Sometimes beauty is but hunger-
A thirst dressed in praise,
A shadow pretending its light in the fog of desire’s haze.
You were never the flame, just fuel
for a fire they couldn’t name-
consumed by nafs-e-ammara,
They mistook longing for acclaim.
And then, in your own silent gaze,
You gave them virtues they never grew.
Was it your mercy,
Or was it nafs romanticizing the view?
How many angels have we carved
from clay stained with our sin?
How many devils have we called holy
just to keep love within?
We must ask:
Who authored the script?
Who wore the crown?
Was it the soul, or the ego
that turned us around?
What is beauty?
But the echo of a need unexamined?
A form interpreted
by the appetites of nafs-e-ammara,
The primal self-
Always seeking to devour what it names divine.
Did they love you-
or the projection their ego stitched
onto the screen of your presence?
Was it your light,
or merely the sheen of their want
refracted through longing?
And when you, too,
Thought them noble, sacred, and worthy-
Was it gnosis or consciousness?
Or just the nafs in disguise,
Or, unconsciousness?
Performing righteousness to dignify its own illusions?
The soul, in truth, is a mirror clouded by breath,
Fogged by fear,
Smudged by memory.
How seldom do we see the real,
How often we cling to apparitions in the theater of the self.
No face is free from distortion until the eye is cleansed of possession.
And so-
Before we call another beautiful,
Before we place halos upon heads,
We must ask:
Who is seeing whom?
And, through what veil?
Answer:
Sometimes you are just beautiful to someone because of their nafs-e-ammara,
And, sometimes it’s your nafs that make them look good in your good book,
And, you give them place in your world, Unknowingly you know then-
They are going to fade away when their nafs will vanish,
You know then-
Even your feelings are also not real.
©® Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy
Time Frame: 6.30 AM, Mirpur Cantonment.