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أبتسم دائماً عندما يخبرني رجل بأنني جميلة

ليس حياء ، أو امتناناً

ابتسامة بما معناه "أنت الرابع هذا الأسبوع"

نفحات من "أعلم، رأيت وجهي في المرآة قبل خروجي" 

قليل من "ألم يكتب الشعراء أبلغ من ذلك في بند التودد؟"

ابتسامة في طياتها "و بعد؟"

 ماذا جنت امرأة جميلة من الكون غير الكلام المعسول

و النهايات الحزينة؟

Muscle Memory

Today I've been feeling off
One of these moods
When nothing is wrong except your being stuck
In a reel, waiting for a fire to break out
So you could break away
It's humid outside, in bloody November
And I've got time till my cup grows cold
He said he was not dressed for the occasion
Dusty flip flops were on his feet and I smiled
Son, you carry yourself just fine
For a boy unprepared
I ran away, naturally
Stood at the door for a while to sign farewell
But nobody turned to look, regrettably
I left, without any good byes
It's become my kink
It's been really strange, all day
Never looked at the sky once
It still never rained, in bloody November
Been trying to call a few on the phone
But none gone through
I think I've been seeking help
For a scourge unknown, yet to befall me
And something was scratching inside
Had to plunge into the pits of slumber
So I ran as fast as I could

Oblivion is how I get through my rues

This feels familiar

Sometime ago, I wrote about it even
And I slept like a child, on a wet pillow
Woke up a new person, in a different place
In a different time, a whiff of a nightmare clinging to my lashes
Eternal sunshine on my spotless mind
What was it that made me want to delve
Towards a far deeper oblivion
On one foggy night, long forgotten ?
On another plane of existence perhaps I wanted to erase
This day, perhaps it's why it doesn't feel right
This reel ,broken, and squeaking

Why is it that my tears overflow when I couldn't put a finger
On the woe ?


What did I forget to remember ?


Whatever it is that put a crack in my chest
Right here in this sealed car
On the same hour
On the same day
In the same corner
I couldn't tell

What is it that I refused to remember ?

But my body still did ?

Trembled with rage, at my failed retention
Shrunk in cut pride
What a disgrace, my inattention

Why do these tears burn hotter than those of heartbreak

I still remembered heartbreak

And of this novel affliction I recall none

The body remembers the pain, strangely, doesn't it
The body remembers the strain on its bones
When this weight decides to roost
The body still remembers and all your limbs whisper in one breath
When you try to gather your parts
Hug your shivering arms and tighten your insides
As you dart away from a bullying reminder

"You
Don't get to walk away
From this."

How did my body still mourn you
When my heart learnt how to live
Without the memory of you ?

Dépaysement

There was a moment of clarity
When I realized that I was not wanted
As much as I wanted
Indignant, I never got my notice
People don't fight with words anymore
They just pack in silence
No one recalls with awe
The wars that were killed off
Before they killed anyone
Ever wondered what happens to the balloon
When it lets go of the twig
And floats to the sky

BOOM,
What a shame; no one gets to hear it, that final cry

I recoil to my sweet stupor of carelessness
Assumed
Not so much dismay, as I'd have wished
A knot was undone, I was let go,
And so I've run
It is an obvious lie, I tell myself
That's still truer than truth
All these thespian lines that take on the face
Of supercilious mockery, a mask
Beneath a mask
Of changing landscapes

I never tell lies, even when I do

The heart feels lighter, indeed
And the sun, as you might expect, still shines, brighter
I have gotten through my day
Though sleepless, as I lay, at the darkest hours
I've made peace with the fact that I abscond
When push comes to shove, and
These bonds ,of friendship and love, that I made
Intricate, and frail, are akin to spiderwebs
They take a long time to be
And yet a few whiffs to flail apart

You know, sometimes I think I am healed
From being

And sometimes, a few days a year
When it's too quiet and the clouds are cross
I'm slapped into remembrance: a few maladies
Of the heart
Don't go away with old age

Time teaches you how to make homes
Instead of blanket tents and sand castles
Somewhere to hide, where no one could find you
When reality is not being so kind
And the child remains asleep, somewhere, tucked in the deep
They never wake up, until it's time to pack
Again
And mine seems to have a curious case
Of a Benjamin Button
Sometimes, when I get too cold
Having bared myself from truths that cower
Behind the broad backs of truthful lies
I yearn for a home that I wrecked with my own hands
He said, "He who must be born,
Must first destroy a world", and I did
My home was built inside the frame of a dusty painting
Hung on the pale wall of our living room
Considered the world, before I could remember much
Behind the blurry panes of that window
For days and nights, hid away from
A crowd of inquisitive gazes
Card board faces
Rogue shadows
Broken voices
A cold cup of tea to my side, and my palms never got numb
Carrying the weight of my resting wonders

