i don't know how many times can a person die and die again.
i guess they say the point is that we still live despite the worst circumstances, that we have strength more than we know. for now, i die. and for now, i mourn my death. i mourn the death of love, the death of the stars. the death of perseverence, of hope, the death of beauty.

for as much as your love taught me life, love now dies with me. and if only i could make you see.

on dancing

to dance is to keep in step with your partner, follow his lead, mirror your steps to his. there are the basic steps you keep in time, and there are the fancy swirls, where he leads you, lets you go, but you always come back, in step, in time, together. you are not leaning on him, however, you need your own posture, with feet firm to the ground, your core stable. only then can you, together, form the dynamic, fluid, structured tension, just the right balance, to bounce of each other's energy ...to flow, together. even if you misstep and lose count along the way. and even if your partner is out of time with the music, as you mirror him you need to be out of time with him as one. maybe the both of you are dancing to your own tune.

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if, however, you are a stickler for a certain beat and you need a lead who can keep the same rhythm in time because that is how your heart beats, then find that partner and keep in close all night - it would not do to dance with any other.

I know, because I understand how it feels. I understand how it is to hear something unfamiliar, and immediately shrink away (sometimes even with an involuntary look of disgust) before even thinking about it. An immediate reaction, caused by some mental block in the head. It could be a different skin colour, someone seen as ‘dirty’. It could be someone we think is smelly, though if we ever think about it, we do not really know why we think so – we have not really gone close enough to smell. It could be the smell of incense, or the sound of prayer. I hear a prayer in Arabic, and I catch that feeling. That shock of distaste, of immediately wanting to shut it off, turn it away, change the channel. That feeling that it is foreign, not mine, a thorn in my flesh. It is there before I think about it, before I realise it. I catch it – it is the fear of the foreign that has been imprinted in me; years and years of being conditioned to stay away from ‘these people’, a people who are violent, dirty, lazy, thieves and corrupters. Stay away from their religion, a religion which is controlling, authoritative, misguided, unaccepting, ridiculous. A people who keep taking what is ours and who are trying to overpower us bit by bit. Malicious strangers we must protect our position from. I catch it – the disgust, the hatred. I banish it, and let the prayer continue to play. This is what it is, really - it is beautiful.  

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Racism (or any other discrimination) is not caught outside, in others. (In an us vs ‘others’ framework, it is natural and easiest to accuse the other of the problem first). It must be caught, and stopped, within ourselves, constantly.