Do Not Run Away from Me

Do not run away from me!

Did I not tell you, in this empty fantasy,

even if for centuries you wander angrily,

you will never find another true companion like me.

You may cross a thousand deserts,

following caravans beneath unfamiliar stars;

yet every road beneath your restless feet

will quietly curve back toward my heart.

You may drink from distant fountains,

seeking sweetness in every passing face;

but the thirst that carries my name

will remain untouched within you.

Do not mistake separation for freedom.

A bird may escape from its cage,

yet still circle the house

where it first learned how to sing.

I have not loved you with ordinary love—

the kind that flowers in spring

and disappears when winter

lays its cold hand upon the garden.

I loved you before the first dawn

opened its golden eyes;

before the moon learned

to follow the longing sea.

Be angry, then.

Scatter my letters into the wind.

The wind itself is my messenger;

it will whisper every word back to you.

Hide behind silence,

behind distance, behind pride—

but how will you hide from the One

who lives inside your breathing?

When the night grows endless

and no lamp remains beside you,

close your eyes:

you will find me burning there.

I am not asking you to return

with apologies or explanations.

Love keeps no account

of who departed and who remained.

Come as rain comes to the earth—

without shame for having wandered.

Come as the river comes to the sea—

empty of every name but surrender.

And should you travel for centuries,

through every kingdom of this world,

your final step will bring you here—

where I have always waited within you.

~ Rumi

1st Stranga is by Rumi additions and editing in poem by Andy Lal

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 When You Walk Among the Flowers

My Love, you are nearer than the breath
That Heaven entrusted to my soul.
Before I knew your sacred name,
The stars had whispered it to me.

You are the quiet dawn
Resting upon the eyelids of the earth;
The first white rose that teaches spring
How beauty learns to bloom.

Walk once into the garden, Beloved,
And every blossom shall bow its fragrant head.
The proud cedar will soften its ancient pride,
The lily will forget its thousand songs.

The moon has borrowed all her silver
From the light that sleeps within your eyes;
The rivers learned their gentle music
From the kindness of your voice.

When you smile,
Even the lonely clouds
Lay down their grief
Upon the hills in peace.

The wind that wanders through the valleys
Returns perfumed by your passing;
And every bird, astonished into silence,
Listens for your footsteps among the leaves.

If beauty were a kingdom,
You would be its unseen Queen;
Not crowned by jewels,
But by the quiet grace that humbles Heaven.

I do not love you as men gather roses,
Fearing tomorrow's fading bloom.
I love you as the sun loves morning—
Without command, without end.

Should all the stars abandon night,
Should oceans forget the moon,
Still my heart would know its way to you,
As rivers remember the sea.

For you are not merely the flower I admire,
You are the garden where my soul has always lived.

And if Paradise should ask me
What miracle I carried from the earth,

I would whisper only your name.

~ Andy Lal 

 Love Is water Meant to Be Free

Love is not a fist,
not a door bolted from inside,
not a cage made of Gold
by the trembling hands of desire.

Love is water
resting in the open palm —
clear, breathing, alive,
trusting the kindness of space.

Hold it gently,
and it stays like a small sky
between your fingers,
a blue silence shining in your hand.

But close your hand,
claim it, command it,
call it mine too loudly —
and it escapes through every wound of possession.

This is how love teaches us:
not by staying where it is trapped,
but by leaving the hand
that forgot how to remain open.

Let the one you love
walk with their own wind.
Let their soul keep its windows,
its distance, its morning, its wings.

Give,
but do not count the return.
Speak,
but do not chain your words into orders.

Ask,
but do not demand.
Care,
but do not make your caring a prison.

For love is not less
because it is free.
The river does not become yours
because you stand beside it and thirst.

The moon does not belong to the sea,
yet every night
it lays its silver body
upon the waves.

So let love be like that —
near, luminous, unowned;
a presence that blesses,
not a hand that holds too hard.

And when someone you love
chooses their own road,
do not call it betrayal;
perhaps it is only the soul remembering the sky.

Life is not measured
by the breaths we gather,
but by those sudden moments
when beauty steals the breath from us.

Love freely.
Live softly.
Let every heart you touch
remain its own.

For what is truly loved
does not need to be possessed —
it returns, like fragrance,
to the open Air.

~ Andy Lal