Two Voices Within Poem by Mystic Qalandar

Voice One:
I am water—
yet never quench the deepest thirst.
I am sustenance—
yet cannot feed the hollow heart.
I am wine—
yet lack the rapture of the soul's own feast.
I am essence—
yet the garden's gate stays locked to me.

Why, then, this ceaseless ache?
What is this stifled whisper in the breast?

Voice Two:
I am the thirst itself,
yet find no water in this waste.
I am the hunger,
yet the door to bread is lost.
I am the drunkenness,
yet empty of all saving wine.
I am the knowing,
yet the final key is still withheld.

This is the chasm, the unsailed sea
between the heart's own two shores—
while the cosmos, an ancient friend,
stands waiting, just beyond.

Voice One:
Then who shall bridge this great divide?
Who mends this fracture, this despair—
this silent, tangled ache for love?
From what dark root do such pains grow?

Voice Two:
Throw wide the gates within, O traveler.
Let the inner court's true friends appear.
Then, no more thirst, and no one thirsting,
no more hunger, and no one hungering—
only the clear, unending rapture,
a love beyond all naming,
essence, at last, greeting essence.

Voice One:
So, was I then the only lack?
Or was my longing, too,
a part of the divine design?

Voice Two:
You are the thirst, and you the water.
You are the essence, and its keeper.
You are the question, and the answer,
dancing in the cosmic mirror.

— November, 24,2025