We the offspring of fate.

We the people of the sad race.

We the people with regrets.

We the class-divided, caste-divided.

We the religion-divided.

We the people with no dreams.

We the people with hopelessness injected to us as drugs.

We the sick ones. We the mads.

We the people with apologies dribbling from our mouths.

We the people pushing our fingers to our ears to block all sounds.

We the people with more ideas and less strategies.

We the restless souls on the Sahara.

We the men, the women, the not-men, the not-women.

We the unhuman.

We the secret carriers of compassion, the believers of pain.

We the chained, the roped, the bound.

We the restless.

We the givers of nonsubstance.

We the celebrants and the celebrities.

We the ill-passioned.

We the fantasizers. We the confused.

We the two-way travelers. We the mourners.

We the idle. We the tired.

We the escapists, the all-time distractionalists.

We the plastered-smile-patients-of-tears.

We the plastered-smile-patients-of-fears.

We the followers of fiction, unreality, artificiality.

We the people running in circles.

We the not-us.

To THE cousin

To THE cousin, comfort pill, shanasai in diyars of ghair, one who just gets it, understands me like nobody else. Thank you for being the light, for everything and this. I treasure it all just the same. Day made, k, hearts.

We believe in the process. =]

Ordinary girl's peculiar blog

You know who you are,

You know how much  I value you. You know how much your support means to me. You know. And guess what? We’re the same age again, for the next eight days. Hugs?

Remember the childhood years? That game of touch-me-not at Barray abbu’s old house, the kidnapping plays at Taya’s house, the monkey bar on his terrace and our antics of climbing it, the cousins who pretended to throw us off the railings there? Do you remember playing hide and seek with the elder cousins? Do you remember all the nicknames I gave you? I’m really sorry for the offensive one, although you did get me scolded for it :p Oh, and do you remember the mummy in my room’s store? 😀 It’s still there. Come visit someday, it has missed you. All those night stays, the pleadings for night stays, the ijtemaai duaaen for my…

View original post 689 more words

Saint.

What is it like to be alone?
I think, it’s this moment.

I sit by you on the muddy ground while you sit on the bench by the tree
and this park is quiet.

I ask you nothing. Though in my heart I beg you to speak.
And in my heart of hearts I hope it is about me.

I offer you a globe of blues and greens that’s sitting on my palm
Waiting for you to spin it – within those creases lives everything I have.

You do not pay attention at all. I do not complain.
My lips are sealed.

But I need to ask you for forgiveness for my discourtesy
And I put my forehead on your feet.

I find that your body trembles slightly at the touch of my two tears
(Something I could have missed had not my entire skin been all ears)
I vow to you in the silence of the night: I am never leaving

You stand up and walk away
The planets admire your grace.

 Something else: Lordly and The sculptor. Smalles.t.

بلٹ پروف

ان کے ہاتھ دراز ہیں

اور ان کی عقلوں پر پٹّی پڑی ہے

رب! اب آپ پاکستان مہں صرف

بلٹ پروف بچے بھیجیے گا۔

In memory of the Peshawar school attack (16.12.2014).

Also read: An Open Letter From a Dead Child To His Mother On His Death Anniversary.

Relief

You close your eyes and your thoughts bubble up. Spread out from all corners. Wear the fabric of varying vibrant words. Very soon, they are carrying meanings and colors. A dance happens. A beautiful, rhythmical dance. You like it because it has all your soul. You see parts of yourself you had been waiting to see. And you realize you can hold it lightly from the tip of your wand and place it down on paper. There, it can live forever as a poem.

But you don’t do that. You force it away. You shove it powerfully with your hands– all those thoughts and words– and you push the splendid dancer in a grey, dark cell. She falls and she quietens, and she holds her bruised arm. You can’t see the colors anymore and you sigh with relief.

 

free

There comes a time when
Deleting people and numbers and letters and songs
Becomes easy.
As if,
They weren’t entire chapters in your life but were
Mere sentences.

