167: vacuum

i keep landing in alien spaces trying
to pace myself between touchdowns & breakdowns;
traces of untied laces all over the place
remind me that i count steps & leaps
more than i inhale

my words go further than my aims
my tank is starting to run out of air
god what am i doing here

2019-09-04 7:58pm

156: S _ I N _

kopiah aurat cover semua
kaki cam confirm dah cecah syurga
konon genggam tali yang kuat
kumat-kamit macam nak kiamat:
"tiada paksaan dalam islam"
"Tuhan maha tahu, dia tak kejam"
tapi bila kau hilang sabar
terus tanduk kau keluar,
tiba-tiba bahasa cam jahanam
"TAKKAN TU PUN KAU TAK PAHAM?"

kalau ini la maksud kau 'kemanisan iman',
terima kasih je la -- baik takyah layan.


2018-07-02
9.05pm

155: no god, but, god.

after ramming through our door,
you announce to the world that you come in peace
to carry out your godly mission
of serving thick slices of humble pie
with chunky pieces of cherry-picked facts and fictions,
a pinch of salt, &
a fistful of irony
to save our souls.

how about
  no

148: salah

sebenarnya
doa-doa mereka
supaya saya jadi orang yang berguna
hanya buat saya resah.

saya
serba salah.



2017-11-18
4.36pm

144: imanmana

Shah Alam untuk
orang "Islam"; separuh
iman gi mana?


2017-08-

80: The real currency?

I was on a plane en route to perform my Umrah last year when I had one of the most profound experiences in my life.

I knew I was supposed to do some last-minute reading on the things I needed to know and do and say when I reached my destination; to prep up for my obligations as a Muslim in one of The holiest sites on earth, but... [*excuse erased*]

Yes, I have read through the small, thick spiralled Umrah guidebook given to me by the week before tourgroup - from cover to cover countless times, in fact - but I feel guilty if I put it down or kept it in my bag.  After much contemplation I decided to wear the string attached to the book around my neck and just let it hang there, resting against my chest, just in case I felt like reading it again later.

I turned to my right talk to Mom, but she had already dozed off. In fact, I was one of the few who wasn't already blissfully in dream land. I wish I could join them, but I couldn't, for some reason.

After checking my watch for the nth time, I began to hear some kids asking the adults around them "Lambat lagi ke?" ("Are we there yet?") like a broken record.

I yawned as my eyes travelled around the cabin, trying to find something or someone to look at, and they finally landed on the entertainment screen at the back of the headrest in front of me. When I saw my reflection in the dark, imageless screen, I subconsciously held onto the umrah guidebook hanging from my neck.

"Maybe just for a while."
... is what I thought to myself.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I switched on the entertainment set. Maybe I just wanted something to do that didn't involve reading while waiting for the stewards and stewardesses to give us our refreshments. That's what I kept telling myself as I was pressing the buttons, hoping to land of something worthwhile.

The music selection wasn't very interesting (I'm not much of a fan of Middle Eastern music), so I browsed through the other things offered. As I scrolled down the movies selection, a guy with a familiar face caught my eye.

The guy was Justin Timberlake, and the movie poster had a white bolded 'IN TIME' written right at the top of the poster. I couldn't help but laugh at how corny the title was.

I mean, seriously.

The movie had already started playing for a few minutes, but I watched it anyway. Out of curiosity, and partly because, well, it's Justin, one of my ultimate celeb crushes as I was growing up.

... and the smile I had plastered on my face disappeared as soon as I started watching the movie.

The story is set in a world where 'time is money'. Literally. Every business transaction uses not bills or notes or even magnetised plastic cards, but time. Time is the mode of currency, no matter where you are in the world.

What does this mean? It means that you pay for anything and everything with the time you have left in your body. The seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years in your life.

In such a world, those who are rich are those with a long life. They are, in theory, immortal.

Those who are poor are those who have little time left in or for themselves.

Those who are bankrupt are, well, dead.

And all that is well and good and profound and everything, but that's not what the reason why the movie affected me. What affected me throughout the movie was that I couldn't help but think of surah al-Asr.

“By Time! Indeed Man is in Loss.  Except those who have faith and do good works, 

and exhort one another to truth and exhort one another to patience.” (Q.103:1-3)

The surah kept playing again and again and again in my head throughout the movie. It made the story much more intense. It made all the characters' business transactions and conversations and decisions seem questionable. It was frightening.

