Windows into the void

Our Faces in the Mirrors
By Qayss Ramli

Don’t you agree?
Your past did not bear the features of who you are today,
and it never crossed your mind that one day, after many years,
you would find yourself gazing at these words through a small screen,
strapped to your wrist — as if it were a prophecy from the future.

You used to fear the unknown,
to hide your anxiety about a tomorrow that hadn’t yet arrived,
without realizing that what you feared was patiently waiting for you,
and that your steps had been leading you toward it all along,
without your awareness.

Look now — see where the path has brought you.
Who guided you to this very place you stand in?
Was it life that steered you,
or were you simply following your intuition —
those slow, deliberate steps with which you unknowingly shaped your destiny?

This journey is not one we plan;
it plans us.
It places us in stations we never dreamed of reaching,
and reveals to us versions of ourselves we never knew existed.

Tomorrow morning,
when you stand before the mirror,
look closely at the person facing you.
Study his eyes carefully and ask him:
Who are you now?

How much of what you see is truly you,
and how much has been sculpted by life —
through its joys and its wounds,
its quiet losses that left invisible marks upon your soul?

Life has changed us more than we ever imagined.
It has altered how we see things,
reshuffled our priorities,
and stripped away our naive innocence —
only to gift us something greater:

something called understanding —
though it often comes blended with disappointment.

Now, perhaps you hold a fragment of truth —
never the whole of it,
for absolute truth is granted to no one.

But it is enough to recognize
that you are no longer who you were,
and that tomorrow,
you will not be who you are today.

Each day reshapes you slowly,
like a river carving its path through stone —
in silence and patience.

And with the passing of years,
you will once again stand before the mirror
and see someone smiling back at you —
someone you don’t entirely recognize,
yet who somehow still resembles you.

Perhaps that reflection
is what remains of you —
or perhaps it is
who you were always meant to become.

Contemplation
By Qayss Ramli

The question existed long before existence itself took form or meaning:
Who holds dominion — the mind that steers the body like a captain his ship,
or the body that dictates to the mind its wild desires and mortal limits?

Yet what troubles me runs deeper than this eternal debate —
a question far more elusive, and perhaps far more truthful:
Do the days drag us toward destinies we never wrote,
or are we the ones dragging them behind us, blind to our final destination?

I stand at the edge of two opposites:
a consciousness that screams I am bound by the chains of fate,
and a wish that whispers within my soul that I am free —
a bird flying without a sky.

So I ask:
Am I a prisoner inside a pre-drawn circle,
or merely a fleeting detail in the stories of others —
leaving a mark like an engraving on stone,
while they pass through me like wind leaving no trace?

Or am I, in truth,
a being walking with a borrowed memory,
carrying echoes of a life I never lived,
catching a glimpse of its owner in a flash of recollection,
only to lose him the next moment?

Am I today nothing but the inevitable result of my past?
And will I remain a captive of that past
in the future that has yet to arrive?

An old friend once told me confidently,
“I know you completely.”
Yet I drown in my own ignorance of myself.

And when I stand before the mirror,
I ask that strange reflection, “Who are you?”
It smiles back at me —
with a wonder I no longer recognize.

Since I Knew You
By Qayss Ramli
October 2023

Since I knew you,
I opened my arms to you
like a child welcoming life for the very first time.

I was drowning in my love for you—
so deeply
that I went blind
to the nails you drove into my chest,
and to the roadside
where you left me,
like a small Christ without miracles.

I bled everything from my heart
until its springs ran dry,
and I remained like the trunk of a severed palm tree—
hard on the outside,
but within me dwells
a winter of betrayal,
with no spring,
no warmth.

And now winter has returned once more,
to pass through me,
clothe me again
in cold
and solitude—
as it does every year.

Hunger
By Qayss Ramli

Can wishes alone satisfy the hunger of the poor?
Perhaps not. Yet when they blend with determination, they become bread for the soul and sustenance for the journey.

From childhood, Dania knew the taste of hunger.
Not the hunger of the stomach alone, but a deeper one—
a hunger that gnawed at her heart every night.

She studied by the dim light of a candle,
while the sound of rain dripped through the cracks of their worn-out roof.
Beside her, her younger siblings huddled around their mother, trying to forget the cold.
Her father would come home exhausted, carrying his wooden shoeshine box and brushes,
the smell of polish preceding his steps.
Sometimes he placed a piece of bread in her hand;
other times, only a silent smile.
But what she longed for was not bread—
she longed for the day she would stand on a stage,
people applauding her,
and her father realizing that he had not polished shoes in vain.

Dania grew up carrying that hunger inside her—
the hunger of a dream.
There was no room for studying in their small house,
so she chose a corner of the kitchen,
where she kept her books and papers.
Her siblings didn’t play much;
they whispered so as not to disturb her.
And whenever she heard the laughter of neighborhood children outside,
she tightened her grip on her pen and whispered to herself:
I will sacrifice as they do. One day, we will taste the fruit.