(And sometimes, you have to call that upon yourself.)

If they find you.

“There is more and more I tell no one…”
~Jane Hirshfield

There is more and more I tell no one. It kills me how I’m dying.

You came to see me two months ago and I have been missing you ever since. Every morning, as soon as I wake up, I make a prayer for you to be there and then I open my eyes. Slowly. Expectantly. But then you’re never here. Nobody is. And you know, that always makes me smile. Because hope never tires, does it?
(It’s embarrassing too, to think what I have become, but I cannot just help it. I am waiting for you to show up.)

The doctors told me yesterday I haven’t got much time remaining on my hands. I said to them, thank you. I thought they did this so I could develop an understanding of my case and accept what was going to happen to me. One of them sighed and came closer to my bed, put his hand on my forehead and gently asked me if there was someone I would like to call. Oh, now I get it, I remember thinking. They want to know if I’m truly that lonely or if there might be just someone out there who would take care of my funerary customs and claim their relation maybe. Could someone like me be just that alone? All alone?

Yes, I wanted to say. I would very much like to see him. I am yearning to see him. If his image could be my last image and his scent my last scent, I wouldn’t want anything else in the world to say I died happy. But I cannot die happy. You are not here and you won’t come even if I ask them to tell you everything; that I’m dying in a few days, that I’m sorry, terribly sorry; because that is what I deserve. I deserve this, I do. I have damaged a lot of lives. I cannot change things back. I am learning everything here in this room–this hospital room– but I think I’ve gotten too late for lessons this time. It’s of no use.

If they somehow still find you please be kind enough to bury me with your forgiveness.

–

Tumharay Naam.

Haan tou nahi ho na tum paas. Main ne kia karna hai. Jeena hai. Aur wesay tumharay baghair koi mar bhi nahi rahi. Tum ne kaha tha na koi nahi marta kisi ke liye. Theek hi kaha tha. Main subah uthti hun, kaam pe jaati hun, ghar aati hun tou bachchon ko dekh leti hun. Sab kuch tou wesa hi hai. Bus tum nahi ho aur sach me ab tou mujhe farq bhi nahi parta. Mein yaad nahi karti tumhain. Kabhi ek lamhay ko shayad kar bhi leti hongi magar yaad nahi. Aakhri baar sadiyon pehley roi thi. Ab seekh lia hai mein ne kisi kay liye na ronay ka dhang. Aa gaya hai mujhe sab kuch. Sab kuch. Sab kuch. Sab. Sab.                    Tumhain batana chahti hun ke yahan sab khair hai. Meri beti aur mera beta dono theek hain. Mazay me hain. Hamaray pas khanay ko aik se aik cheez hoti hai. Kabhi khali pait taraptay nahi sotay. Ye loug school jatay hain, kaam me haath bhi bataty hain, shikayat nahi kartay. Hum me se koi bhi shikayat nahi karta. Khush rehna seekh gaye hain. Rehm nahi mangtay. Apna apna jeetay hain. Saath detay hain. Bohat si cheezon me saath detay hain…
Tumharay honay na honay se koi farq nahi parta. Waqai nahi parta. Ab ye na samajhna kay bar bar duhraa kar jataa rahi hun taakay tumhain bura lagay. Nahi mein sirf tumharay sukoon ke liye bata rahi hun ke kabhi tum palatt kar aanay ka socho tou uss khayal ko bhi phaansi de dena. Hamari zindagiyan tabah mat karna. Dekho hum sab bohat khush hain. Main tumhain yaad bhi nahi karti ab.

Kia tum wahan khush ho? Wo tumara khayal rakhti hai? Tum ab bhi khanay me bhindi aur gosht shoq se khatay ho? Raat ko beech me uth kar paani peetay ho? Cigarette lena chhor di hai? Na chhori ho tou ab chhor do. Ye zindagi ko khatam karti hai. Wese mujhe farq nahi parta matlab mujhe farq hi kia parna hai! Mujhe tou us ki boo bhi nahi aati ab. Soch rahi hun kabhi mera beta naa piye. Usay hargiz aisa nahi karne dungi. Tum apne ird gird kay logon ka khayal rakhna.                         Raat kaafi nikal gayi hai. Chalti hun.

