You vilify me
For my competency
For stepping up
Taking charge
While you slack off
Despite people’s lives being on the line
Your quiet passive evil
Is invisible
To the outside observer
And you seem like the victim
Which engenders
A chorus of accusation
Against me
As I sacrifice
Whatever is necessary
To do the right thing
But in this hell hole
I have the opportunity
To learn a life lesson
To finally release the burden
you dropped on me
A lifetime ago
Carving out space
For my psyche my power
Releasing attachment
To small minds
With tunnel vision
It is not my problem
What you do and do not see
What you think of me
As I take care of business
And take care of myself
No longer holding the bag
I’m releasing this burden
Like the trees release dead leaves
And reach their arms
Up to the Light

©2018 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author’s permission.

Are you willing
To embark on the odyssey
Filled with uncertainty
At the outset
With no guarantee
Of the outcome

Are you willing to risk everything
You know
And leave behind everyone
You love
To scale the rocky path of Truth
Even risking your sanity

Along the way
Feeling utterly lost
As you lose sight
Of all your bearings
And as people malign you
For all your decisions

Causing you to question yourself
Over and over again
And embody the sense
Of the horrible person
They make you out to be

Are you willing to be in the wrong
To do what’s right
Endure contempt ridicule shame
Not only possible outcomes
But assured responses

Or do you reach for
The bottle the pills the joint
The simulated experience
The as-if hollowness of life
That comes with conventional guidance
And social approval

Na’ase wenishma
We become through doing
But are you willing to do what it takes
To become
©2018 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author’s permission.

I love fiercely
I laugh loudly
You call it noise
Disruption
But your silence
Is cold
Poison
Withholding
Protecting feeding hardening your anger
Which has turned into violent hatred
Through your refusal to act
To do what is possible
To do what is right
Brandishing about the word “can’t”
When really it’s “won’t”

©2018 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author’s permission.