…And that day came.

Dania stood on the graduation stage, holding a certificate of excellence.
But she held far more than a paper—
she carried twenty years of hunger, cold, and tears.
She lifted her eyes to the crowd and said,
her voice steady despite the trembling of her heart:

“I am the daughter of poverty.
My father shines shoes—perhaps he once knelt to polish the shoes of some among you.
I lived in a house barely fit for life,
but my hunger was never for food—
it was for a dream.
And today, I satisfy that hunger with my success.”

The hall erupted in applause.
Dania raised her hands in gratitude, tears glistening in her eyes, and continued:

“I dedicate this success to my father and mother—
the two lamps that lit my path.
To my siblings, who sold their childhood for the price of my silence,
when I studied in a small corner of our home—
a place we called the kitchen.

I did not reach this point by my effort alone,
but through a poor family who believed
that dreams can be worth more than bread.

Today, I walk into the future holding my father’s, my mother’s,
and my siblings’ hands—
together we witness the dawn we’ve awaited for twenty years.

Thank you to all who made their bodies the bridge
across which my dreams walked.”

Her voice broke with tears,
and the applause rose so high it drowned the hall’s sobs.
Dania stepped down from the stage
and walked to the back where her father stood—
holding his shoeshine box and brushes.
He embraced her tightly—
the embrace of a father who saw his life embodied
in the triumph of his daughter.

Turning to the audience,
Dania raised the box above her head—
as if lifting a crown forged from hardship and honor—
and said, her voice trembling with pride and tears:

“With this box… we made the dream come true.”

The box was no longer a tool of labor.
It had become a symbol—
a symbol of the sweat of hands,
the dignity of the poor,
and the power to turn mud-covered shoes
into dreams that walk upon a ground of light.

The Equation of Power
By Qayss Ramli
The Dynamics of Supremacy in an Age of Transformation

The contemporary equation of power is embodied in a complex global scene, where major nations race toward technological and strategic supremacy. While the United States continues to lead the global stage in technological innovation, other powers—most notably Russia, Turkey, and China—are steadily enhancing their capabilities in silence, far from the spotlight.

In this era defined by artificial intelligence and the ease of information exchange, many strategic movements remain concealed, foretelling surprises that may once again reshape the balance of global power.

Technological innovations are no longer mere gradual developments; they have become live experiments applied directly in potential conflict zones—particularly across the Middle East and Asia. The defining feature of this period is the unprecedented speed of technological imitation and replication, which renders precise strategic planning, along with the ability to initiate and decisively conclude military operations, a critical determinant of who will dominate the global scene.

The coming decade will not simply extend what has preceded it; it will mark a decisive turning point—one that reorders global power and imposes a new strategic reality. Within this emerging order, great powers will compete for both technological and operational superiority, demanding a profound understanding of the shifting dynamics of power in the twenty-first century.

My Fiftieth Birthday
By Qayss Ramli

At the threshold of fifty,
one stands as if gazing into a mirror covered with dust—
seeing their own face through the cracks of time,
while old features peer back, asking softly:
Were you a passerby… or truly a resident of your own life?

There, between a spring that slipped away without farewell
and an autumn approaching with the calm steps of wisdom,
the leaves of illusion begin to fall,
and only the roots remain—
those that never bowed to the storms.

At fifty,
the noise fades,
and the heart learns not to fear solitude,
but to discover it as the truest companion.

At fifty,
one must bid farewell to the shadows of disappointment
and open new windows to the sun—
even if it is the sun of dusk.
For what is the worth of spring
if it remains trapped in an unwatered memory?

At fifty,
mistakes become distant tales,
regret a fleeting ghost that waves from afar, then disappears.
You realize that some dreams
are lovelier while fluttering in the sky
than when caged in your hands.

Love does not vanish—
it simply changes form:
it becomes a long gaze that understands everything,
a silent smile,
a touch that tells what words could not.

Hope does not die—
it simply slows its pace,
walking gently,
as if it knows that haste steals from life its essence.

In this coming autumn,
the soul blooms again,
but in softer shades—
like a sunset unwilling to end.

Even death
is no longer an enemy,
but a distant traveler sending signals from the horizon.
We prepare a place for him in our hearts—
not with fear,
but with serenity.

Welcome, O autumn,
friend of wisdom and companion of calm.
Take me away from the clamor of life,
and guide me toward the simplest moments of bliss.

Let me turn away from the ornaments of the world,
to touch its essence instead.
Let me breathe your gentle air,
and embrace the remnants of longing within my chest.

At the threshold of fifty,
we do not grow old—
we ascend.
We do not wither—
we finally see ourselves,
as though standing at the beginning of the mirror,
not at its end.