And I wondered a lot
Why I never get disappointed
Though I try
These poems scream in high pitches of scorn
Laughing from the shadows, even I get torn
Between the submission to a trance
And the dread of it all
How comfortable in their bareness these words are
Mocking their creator
And you, you little green horn
You think you understand
You think there is a case in here
Stuck in the moving sand to my chin
Got your piercing nosiness under my skin
You think I'm broken
You think my unfaltering love is a token
You earn by nodding at the right pace
I could suck your soul dry
Kiss your lips in all the ardor I could summon
Then leave you to die
And I still wouldn't love you
At your deathbed
Because my bits are too precious
And I love them all
Too much to love another
And perhaps I buried them under the porch
In that house, my innocent
My blight
My willingness to fight
Someone pulled my hands and I lept into the world
People weren't made of cardboard
Anymore
Their sneers synced with their lips, at last
Their shadows didn't fight for space
And I have always tried to remember
How that house
Looked from the inside.

Mikan

Once, she was putting away the left overs from lunch

A tear trickled down her eye, and she turned to the other side 

So I wouldn't see

Said, "No one eats anymore

I used to cook every day..."

And I, hugging her sideways

Printed a kiss on her cheek

Somehow, of late, I've put on a lot of weight

But there were no more left overs
And my mother ceased to cry

She asks mechanically as I pack

If I'll be coming on the weekend
"Yes, momma", my equally mechanical response
"Got nothing better to do anyway"

Once, she said, as I strapped my seat belt, that I should commute 

"it will work out", she explained 

"I will wake you up for Fajr and you shall leave after breakfast

All rejuvenated and peppy

"You

Seem like you don't have breakfast. Often."

I used to run away from home
Of late I seem to never want to leave
Three hours, 250 kms

Momma talks a lot on the phone

When she calls in the mornings

I tug my cell into the crevice of my shoulder
As I struggle to type

Bruised and tense from the last session

"You have a class again today?", she stands at the door

I print another kiss and walk away
When did I start saying goodbye like I'm bidding farewell?

Wish I could recall what she says last

When her silence suddenly interrupts my thoughts

By habit; it's my time to dwell on things uncalled for

While I'm driving her around

She never waits 

"How does he look like? Add Milk to the list.

There is a Henna tomorrow, can you stay?"

Racing along the seconds

So she could say it all, and I would wait until she runs out

Of things to say

To tell her that I loved her

"Is that so?"

"Yes, Momma, I love you so."

"Add Ulker to the list."

Hey, Momma,
My friends say I never talk much, did you know ?

All these hours I was trapped in my car with someone

On the passenger seat spilling their spleens out

And I ,looking ahead into the gloom

It's the mind that spoke to fill in the quietness between their breaths 

Not for a moment did I let my heart stray

Save for this space that I hid away, from you

I learnt to never talk much that words sound meek

And fragmented when they have to scratch up my vocal cords

For a change

That I stutter 

And I find it hard to utter the passages I have practiced all night

While sleep has run off to play a game of hide and seek

Along with the things I was supposed to remember 

And the trifling visions that I wished were real 

Momma, it's because you never listened

And Momma, sometimes I feel like I was robbed of 

Being a daughter 

So I could be a mother
To you, and I had to skip my fresher years

When I didn't know how to woman ,that I got trapped
Behind the face of a child with a chest too ample for my days
And the spirits of a broken boy
And limbs too awkward and small for my whims
A heart too shy and paranoid
Quiet as a grave, some days
Melts in Bohemian Rhapsodies ,some moments
And I never disliked holding your hands while

Walking around the market at 26 years old so you wouldn't get lost

Because it was I, that wanted to hold on to what's left of what I have missed

It is I that wants to cling to earth

So I wouldn't float

And disappear

Momma,

We grew up so fast ,didn't we ?

Scattered around like frightened beads 

Driven by hunger for life and things unseen

A yearning

To get away

Still standing in motion, by the pulls

Of duty

Our umbilical cords dangling from our bellies yet.

Martele

If only it was possible to smother all the voices around you
The gushing wind through the cracks in the pane
The humming of the neon lights
The distant wheezes of the fridge in the kitchen
The friction of your breaths through your nostrils
Your faint heartbeats
The shifts of your palm as you shield your temples
From acoustic usurpers
But alas,
It's in vain, isn't it ?

