Toska-I

There will be boys 
With their eyes on the heavens
And hands in their pockets 
Who will glance down at you
Once in a while 
And tell you stories about the wars they've seen
And all the people they've been
And when they look down at you
With their eyes full of ghosts
You won't be able to help but fall in love
Because even though no one cares
If the sad little girl is listening
She can't help but open her heart
But darling, remember,
When the boys come,
run away
And when they open their mouths
Clap your hands over your ears and walk.
But if, and when
You fall in love
Set yourself on fire
Darling it will hurt far less
Than what they will do to you. 

Party Girl

Skinny Jeans, Unskinny hips.
Scarlet Hues on painted lips.
Party Girl with Secrets huge.
In disco lights, she seeks refuge.
Jiving to the beats, so fast.
Dancing, praying for this moment to last.
Still, like the songs, the night does end.
But party girl, she loves to pretend.
Drawing blinds against the sun’s harsh light;
She closes the blinds and preserves the night.
Ah, cruel time, you brutish beast.
Upon her beauty, you will feast.
Skin, once tight will be stretched loose.
Old age comes, however you refuse.
Party girl, Helen of Troy;
Barbie doll, now a discarded toy.
Replaced by Divas, pretty and young.
Forgotten chords of a song once sung.
Back to the closet from whence you came;
Your choppy waters forever tame.

Colorblind.

When I was young, life was easy. The world was divided into black and white. There was good and evil and the good people let pedestrians pass and kept to the left side of the road when they drove.

The first time I read a book, something changed and something broke. I started yearning for faraway places where the sky reflected the sea and my black and white world became tinged with blue.

The first time a friend held my hand and told me about his hopes and dreams, my heart started longing for freedom too. We got an Atlas off the highest shelf in the school library and traced all the places we’d go. We’d wade in the blues and walk on the green and hence, I began to feel the tugs of a cool emerald of a life I had yet to live.

The first time I fell in love, I felt something fracture inside me as blood, hot and red started pouring from every crack and crevice that every longing had left behind as I’d started saying goodbye to the dreams I couldn’t fulfill.

The first time my friend told me he was running away from his home to live with the boy he loved, he gave me all the colors of the rainbow as he left me with the promise that it is always okay to be what we are, that the purpose of life isn’t to walk until you can’t do so anymore, it’s to walk with someone you love. He left me with the promise that the destination doesn’t matter as long as the journey is a happy one.

When I was young, dawn was breaking over the horizon, white and pure but now I’m grown and it’s sunset and I’m bathed in colors that are as far from black and white as can be.

And I find that though they are quite significant, black and white will never again be the only colours on my palette. 

A Love Letter For The Blind

You,

Yours wasn't the first face I saw when I opened my eyes,

it might not be the last as I fade out with a doctor hanging over my head, blocking my view of the glorious sky as I finally soar away from this misery.

Yours wasn't the first voice I heard when I came into the world, shying away from my uncle's mouth as he screamed the Adhan into my ears to drive out some demons that were born within me;

it might not be the last as I go to sleep to the lullaby of nurses shouting vital signs to an orchestra of beeping machinery that has kept me alive just a few agonizing moments longer.

Yours wasn't the first hand I held as I grasped my mothers finger the first and only time she told me she loved me unconditionally;

it might not be the last as I rake my fingernails against some foreign hand to stop its owner from pricking the back of my palm again to give me a few more minutes on earth via a small plastic pipe.

Yours weren't the first cheeks I kissed as I tried to reach my fathers face with my lips as an infant while he shied away from my touch.

They might not be the last as I kiss my favorite godchild goodnight before going to sleep myself.

You weren't the first person I shed tears over as I begged the first not to leave me alone.

You will not be the last as you will soon know why.

You were not the first to break my heart as my dad sat me down one night and told me that it wasn't my fault that I would never be a son to him and thus he would never love me like one.

You will not be the last.

You were not the first boy I made a tentative playlist for with my heart in my mouth and my palms sweating like my eyes later teared when he put the CD in his bag without looking and without any intention to play it.

You might not be the last as I make my godchild a last playlist to remember me by when their nights are long as mine have been and they have an ache in their heart that no one can seem to fill.

But.

That being said.

Love,

Yours is the face I want to study longest, memorizing every plain, curve and (hopefully, when the time comes) wrinkle, every day and most parts of the night because who can sleep when the brightest star in the sky is laying parallel to yourself, whispering what you've wanted to hear all your life.

Yours is the voice I want to hear longest, be it the first deep baritone of your good-morning before you're even fully conscious. Or your hoarse, barely there whisper as you try to speak around, on the base of sheer determination, a throat scratchy and swollen with the common cold.

