Love is not just a word.
Feelings are not just skin deep.

we can choose
the things we wish to see
but can we choose to feel
the emotions we do not wish to feel?

twist and turn
my heart and mind
but my darling,
 I am no pretzel

Thoughts and words swallow me
But I walk into the Arctic cold anyway
& let the biting frost consume-
Chewing pieces, after pieces of me
Avoiding warmth.

What is heat?
I do not need it-
Softness in warmth is vulnerability.
Warmth makes fragile out of beings
I'd rather break like ice,
shards & sharpness
will guide & guard me

Sweet promises roll off your tongue,

They kiss my fragile frost-covered heart

Here I stand, with nothing in my hands

Afraid to be drown by the darkness & light again

echoes

It puzzles me how the greatest courage comes from the most vulnerable moment,
How you can spend a lifetime with someone, to realize you know nothing about them at all,
That in the moment of pain seared so deeply, you can find numbness

More so,
That in the most fragile moment,
Where you think you have lost everything
& sunk to the very bottom of cynicism....

You realize that you are still capable of loving.
The heart still beats, though out of tune-
You feel it, against the laws of gravity, it keeps you down.

You are still capable of loving...
you are still capable of loving,

& you will keep repeating those words, as if to hold on to it-
so it never flies away.

in echoes.

2013

The only metaphor that clings to my heart this year was a literal experience. I was in a cave in the Toledo District of Belize. Terrified to the point of numbness, in complete darkness as I swam among the company of my peers.

Fear and excitement.

 I was leading my group, but felt less than a leader.

 Adrenaline and calmness circled, and though I felt the drumming of my pulse through my ears, I was collected

Contradiction was as visceral as the trickling of the creek, against my skin...in complete darkness. In a cave where shadows from my headlamp created images and silhouettes, reminding me of Plato's allegory.

But it was in that moment of darkness, I understood clarity. Clarity in my position, as an undergraduate student given another chance at volunteering to rationalize my experience when Guatemala was an emotional attachment to me. To find balance. There was an equilibrium.

I have for some reason found comfort from rationalising: that sometimes it takes complete darkness to find clarity.

Clarity is so profound. It is lyrical, and distinct. There is so much simplicity in clarity. In a matrix of complexities that fill our complicated mind, I now I understand. That sometimes, things shut down and terminate itself, to prepare our mind and heart for a simplicity; that is clarity. When we are caught up with complications, we fall to the ground to be reminded of the basics. 

2013 was a year of darkness. But I am not sadistic, nor am I pessimistic. It was equally the year of clarity.

And maybe I am not sure where I stand right now. I am disoriented again, by my position and decisions that I have made within the past few months. But I have faith in the works of the universe....that maybe if I don't try too hard to search for clarity, to chase it, to pursue it; it may arrive itself, before me.

Let the new year commence, even though I have felt as though the new volume and chapters of my books have already been written. 

I have little expectations from life, but pray for deeper faith and better practising of gratitude.

God guide my heart from darkness.

And I pray He opens the hearts of those I have hurt, that they accept my sincere forgiveness. And I pray He blesses them with happiness, successes, greater love and peace. Ameen.