When the credits started rolling in I realised that my eyes were wet. I kept trying to dry them with the sleeves of my abaya, but they continued to well up again. It just wouldn't stop.

After I took off my headset, I started to contemplate on a lot of things.
In no time, I was drowning in my thoughts, just as my eyes were drowning in my tears.

I thought about my past. My present. My future.

I began to wonder about my career path, about what I had for dinner the last night, about why of all the movies in the world, that was the one I had watched.

I began to think of all those years I wasted idolising a celebrity and memorising his shoe size, favourite pizza topping and his biggest pet peeve. (I'm relieved to say that I've completely forgotten all three -- I have better things to do with my memory).

I began to think of how right before Mom and I left for the airport with this morning, we ended up arguing - godknowswhy, over godknowswhat.

I began to think of what is going to happen to me when the people and things I have around me are no longer there.

What have I been doing all my life? What am I doing right now? What will I do when it all ends?

Justin had always had an 'effect' on me back when I was 13 - his golden curls and cheeky grins always made my heart skip a beat, but now, the only effect he left on me from the movie wasn't his boyish charms.

It was all about the message he was trying to convey, the idea that the story is trying to unfold.

The movie, in a way, carries a truth that many of us tend to forget, or perhaps one that many of us choose to ignore: "We talk of killing time, while time slowly kills us".

67: the sole battle

at the end of the day
these rows of lustrous lots
these groups of vague vendors
these lines of scripted sentences
are operating
like an oasis
in the middle of nowhere;
offering
promises
to care less;
promises
that are careless.

because
as you get closer,
you would soon realise
your eyes wildly looking around to soak in the vision of what you are able to (par)take,
your mouth salivates with the thought of how that sparkling pond water would taste,
your fingers would carelessly reach out to touch, feel, things you have longed for.

all to satisfy
your natural instincts
your worldly desires
your own foolishness.

and yet, you make a run for it.
you run like your life depended on it.
does it?
does our life depend on whether we reach this oasis,
despite knowing that
we are still
lost
and
alone
in a desert?

perhaps we have lost sight of
or lost track of
or have completely removed ourselves of the thought that
there is
an untouched-as-yet lake
up in the virgin mountains
just waiting
for us
to have a swim.

may we all win the battle
against ourselves
when we face a mirage
in the comforting disguise
of an oasis.

may we all reach that lake.

ameen.


why are we killing each other
and ourselves
in a race
to reach an oasis
that is only a mirage?

53: Disabled

Sure, she can't see, but

she can read, hear and feel words
from the Beloved.

We can't understand
God's words with our fingertips,
so who's handicapped?

inspired by a blind girl at a tafseer class i sometimes attend. she was sitting in front of me, and was intently listening to the ustaz explaining about the surah we were learning during the session while running her fingers around a seemingly blank page of a thick book. upon closer look, i realised it was a braille quran. 
i have been blessed with the gift of sight, and i can read quranic words anywhere if i wanted to; what's my excuse not to? :(

45: but we be rollin

i do want to do so many things
with, for, to, and because of
you;
but, as it were,
we keep reminding each other
(we keep reminding ourselves?)
'we are untied,
we need to be patient,
we have to hold back'.

but is that truly the reason
for this rollercoaster of emotions?

is it our circumstances that's keeping us apart,
or our doubts and scars deep inside our hearts?


27/10/12 12pm

36: eid in my family

we don't have eid the way other families do

we don't wear matching colors
we don't balik kampung at our parents' hometowns
we don't sing (or even know) that many raya songs
we don't make our own lemang, ketupat or kuih raya
we don't even play bunga api or mercun anymore.

but
we do have okay clothes for eid
we do look forward to an un-busy KL
we do love catching up with relatives and friends
we do make our own rendangs (and order everything else)
we do still clear up the 'abodes' of those who are no longer with us.

yeah, we don't have eid the way other families do.
but it's okay. we're okay.

35: eid is.

of themed new clothes in treasured family pics,
of toothy cackles against sparkles and fired sticks;

of cash in packets and kissing elderly's hands,
of devouring delicious foods and asking for amends;

of wanting peace and happiness for people the world around,
all of this and infinitely more! but not quite for everyone, i found.

- 21/8/12 4.27pm

20: Starry-eyed

Just
like stars
revolving around the
sea of galaxies in
the vast universe, we orbit:
at our own pace and space,
with grace and for solace,
determined to not stray;
we accept our
centre of
Gravity

---

Quite breathtaking, seeing this with your own eyes