And especially the sleepy hum as you try to suppress your smile in the dead of the night when we're unsure if today has already become yesterday or is just barely stepping into tomorrow and no longer care for it either way.

Yours is the hand I want to hold longest from now until they snatch you away from me and lay me on those hateful, white linen sheets.

The hand I want to hold whether we whisper an 'I do', or a 'qubool hai' (I accept) to a hundred people or even just hum the songs we have found our worships in to no witness present at all.

Yours are the cheeks, the lips I want to kiss longest until we both fall into a deplorable routine we're both uncomfortable with but both can't live without.

You will not be the last I shed tears over simply because I refuse to let sadness come between us no matter how bad we think we've ruined it. I have shed my last tears, passed the last of the wracking sobs through my body until I've bathed myself in the holiest of salt-water to wipe every other trace from my body to give you the best canvas I possibly could manage.

You will not be the last to break my heart because a heart mended by the hand that bruised it, albeit accidentally, is not a heart broken. And if you do break my heart beyond repair, then these words simply aren't for you.

You are the person I want to make the most playlists for until we feel like we've heard it all and can't bear to hear a single chord more but can't stop listening and swaying and dancing to the beat.

Love, not yet lover, you are the person I want to whisper the first shy 'I love you' to; to the point that it becomes something taken for granted and then transitions into something we say averting our eyes as if its a weakness. You are the person I want to hold on to when I fall in love and then fall out of love and then fall in love again with.

Because, love, still not yet lover, love will mend us and then when the glue grows stale and we start to fall apart again, it is the thing that will keep us together simply because we've grown accustomed to holding on and clinging to what was important.

And though you might not be a lot of firsts and quite a few of the lasts will belong to other people as well, you will be the most, the held by choice and the one chosen above all else.

 And that makes you pretty damned special from the rest.

Shamelessly yours,

Me.

Of Homes and Hotel Rooms.

“Remember, child.” My mother had told me.

And when I grew up with the rivulets running scarlet betwixt my legs and the mountains on my chest swelling, slight but apparent nonetheless;

“Remember,” she had said again, this time more insistently, looking at her daughter through eyes that had long since clouded over with cataracts. “Remember,” she had said.

But as it is, I hadn’t remembered. At least not back then. I had pushed, like children are prone to do, my mother’s advice to the back of my mind but even there only because I couldn’t discard it completely; marked it as another one of her incessant rants.

Only now, sitting here, sitting alone, yet again in another city, at another table, underneath another portion of the never-ending sky, waiting for another ‘someone’ who wasn’t to come. Not now. Not ever. Only now was I allowing myself to remember.

“Remember, doll,” she had said, the endearment always present as if to soften the blow. “Remember. Don’t expect to be a home. Some women, though their arms might be as soft as any others and their hearts even more so, some women aren’t meant to be home.

“Remember, men’s minds are a peculiar thing. Their eyes are different than yours. You might be as sweet as possible and they’d find you bitter. And when you tear down your walls and erect shrines to them, they’ll find you scary; intense. Remember that you will tear down your walls, dismantle your roofs and disrupt your own floors only to put them back together, carefully and meticulously but they will not find you fit to live.

“Remember that though they might compare you to the stars and even to the gods, their blasphemous praises are mere keys to your heart. Remember that you aren’t a home but, in fact, just an unattainable hotel room. Exclusive. Not for everyone but desirable by all.

“Remember that it’s not your fault. Remember that some women aren’t meant to be home and if someone calls you home, remember not to believe them. Though they may claim to find God between your legs and a ball-room on your back, remember that these are easily discard-able.

“Remember not to fall from grace for these mortal men. You are aloof. Remember that you are no one’s home if you are no one’s first choice. Remember who you were before they told you that you were to be home.

“Remember this, child, when you’re alone and your heart is breaking. Remember that there is no one who will fix it completely but you. Remember that those who do ‘fix’ it will only do so until you’re a novelty.

“Remember that you might never be a home and remember what you were before they told you that that’s what you were made to be.”

Perhaps it was the perverseness of the prophecy or perhaps I had never fathomed that I’d have to concede to my solitude. But I never cared to heed my mother’s words before. But tonight they’re all I remember. 

Stargazing.

 ‘How long would you love me for?’

‘Well, hello, Lana Del Ray. Ha-ha.’

‘I’m serious. I miss you. And you’re moving farther away an-‘

‘STOP. Stop. Stop. Stop. You wanna know how long I’d love you? Really? You want an answer to that?’

‘Well. I know it sounds stupid b-‘

‘Damn straight it does.’

‘BUT you’re leaving me with nothing here. You. You bring me here and you go away. And I can’t even wond- I- I can’t even wonder what’s going on?’

‘NOTHING is going on. I just have some things to do. You wanna know how long I’ll love you for? Forever.’

‘Ha.’

