Our caps flew like confetti.
Thank god I customized mine.
I'll keep it as a memento of all-nighters,
friendships formed in the academic trenches,
dismissive professors and group-project-tortures.

This isn’t another ‘drunk girl’ holiday, despite obvious similarities.
Our parents, sisters, brothers, and grandmothers are here.

We came in doe-eyed, holding overpriced planners,
and enough provisions for two year Mars missions.
We hoped to discover friends, decent Wi-Fi signals
and perhaps our adult selves.

Now we're holding diplomas, those future-proofing talismans.
Mine’s in molecular biophysics and biochemistry.
Which is wry, because when I was in high school,
my sister accused me of not knowing how to boil water.

I've been asked "What’s next?" a thousand times in the last month.
I have plans—but I was dying to shrug and say, “that’s tomorrow’s problem,” like I’ve spent major duckets, degree wise, but remain the ditzy blonde.
The standard graduate answer, I’ve heard, is "I dunno."
(though honestly, it’s a great answer).

Congratulations, all of you graduating overachievers out there—everywhere.
Go forth, be fabulous and find that next big dream.
Can you believe we actually did this?
Argh! I gotta go, someone wants another picture.
.
.
Songs for this:
What Dreams Are Made Of by Evann McIntosh
Summer Wind by Robert Mosci
Tomorrow by Wings

to my summer breeze
heavy rain and quiet night —
lie down next to me

Swans in love enchant
Upon the lake blue mist parts
Nature spirits wake

She was a nun...




(...to be continued...)

My very special son,
You are the treasured gift,
And blessings of my life,
With a beautiful soul and a beautiful mind,
Unique,one of a kind.
My proudest moment is when I tell others you are my son,
My reason to smile,
My listening ear,
Thank you for all that you have been,
And always be in my life,.
A son who never misses to call me before his day begins,
Thank you Allah for I am blessed.
14/5/2025

The cloud is crumbling,
Rainy day ahead,
The air is soaked
The flavour of heavy soil.

New life is born
In the depths of the merciful Earth
We are all Her sons and daughters.

Words activate something in me
even if I’m just thinking, not writing.
So I soon find myself back at the keyboard.
It seems that my life’s been a series of keyboards.

My motor’s always running—I idle fast.
But I’ve been untying my intellectual shoe-strings recently.
Dissociatively avoiding intellective pursuits,
and embracing entropy (since school ended).
It’s been relaxing—I’ve felt new to my body.

There’ve been happenings lately,
particularly in the nocturnal theater of romantic nights.
My bf Peter’s here—trying to look impressed by an under-grad degree. He’s a pretty good actor—for an amateur.

We’ve been interrogating the richer aspects of love,
testing it’s configurations you might say,
with constant motions and lush indulgences.
We’re savoring this temporary freedom,
devouring it, like mindless carnivores.

Peter lives in Geneva, you see, while I’ve been in New Haven.
If I’ve learned anything, in my ivy league, senior year,
it’s that you can’t cheat closeness with virtuality.
He may have a new job in New Jersey and I'll be in Boston.
I've already calculated a year’s travel expenses from
Logan to Liberty and back 52 times = ~$62k. Make it so.

I'm an enumerator, I count everything
—the left facing croissants on a tray,
the days Peter and I have been apart,
and the modicum of hours we’ve had together.
I’m somewhere on that obsessive-compulsive bell curve,
and I’m a Libra, uncomfortable in an uneven world.
Perhaps there's no shame in this.

I wonder sometimes, when we’re separated, if we’ll still work, when
we’re reunited, and then, like sunlight can suddenly define shadow,
we can see that it does.
That love is more potent than wine.

I dream of things I can’t have—yet,
like the life I’d like to live—someday.
Hey, I’ve something to look forward to.
.
.
Songs for this:
Love Train by The O'Jays
Easy by The Commodores