This is a transliterated version of تمہارے نام [Thank you, Mahaah, for typing it out.]

تمہارے نام۔

ہاں تو نہیں ہو نا تم پاس۔  میں نے کیا کرنا ہے۔  جینا ہے۔  اور ویسے تمہارے بغیر کوئی مر بھی نہیں رہی۔  تم نے کہا تھا نا کوئی نہیں مرتا کسی کے لئے۔  ٹھیک ہی کہا تھا۔  میں صبح اٹھتی ہوں، کام پہ جاتی ہوں، گھرآتی ہوں تو بچوں کو دیکھ لیتی ہوں۔ سب کچھ تو ویسا ہی ہے۔  بس تم نہیں ہو اور سچ میں اب تو مجھے فرق بھی نہیں پڑتا۔  میں یاد نہیں کرتی تمہیں۔  کبھی ایک لمحہ کو شاید کربھی لیتی ہوںگی مگر یاد نہیں۔  آخری بار صدیوں پہلے روئی تھی۔  اب سیکھ لیا ہے میں نے کسی کے لئے نہ رونے کا ڈھنگ۔  آگیا ہے مجھے سب کچھ۔  سب کچھ۔  سب کچھ۔  سب۔  سب۔           تمہیں بتانا چاہتی ہوں کہ ہہاں سب خیر ہے۔  میری بیٹی اور میرا بیٹا دونوں ٹھیک ہیں۔  مزے میں ہیں۔  ہمارے پاس کھانے کو ایک سے ایک چیز ہوتی ہے۔  کبھی خالی پیٹ تڑپتے نہیں سوتے۔  یہ لوگ اسکول جاتے ہیں، کام میں ہاتھ بھی بٹاتے ہیں، شکایت نہیں کرتے۔  ہم میں سے کوئی بھی شکایت نہیں کرتا۔  خوش رہنا سیکھ گئے ہیں۔  رحم نہیں مانگتے۔  اپنا اپنا جیتے ہیں۔  ساتھ دیتے ہیں۔  بہت سی چیزوں میں ساتھ دیتے ہیں۔۔۔     تمہارے ہونے نہ ہونے سے کوئی فرق نہیں پڑتا۔  واقعی نہیں پڑتا۔  اب یہ نہ سمجھنا کہ بار بار دہرا کر جتا رہی ہوں تاکہ تمہیں برا لگے۔  نہیں میں صرف تمہیں تمہارے سکون کے لئے بتا رہی ہوں کہ کبھی تم پلٹ کر آنے کا سوچو تو اُس خیال کو بھی پھانسی دے دینا۔  ہماری زندگیاں تباہ مت کرنا۔  دیکھو ہم سب بہت خوش ہیں۔  میں تمہیں یاد بھی نہیں کرتی اب۔

تم کیا وہاں خوش ہو؟  وہ تمہارا خیال رکھتی ہے؟  تم اب بھی کھانے میں بھنڈی اور گوشت شوق سے کھاتے ہو؟  رات کو بیچ میں اٹھ کر پانی پیتے ہو؟  سگریٹ لینا چھوڑ دی ہے؟  نہ چھوڑی ہو تو اب چھوڑ دو۔  یہ زندگی کو ختم کرتی ہے۔  ویسے مجھے فرق نہیں پڑتا مطلب مجھے فرق ہی کیا پڑنا ہے!  مجھے تو اس کی بُو بھی نہیں آتی اب۔  سوچ رہی ہوں  کبھی میرا بیٹا نہ پئے۔  اسے ہرگز ایسا نہیں کرنے دونگی۔    تم اپنے اردگرد کے لوگوں کا خیال رکھنا۔                                                رات کافی نکل گئی ہے۔  چلتی ہوں۔

∅

I wish it was possible. to gain back. what I have lost. I don’t regret. everything. I only want. what I had.

