A Symphony in Pale Ash
A.R.ABDULLAH

​I was born beneath a broken bell that would not ring,
A tiny throat of water meant to drown before it learned to sing.
The swaddling clothes were spun of glass, the cradle carved of frost,
And every cradle-lullaby was whispered by the lost.
​Oh, childhood was a cello with a solitary string,
A mournful, weeping minor note that clung to everything.
I watched the other children dance in pools of golden sun,
While my quiet, ghost-bound melody had only just begun.
​I tried to hum of summer, tried to force the light to grow,
I bled my marrow to the dirt to make a garden blow.
I reached for peace like drowning men reach upward for the air,
And built a temple out of grief and painted over care.
​Love passed me like a phantom ship across a quiet sea,
It sang a chord of tender warmth, but never stopped for me.
My youth became a choir where the singers had no breath,
A slow, ascending crescendo that harmonized with death.
​And though I stretched my branches up to scrape against the sky,
To learn the art of blooming while the roots beneath me die,
The silence was a conductor that I could not out-maneuver,
A patient, heavy undertow that claimed its late improver.
​Now the violin is splintered and the final movement fades,
A solitary violin played softly through the shades.
I clawed my way toward the light, I grew through all the pain,
Only to die in the center of the dark and falling rain.

Tender
A.R.ABDULLAH

I keep a little room inside
where all my broken versions hide,
they sit beneath a yellow light
and wait for me to come at night.
One wears the face I had at ten,
one asks if we'll be loved again,
one holds a flower, dry and blue,
and says, I thought they'd make it through.
Oh, honey, I don't know, I don't know,
where all the tender people go,
when they have given all they knew
and still the world just lets them through.
I learned to laugh, I learned to sing,
to make a home of little things,
a cup of tea, a bird in flight,
a song that keeps me warm at night.
But underneath the melody,
there lives a quieter part of me,
a little animal in rain
that doesn't know its own name.
And I have loved with both hands wide,
with every door unlocked inside,
then watched the wind come through the hall
and wondered why I gave it all.
Oh, darling, don't you cry, don't you cry,
the moon has never asked the sky
why it must leave before the dawn,
some things are beautiful and gone.
I wish I were a river stone,
worn smooth by water, left alone,
with nothing in my chest to prove,
no fear of losing what I love.
But I am only skin and bone,
a frightened heart that wants a home,
a thousand little prayers unsaid,
a thousand ghosts beneath my bed.
So if you find me far away,
with half a smile and nothing to say,
please understand,I'm not unkind,
I'm just somewhere inside my mind.
And if tomorrow comes too slow,
and all the flowers fail to grow,
I'll take my hand, I'll hold it tight,
and be my own way through the night.
Oh, honey, I don't know, I don't know,
how long a broken heart can grow,
but somewhere underneath the blue,
a smaller voice is saying, you,
you are still here.
You are still here.
And maybe that is all
the lonely need to hear.

Oh to see without my eyes