‘Fine. Not forever. Look up. See those stars? When those stars. When they start to dim out. When they die. Each and every one of them. When the sky’s so flippin’ dark that the stars can’t guide me home. Then. That’s the day I’ll stop loving you.’

It wouldn’t happen all at once. Of course, building is a slow and tedious task, somewhat messy too but destruction is quick; quicker than building anyway. Of course, the best disasters, these so-called calamities, these beautiful works of art, they can take time. A rotted piece of wood growing weaker, a little leak in a dam, one wire short-circuiting over days, weeks, months, years until the wood finally snaps, the leak begins to gush in earnest and the wire fizzles out and catches fire.

And so, it didn’t happen all at once. Rather, I counted. I knew, oh, I knew alright. You’d think I’d be that aloof cancer-patient who doesn’t know what’s happening until death is upon her, standing beside her, pulling her into a cold embrace. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But no, my one sin is consciousness. It is my sin, it is my vice, it is my curse, it is my damnation and it is what doesn’t let me sleep at night. I could feel it. I counted the stars every night. I love to stargaze. It. It’s something that helps me focus.

So yes, I could feel it. Even in my sleep. Although I didn’t really sleep a lot. But even then I could feel the rope stretching taut, fraying just out of my grasp. Some place my fingers would brush but a place I’d never be able to hold together. SUCH a helpless feeling now that I come to think of it. Having the best seats in the house but not being able to actually do anything to stop what was to come.

I love stargazing. You know I do. And so, you sent me someplace where I’d have the stars but I wouldn’t have you. At least, not easily. I was your Rapunzel in a tower. However, what I’d forgotten and oh WHAT a thing to forget, what I’d forgotten was that the prince never put the princess in the tower. He rescued her. Do you know who put her in the tower? Banished her to a field where it’ll be just her and the heavens with their burning jewels? It wasn’t the Prince, oh no, it was the villain. But, like you always said, let’s not fling accusations. Yes? Let’s not accuse. Why bother when we can just watch?

Anyway, foolish Rapunzel that I was; banished to faraway lands, content with my stars, the ones you’d said you’d strung up just for me. I’d spend nights counting them. And one day, they began to dim.

You thought I wouldn’t notice but I did. Even as I slept, I could feel the fire going out. They. The stars were dying. And you wouldn’t pick up your phone.  It was always work. Long hours. Something urgent.

And this foolish Rapunzel spent her days counting stars. Convincing herself that they were strung up just for her. You strung them up for me. You’d love me as long as the stars were in the sky. As long as you could find your way home.

Yellow leaves crackled underfoot but my eyes were trained upon the heavens.

And then for a moment. Something shifted. Did the world tilt on its axis or did all the seas release their sorrows in one great sigh? What changed that my shoulders felt light and my heart felt heavier? I don’t know what changed. But for that one moment. For just one brief moment, the smallest of moments, so quick that you might have imagined it. The world went blind. The night sky darkened and swallowed the stars.

For that one moment, the stars did die. For that one moment, every star died and then. That, there, was the moment when I realized that you wouldn’t be returning home.

Apa.

“Don’t cry like a woman if you can’t stand your ground like a man!” My father’s words resonate in my ears as I run my hand over my right cheek, remembering the sting of his hand as he struck me, not for the first time or the last.

Even through the haze of twenty odd years, that day seems to stand out fresh in my mind as if memory had allocated a special part of my brain for it.

Shaking my head, I take the last cigarette out of the packet and throw it aside feeling a twinge of guilt at littering but that passes quickly as I sit down on the cold, smooth marble surface.

I grin at the thought of my mother seeing me now, seeing where I was sitting, her indignation, her eyes full of rage but her tongue unable to reprimand her son.

I wince as the cold begins to seep through the thick material of my jeans but decide to stay seated and start looking for my lighter instead. I fumble around clumsily, feeling my pockets for the gold-plated monstrosity with fingers stiff with cold. Frustrated, I pull off my useless gloves and throw them aside where they land in a pile of slush and continue to search my pockets before I finally locate the thing in my breast pocket. I grimace as my bare fingers touch my heart through the three layers of clothing, just a simple brush but it still sends shivers down my spine.

 I flick the lighter a few times to no avail before giving it a rough shake. I decide to try one more time and turn the wheel down harshly, snagging my thumb on it. The flame bursts to light suddenly, dazzling me momentarily before I quickly press the cigarette between my lips and set it alight. I let the flame burn for a few minutes near my face, feeling the warmth defrost my face. But like all good things in life, the stupid lighter too flickers and dies as soon as I begin to enjoy the warmth on my face.

Flinging it away in disgust, I hoist my legs up on the marble slab so now my feet are splayed across the white rock, the soles of my shoes just barely inching over the edge.