When you came. I wasn’t ready. as a consequence. I have lost. a lot. since then.

Confidence. peace. writing. I saw myself, how freedom turns into. fear. a fear that you. cannot. name. tame. cannot show. cannot hide.

I saw what a void is. what it is like. to be. a mess. I saw also. that. God really is there.

I wish. I could move. I am not. a tree. but I think. I am. a tree. I know I should not. be.

A Sonnet on the Starry Night.

One, two, three stars so bright
Come lay next to me, and count
Twinkling, sparkling before your sight
Tell me, what do you think of this amount?

Spurting beams of silver so fine
Soft trails they leave while playing around
Tell me how you like their shine
Or does it leave you too spellbound?

Twenty, thirty, this might never end:
We can count and count until morning calls.
Their smiles say they do well understand
There are less chances we might name all.

It might also be true they know secrets of God
And so they dance, His love they applaud.

—

This is the last one for the Writing 201 challenge as it finally ends today after two weeks. Our form was “sonnet” and theme “pleasure”.

Conversations.

You can stop searching.
 
I am who I am. I am not yours.
 
I never was.
 
You should go away.
 
And never look back.
 
So?
 
GO!
 
Go.
 
Go…

Yes, I think I should stop searching.
 
Yes, you are who you are. Not mine.
 
You never were.
 
I should. I should go away.
 
And never look back.
 
Send me.
 
I am yours.
 
I am yours.
 
I will always be yours.

Lost.

[In response to writing challenge 201: cold, concrete poetry. ]

Ghosts of our love.

I make the world’s best coffee.
I know this because you said it.
You said it because you meant it.
You meant it because you loved me.
You loved me why?

I stand here in my house – once what meant “home” – and shiver like a leaf
Because the enormity of this place seems terrifying without you and I feel I can’t do without my roots.

Walls shake as your laughter echoes, the defenses I had made come crumbling down
I can no more understand where to look for you – or not to – as my feet take me running round and round

My ears are ringing now with a voice that isn’t yours, my vision blurs with something that should be tears
My mind is on fire and my heart in a sea, and my room and its clock and its bed and its floor
And your pen and your shirt and your watch and your sheets
And your smiles and your eyes, and your eyes, and your eyes.

Then you come and hold me – out of where?
Whisper something soothing like a prayer;
Running your fingers through my hair, you hold my gaze and say: “darling, please take care”

I listen to you and sit down.
Cross my legs, bend my head, begin to count.
I notice that my breathing calms and the knots in my body do unknot
As your scent enters into me and your soul takes a spot.

Pages: 1 2

Of our home- Dreamsville.

Once upon a time in Time,
A man came panting to our town
His eyes were red and head tousled,
On his face was set a frown.

He said, “I have come from a land afar
To question you of your false fame, sire!
My feet are tired but my heart won’t rest,
Until I get my answers – oh, need is dire.

You are people of a town so great
You live and sell, and play with dreams
It is here that they are born, from here do come
Our hopes and goals and smiles and screams.

But I have been dreaming now a dream for long
It seems to me  like a thread without end.
I toss and turn and shoo it in sleep,
But it goes nowhere at all, my friend.

Tell me why you spun dreams so eternal
Why for us humans you did not care?
Our capacity to hold untold is controlled
We can only bear too much of despair.

O people of Dreamsville! You say dreams breed here
Why can’t you find for me a closure to this nightmare?”

Hearing his plea a woman from our town
Stepped forward, smiled, and began to speak:
“Dreams, my man, are portals to great truths
They surely aren’t much for those who are weak!”

“When we send you a dream, it is for you to complete
Interpret correct or not, but to follow its lead
When you see a dream that seems everlasting
Go ahead and nurture it with struggle’s feed.”

