ever so ungrateful,
do not.

How then do you return,
to this delicate scale of equilibrium,
but to let go of the measures you assume,
the metrics of your comprehension are limited,
to preconceived rituals,
to blind worship,
your mind an altar,
your soul the sacrificial lamb,
your heart,
the one that pays the price,
for seeking anything other than balance.

W.E.

how to sell your soul, the right way

be-stricken

Be stricken,

awe at the slightest of things,
marvel at the greatest,
stop breathing,
to remember breathing,
to appreciate breath,
when it’s meant to be taken away.

Fast,
to savour a morsel,
as simple as dried bread,
or a cup of murky water,

Walk,
to, remind your body,
it has to take you places,
beyond the confines of comfort.

Be broken, be mended,
be full, be apprehended,
be amazed,
that you can still be amazed,
whilst others are fogged up,
in a haze, in a maze.
in a craze, in a daze.

Oh these days, oh these days,
the neglecting of the way,
monotony,
into the abyss of being,
engorged in normality,
triviality, superficiality, conformity,
and you miss,
the enormity,
of the fine and tender,

of being stricken.

Be taken,
awaken,
to a grasshoppers song,
as you sit in summer afternoon traffic,
frustrated,
polluted,
by severance from your environment,
convoluted,
unaware of the beauty of silence,
instead being attracted to the outward violence.

And the world is violent,
when you won’t allow yourself,
to be stricken,
amazed,
blown away into the winds that want to pollinate,
to allow seeds to germinate.

Don’t wait until it’s too late,
be stricken.

Find the beauty of complication in simplicity,
and the simplicity in complication,
so you can be both the artist,
and the scientist,
the poet and the physician,
the healer and the warrior,
be stricken by it all.

W.E.

no regrets

And what does all your fortune bring you?

emptiness, artless.

I rarely regret anything,

except if I’ve transgressed the divine laws of my maker.

Regret is a wingless sparrow,

a fleeting severance from gratitude,

short-sightedness of present opportunity,

men and women vying to wrestle destiny to its knees,

deplorable delusionals,

barred from beauty.

Regret is the punishment you ironically wallow in,

self harm, void-acuity-hollow.

You can’t plant anything there,

water it, nurture it or give it to the sun,

all you do is create a desert inside yourself.

Parched lips know how wonderful moist lips are,

you can’t say the same for the opposite.

W.E.

*expansion on a line from a previous poem

smiling is a burden

smiling-is-a-burden
‘Smile mate’,
He said it like it wasn’t ever my default.

Smiling used to weigh so much less.
Now,
to conjure,
to bring it to surface,
carries with it,
too heavy an anchor of worldly – of wordy miseries.

Why then, would I smile with such a grim view of who I am?
There isn’t a life jacket strong enough,
to lift me out of the rip,
of murky opinion of myself.

I can’t floss my teeth,
purge my stomach,
exfoliate my skin,
enough to find it in me any more,
and fake one more pearly white,
when everything I do,
is in absence of light.

Lethargic lips,
squinted eyes,
and teeth stained with what you’ve been chewing on,
aren’t very photogenic.

W.E.

Loving yourself is for infants

self-love
If you haven’t progressed beyond the concept of your self,
you’re infantile.
I know I am.
Here I am, grandiose with pomp and assuredness,
that I am beyond the pale of love,
and but a cup holds me hostage.

Still, it has to be said,
Stop people!
Just stop!
Ask these people who are promoting all this self love,
What they have accomplished,
Where they have been,
Who they have helped.
What they plan,
And you will always be met with a selfish checklist,
Of a person constantly looking to coax the flimsiness of their being,
With a lard of lies.

Unwilling to remove the vices,
Scrape away the rust of their longing to be recognised,
So instead,
They paint over flaking paint.
They appear well,
But they fall apart so easily.

Give up already with self love,
I propose a composed anger,
A hatred of all that is ugly in you,
But plan and toil, and with elbow grease,
Slave away at your ego,
Your prattling mind,
Your loose tongue,
Your soiled heart.
Work yourself to a lather,
And stop loving that which is unlovable.

Anyone who tells you you’re worthy of love,
Whilst not addressing your ugly traits is an imbecile,
Bent on your and their own destruction,
Turn your face from them and flee.

W.E.

the illusion of happiness

happy-illusion
Don’t let them take your happiness,
and sell it back to you.

What if I told you that you have been lied to.
That the happiness you seek is causing you all the grief.
That should you change your attitude towards happiness,
and stop seeking it,
you may actually then fast track your travels towards it.

To seek something with too much concern, carries with it an connotation that you are desperately missing that thing you are seeking.

That tattoos on our soul that we are incomplete, an irony in itself, subconsciously activating anxiety, fear, unhappiness, depression and a myriad more states, attitudes and feelings.

The more you seek it, the harsher your drive towards it, the greater the disaster you are setting yourself up for, the greater the plunge.

Perhaps then, – not to throw the baby out with the bathwater – the answer is in the state of indifference (not in a tragic nihilistic sense) and merely being, whilst still pursuing wholesome and soul nourishing things, but not being so utterly weighed down by our lack of those things as we journey towards them or whatever goal it is we desire.

Perhaps our role is more mechanical than we thought, without over-philosphising our stance on where we are on the scale of happiness.

That is, to merely be, to merely do, and leave the rest up to the divine will, the cosmos and nature.

Stop chasing it, it’s making you miserable. Savour it if it comes, but don’t buy into the fake-ness spread across social media, general media, corporations and other industries designed to sell you happiness.

Be conscious and aware when something is being sold to you. There are billions of dollars being spent on how to lure you into false depression, anxiety, worry, stress and unhappiness to make you think you need to buy something to come out of it. The old snake oil hucksterism is still around.

W.E.

how to lose me

david-uzochukwu8 how-to-lose-me

how to lose me

The moment I see her loving herself,
I wont,

that’s my job, not hers

W.E.

She hates herself with a paranoia fit for my attention.
What use am I if she becomes infatuated with herself,
comfortable, in love with her reflection,
deluded to perfection,
assuming she is accomplished.

I’ve never met a narcissist,
who had someone that cradled them,
with eyes that never blink away from them.

I never met someone that was broken,
truly broken, and manifest it in their state of being,
that didn’t have someone close by,
tending to their wounds.

There’s food for thought for you as to this state of never ending lies perpetuated to people about loving yourself.
If you love yourself that much, then the irony of self love is you remain alone, even with someone by your side, you’re still never with them and they with you.
Go on, keep on loving yourself, and complain of being alone, I’ve never heard of a thing so absurd.

W.E.

real growth 3

realgrowth3

real growth 3

people suck
and then
you meet yourself

W.E.

For some,
the shame of nakedness is too much,
they rush to the veil of masquerades,
of conformity tones, hues of acceptance.

For others,
nakedness is the rust needed to break the chain of containment,
finally seeing your flaws,
knowing you’re an ugly thing,
staring at your limbs and seeing the grotesque,
is like an artist paying attention to detail,
shit artists paint perfection,
great artists paint truth.

Seeing yourself in full colour,
or in monochrome,
is what will bring you home,
whatever which colour or shade you are,
just see yourself for the bludgeoned ugly you are,
let others worry about if you’re beautiful to them or not.

W.E.