Feels so distant yet so near.

It feels so distant yet so near.
It feels so unreal yet so here.

It happened two years ago.

I'll never forget the tweet I read. Two years ago. Today.
I'll never forget the twitter handle of the tweet.

From grade 2 speeches to undergrad documentary.
He gave me the Yearning.
He taught me how to speak to God.

From my childhood to now, it just took a bullet to take it all away.

I used to forget the way I used to walk away from killings.
I used to forget the way I switched channels from attacks.

But from the day he died, I never forget.
I'll never forget how you all stood watching.
I'll never forget the way we still stand watching.

For we are more dead than this man who seems so alive in the hearts and minds of many around.

Who continues to let the dying pain ache within.
Who continues to tell me to not to forget for anyone, lest I forget.

you call it emotions lacking rationality.
you drag the case in the courts of politics.
you drag my faith and justify the killing.
you drag God to rationalise silence.
you update statuses for Peshawar. And then you forget.

You hashtag 'neverforget' as you slowly forget.

you bury the pain and you forget.

It feels so distant yet so near.
It feels so unreal yet so here.

I'll never forget.
And I pray you don't lose a legend so human or a child so angelic to make you not to forget.

To the man I can't ever do justice to in words.
To the man I can't ever thank enough.
To the Human I can't stop thinking of ways he helped.
To the chacha, to childhood bikerides, to school speeches and conversations.
To the legend the world yet so fondly remembers today.

the ideology that killed him taught me about the tradings of God.
the ideology that rationalises the silence and lazy excuses teaches me the falling price of God.
the one who calls me an idol worshiper and kills me teaches me about the powerful idol he is worshipping.

the one who kills to the one who stays silent to the one who forgets - teach me about the idol gods of fear, power, luxury, laziness and brainwashed versions of god - bought and sold around me in drawingrooms and circles today.

It feels so distant yet so near.
It feels so unreal yet so here.

It happened two years ago.

I'll never forget.
And I pray you don't lose a legend so human or a child so angelic to make you not to forget.

Two steps. One step.

The illusion broke.
The mirage disappeared.
The shatters and confines felt.

Breaking from less, I stirred into the quest for more.
More and more led to me to You.
More and more led me away from You.
In the more and less of each moment, I began looking for You.

Where Trust in Absolute began, The Yearning Began.

With every blessing, I felt You near.
With every giving, I felt You away.

I asked for You.
You gave me the rest.
I asked for You more.
You made me busy with the rest.
I asked.
You blessed.
I kept asking.
You kept blessing.

I drove into mirages, knowing they are mirages.
In each mirage, I felt You.
In each mirage, I felt away from You.

You made me feel your Permanence in the temporality of Now.

Each Now, Each blessing. Kept me away from You.
as much as it kept me Yearning for You.

Each blessing, I stepped away from You.
Each blessing, I fell for You.
Each blessing fulfilled a part of me, as much as it widened my Yearning for You.

I kept asking for You.
You kept giving me temporary figments of what seemed a part of You.

As I struggled to accept the blessings by You.
As I struggled to comprehend the pains of sufferings and the Joys of Your Blessings.

I stepped back from You each time.
You stepped forward in me all times.

I stepped from within me.
You stayed well within me.

In my Yearning, I found You.
In my emptiness, I found You.
In my inability to miss You, I found You.
In my heaviness of silence, I found You.

I found You in the pains and joys of Living the Blessings You kept giving.

Each time, I asked for You, You gave me a figment of your reflection, And in each part of that reflection, I found You.

In each moment of Yearning to Yearn for You, I found You.
In each moment of struggling to find You in Now, I found You.
In my sadness in failure to miss You, I found You.

In the world swinging from rationality to emotions outside, I found You in me, within me, intact in the Silence of Yearning I can't describe.

Each time, I fail my Love for You, I found You.
In my little brain  I take one step back. Two forward to You.

I stepped from within me.
You stayed well within me.

In each step back, in each step forward, I find You.