from Three Cups of Tea

"Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart.
Never give up, never lose hope.
God says, 'The broken ones are my beloved.'
Crush your heart. Be broken." 
- Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir


"Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water,
sings the pebbles into perfection."
-Rabindranath Tagore, p. 184


"If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls" - Greg Mortenson, p. 209


"'I've heard some people say Americans are bad,' she says softly. 'But we love Americans. They are the most kind people for us. They are the only ones who cared to help us.'" - p. 224


"'I request America to look into our hearts,' Abbas continue, his voice straining with emotion, 'and see that the great majority of us are not terrorists, but good and simple people. Our land is stricken with poverty because we are without education. but today, another candle of knowledge has been lit. In the name of Allah the Almighty, may it light our way out of the darkness we find ourselves in.'" - Syed Abbas, p. 257


"There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?" - Rumi

prose

I'm sitting under a roof
of scattered tree limbs,
in a dusty, fenced in patch
of Tallahassee grass
with an abandoned ballet
bar on the left
  miniature, faded yellow
chairs scattered by
some giant in a brief
   fit of rage
and old gray-white pipe
flies: butter, fruit, red?
I think it's going to rain

-----------------------

Shrill peep of an
  orange beaked
bird (Cardinal!)
   it nest-led
in a low hanging
branch
too close to childrens'
curious fingers
guarding, not ten
    feet away

-----------------------

sugar ants flock to ice cream
  like little girls flocks to
low
    hanging
         branches.

time and season

Your limbs half bare
in May
in Florida
Resisting summer
or too lazy, or
dying?

Your limbs grew wild
outstretched and crooked
in those early
days before you
really
   knew
you were alive

Do you regret
  the growing over
time and season?

Do you regret bearing
children on your arms
and standing still
when storms, surely
  hundreds now,
washed over you?

Perhaps it's too
much, and too
hard
to grow back,
          bring back,
all that you lost
  again,
    and over ag-
ain.

ugh

People need to stop being so flippant about divorce. the reason why your grandparents are still together is because they stayed together during times they didn't particularly want to be together. wake up, people. if you stop feeling the love, find a way to feel it again, or let time pass and rekindle it later. don't just make up some stupid excuse about knowing that you just weren't right for eachother or growing apart. Marriage is work. Duh. To maintain a close relationship with anyone for a long time is work. Your life may be crap, but you can't blame it on your spouse, cut ties, and omg, just start again with, like, a whole great life ahead of you. When you get a divorce, I imagine it's not really that easy to just pick things up and start over. Stop deluding yourself, world.