I Am Not Deceived Poem by Mystic Qalandar

I am not deceived —
not by lies, not by illusions,
not by the one-sidedness of that impersonator
who mistakes the shroud for a patched robe
and the patched robe for salvation.

I know:
every face is temporary,
every touch a door—
opening toward annihilation —
and every love,
if carried to its final meaning,
becomes the name of its own ruin.

And yet —
when you soften your voice,
bring your tone close to silence,
something in that trembling
wakens an ancient recognition.

It feels as though the universe
for one moment
set down its burden,
and what remained
was only presence.

I no longer understand it as love,
nor as sanctity,
nor as the promise of salvation —
but as the dim reflection
of that one light
which stands nameless
behind all things.

Merciful, Compassionate —
these cease to be mere names,
and begin to spread
like breath within breath.

The throne is no longer somewhere above —
it descends into the blood,
and prostration happens in the being
before the forehead touches the ground.

Then you are no more, nor am I.
Only a current remains —
centerless, boundless —
in which nearness and distance
feel like two illusions
of a single wave.

I no longer uproot my portions for you,
because the giver, the receiver, and the gift —
all three are different tongues
of the same fire.

Whatever burns
returns to the one
who once called it light.

I do not drown —
I dissolve,
as a drop falling into the ocean
remembers what it means to be water.

And in that moment
silence does not return,
because now it is known
that silence never left.

It was the first sound,
the final meaning,
the void
from which every word was born
and in which every name at last
forgets its face.

'I' — was only a window.
'You' — another angle of that same light.
And 'We' — if there was any truth,
it was only this: that one
saw itself in the mirrors of multiplicity
and for a while
took those reflections to be separate.

Now neither union remains,
nor separation,
nor seeking.
Only that One

MyKoul