When all dies out, you could still hear the brute voice
Of silence

In a while, it gets louder
Rings timbers at the back of your head
Bounces off walls you could swear were dead
In a while longer it learns to alter the habit of your lungs
So it could wheeze along at night
Takes abode in the cracks of your joints
Looking for a loophole
To steal way deep into your soul
A whole kingdom to conquer, plenty of room to resonate and
Palpitate, grow limbs, and make a home out of your cranium
Perilous 


Stay away from high rooftops and forgotten  benches
People that sit at length conversing with the quiet blue
Plug your ears as if there is poison in the ripples of sound
Dig your nails into your scalp, as you walk by
Close your eyes, and chant all the words you know out loud
Seek out strangers with restless eyes
They chatter the most, and tell no lies
Talk to yourself during long drives
There are clots of silence traveling around
A single shudder begets a hurricane
Could your rib cage hold its grounds ?
Being so grandiosely defenseless
You livid bard with pointed ears and permanent goosebumps
Looking for trouble where you shouldn't lurk

Silence

Is coming for you.

The Blast

Goodness of soul is so rare to find
In this age of ours
That's what I always thought, when she spoke of love
Have always wondered how she does it grandiosely,
Being so kind
In a world so vulgar
She said on one dark hour that she knew
He had a life of his own, apart from his beau
A happy nest he made with another
Having succumbed to the pleas of his mother
Mere months after he uttered the words 
You see, when the chest is glutted, one has to make a few
Confessions
And she, basked in the moonlight
Turned her head and asked in all candidness,
If it was okay to wait
On him
Wait ,despite the shackles of guilt
And the chains of desire
For years and years for their fate to change
While she never faltered
Wait, for to love, she said, without a gleam of deliverance

Is the highest of callings





Hey, kindred spirit

Could it be a bless that we don't get to see
The greater picture that is splattered amiss ?
Is knowing too terrible to bear with
That we deign to pick the awkward lies
And guile lullabies
Over a truth too bare and loud to miss?
Perhaps it's drenched in rue, ever so bleak
Yet we choose to call it a beautiful mess
This higher calling; a sorry excuse
For a piece of art

Why are humans so weak, though
Before the maladies of the heart ?

Tears of wrath are quite the scare
When they gush so rapid, as you flare
With unwarranted emotions
Sometimes you don't understand
Why your tepid strands of expression

Would crumble beneath your chin

Turning the knobs of your poise so craftily
Weighing your bow of concern so furtively
I raged, my self beside, with utter disdain
Such a fall from grace, I'm aware
How I wept for a notion profound, that I grasped afresh
Yet couldn't quite explain
To my woe and bewilderment
In that moment of bareness, I didn't dare expose my face

Breath, it's not about you
But she is miserable
She is not you
It isn't fair
It's not happening
To you
What does it matter to you ? Your heart is sound
Your soul is free
Your cup of tea, it never gets cold
You never found the will to destroy a world
For the one you adored
Harbor the beauty of it all, and baseness, in your bones
Reduce your pride into droplets of resignation
Trap yourself in a car with smudgy panes asking all the right questions
Of the wrong person

You wouldn't understand

Was it for a sore on my flesh, that I bitterly wept ?
I wonder
Or for a lump in my throat that I couldn't relieve
Was it really for her ?
Or for love, getting defiled, heinously
For the broken trust of a child
For the blight of man

For the world, being black and white, only either

The incertitude of one with a soft nature
Having to tread over patches of shadow and light
For the fact that I cared 
To the point of having to choose
Between a breath and a sigh
For a hurt that wasn't mine to take home

Was it for myself, after all,
That I shed all these tears ?

And I, with all my pretentious airs
Wanted to puke all the words bulging in my throat
The acrid, the sorry
The callous, the mean
The irretrievable
The tired

The pointless
The pointless

The pointless

I said nothing

What could words fix when it was the words the broke everything ?

What is it that you seek
Still lurking around in these parts ?

This is my private kingdom

In here I rule

I'm the loudest
And the most honest
When hailed
Behind these mute walls
By the echoes of silence
These terse outbursts of loneliness
None else would understand
And you
Would you like me to surrender to you
My remaining verses of land
My rightful property where I roll bare
And no fingers are pointed and
No one would stare
Surrender my only louver
For a bit of fresh air
To you
And your lecherous pokes
Of idle curiosity ?