Closing my eyes, I reminisce about the day again. That day. That horrid or beautiful day, depending on how you see it. Taking three long drags in quick succession, I extinguish the flame against the side of the stone box and throw it away.

‘Don’t cry like a woman if you can’t stand your ground like a man!’

My father’s voice fills my ears again, almost too painful to ignore. Almost.

Closing my eyes, I place my hands behind my back and raise my face towards the heavens, the stone stinging my hands before turning them numb completely.

I could never cry like a woman. I hardly ever cried after that day. Always afraid of my father.

I…

I shake my head to clear it before I lose my train of thought completely.

Quickly sitting bolt upright I dig into my coat’s pockets. I grab hold of my jewel-encrusted ball-point pen and a pad of paper. I cross my legs and balance the pad on one knee and begin to write:

‘Lord Father,

By the time you read this, it will be too late. I don’t even know why I bother to write to you but I do so more for me than for you and that’s what will keep me going until the end. Even right now, My Lord, I can feel the numbness spread through my limbs. I know what they’ll say. Hypothermia. He died because he got too cold. But I think. I think, father, that it’s only fair that my outside should be as cold and dead as I am inside. So, here, wait, let me take my coat off. There. That’s better. Now I’ll have even less time to write. Because if there’s one thing I hate, father, or, rather, one thing I hated, it was to listen to your constant drivel. Always so full of pride. I…. I don’t know what to say. Oh, I don’t know why I have to bring you into this. I would have burnt this if I hadn’t used up your precious gold-plated lighter. Yup. I finally used it all up. You’d be proud now, wouldn’t you? Your son, your worthless son, the one who could never become Sardar like you were. The son who couldn’t even light a hookah properly, he used your precious gift up once and for all.

But since there is no lighter and I can’t burn this, I might as well write ahead, eh, old man?

Father, though there are a lot of instances in my mind, a lot of questions, stupid little events I’d like to discuss with you, I won’t do that. Because as I write this, my sister prepares for her wedding. She will wake up tomorrow to a dead brother but I wonder if you’ll tell her. I like how you never approved of me but you downright hated her. What is it about women and tears that you just can’t stand? ‘Don’t cry like a woman,’ you’d say.

You’d point at ammi and shake me until my teeth chattered, banging against each other until sometimes I’d accidentally bite my tongue, the blood flowing freely, staining my shirt until you’d be satisfied that you had driven the point home. DO. NOT. CRY. SON. OF. SARDAR. HASHIM.

But father, had you ever bothered to look at mother whilst you were shaking me? Probably not. It takes a special type of man to comfort a crying woman, father. A man who isn’t made of his moustache or his stark white clothing or even his pagri.

My hands grow numb, father and my vision grows blurry. My body is shaking and at this time, I’ve never felt closer to being a woman because right now, I am crying but no, NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY, I couldn’t take your tyranny any day and every day. I couldn’t deflect your blows on my bare back. I couldn’t wash away the bruises and bitterness of years upon years of cruelty with saltwater from my eyes. OH CRY LIKE A WOMAN, FATHER I COULDN’T IF I TRIED.

Apa is getting married tomorrow, Abba. Or was anyway. Ahh… There we go. You thought I didn’t know. You thought it was just a foolish boy’s plea to save his sister. But father. I don’t know when you’ll read this letter or if at all but imagine a boy, packing a bag, noble and heroic for his sister, he’ll take her away. She won’t have to marry that middle-aged man. My apa, my sweet, fragile apa, apa who had asthma as a child. Who cried until I had to sedate her when she heard what you’d done. Who you’d thrown to someone else because you didn’t like seeing her. Amman was so smart, wasn’t she? Always hiding her children away in front of you. So you wouldn’t see her child grow? Grow a bosom, grow her hair out long, grow tall and feminine. Oh, apa, apa, apa, slender apa, fragile apa, I’d count the bones in her feet when she used to get tired and had me rub them. Apa with a pale face but a smile that could light the whole village for months. Apa who won’t ever smile again, Abba. Imagine a little boy going to rescue his apa. Only to find her hanging from the ceiling. Apa who was so thin. Did you notice how much weight she’d lost? She didn’t even need a rope. Just her dupatta. She hung herself by her dupatta.

I didn’t cry then, my Lord. I took her down. She was so light. Light enough that a little boy could lift her down. I lifted her in my arms for a last time. Kissed her tears away. For the last time and now I’m here.

And now I cry. And you can’t stop me, Abba.

But, Abba, the needy boy has one final request. I’m resting with ammi right now. That’s where they’ll find me. I’m resting with ammi but put me to sleep with apa.

Khuda Hafiz, Abba.

You’ll need Him.’

-Another Nameless Investment Of Sardar Hashim.