—

It’s almost 4 a.m here. It took me an hour to write this one but it’s important to me because I thought I could never write a ballad*. It’s not perfect but it’s a try, and it was FUN creating this whole thing. It is in response to our poetry challenge 201: Neighborhood, Ballad, Assonance for which we were supposed to write anything related to a “neighborhood” or sense of it, as a ballad like it was done in the formative years.

* ballads are dramatic, emotionally-charged poems that tell a story, often about bigger-than-life characters and situations, and their rhyme scheme is a-b-c-b.

Sad whispers of the mo(u)rning…

 

Move him gently

Anything might rouse him now.

No prayers nor bells

Nor any voice of mourning.

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells,

And bugles calling.

I should die, I think.

His face bears a wrinkled smile of completeness.

From this heart: all evil shed away.

But his sights and sounds; dreams happy as day;

And laughter?

Is he so hard to stir? Was it for this

That he slept at all?

Did he sleep at all for this?

 

(Written in response to Writing Challenge 201: Found Poem. This is a kind of poetry composed of words and letters you’ve collected from elsewhere, and arranged in a way that it gives a different message. Our theme for this was “faces”, which I’ve used in two ways. One is the face of this person in my family that I saw yesterday. He is awake but he is not awake. He is just….there. Second is the face of the greater thing that leaves us all helpless before it. Nature, death, disease. Anything like that.

Our assignment also included the task of adding a chiasmus which is a reversal in lyrics. I invented one in the last line. Apart from that, the words of this poem have been taken from four random classical poems of English literature including Futility, Beautiful Old Age, The Soldier, and Anthem for Doomed Youth.)

Lamerick

Once upon a time, a silver doe

Came out of nowhere into the snow

To the pool it walked

Harry followed, shocked

Limerick ends. Next you’ll never know.

This in response to the the Writing 201 challenge which required us to write a limerick (9-9-5-5-9 syllables, a-a-b-b-a rhyme scheme) on ‘imperfect’ but guess the only thing imperfect is the poem itself, lels. Used enjambment. The theme, in case you can’t recall (or haven’t read), is a chapter from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where the pretty thing comes to his rescue while at the forest.

The universe smiles with me.

“Sea waves kiss my feet. I bend to hold wet sand in my hand and close my fingers for a while to feel. It slips away when I open them again but the lines on my palm glitter with a soft silver gleam. I turn back and night shifts and I find myself in another place. There is no sea, no waves, no wind. But the inside of my hand glitters still. I lay back down and find grass beneath me. Soothing and serene. I touch some strands to gather green. It tickles, softly. Your name I write then, on my skin, and smile. The universe smiles with me.”

Written in response to writing challenge 201: “Skin”. (Write a prose poem using internal rhymes; choose whatever meaning of skin speaks most to you.)

Truly Yours.

To you, I want to give flowers–I don’t mind that being cliched–

Roses, wrapped in ribbons. Letters, soaked in perfume. Stars.

Unnecessary though it might be, I want to tell you again and so often

Love, how much I have come to love you that I’ve now begun to live you.

Your thought is my drug, your memory is heaven’s mercy,

Your presence is an air without which my lungs parch up.

Oh the Sun of my universe, the Light of my soul!

Undying is my adoration–like a forever flowing ocean.

Remember this: my gift to you is my heart. I am yours.

Some day you’ll see. That some day, we will be.

Written in response to Writing 201 challenge: write something about a gift, use a simile. Poem form: acrostic. (The first letters of each line together form a special word which is the theme here.) Hi.

Not made for each other.

You see those two people standing in the room? One a figure so delicate it looks almost breakable, her sight stretched to faraway lands as she gazes from the frosty window; beyond past, present, or to-be. The other stands by the foot of their bed and stares plaintively at the floor, or sometimes at the creased cover-sheets on the bed which they both use. His hand is in his hair.

These two people—I don’t call them a couple. I call them apologies.

You will see now that the man will walk to the window, slowly, and stop a foot away from her. Then he will put his hand on her shoulder. She will turn back immediately, but not too quickly, and they will both just stand there for a moment until she realizes that he is smiling–that his smile contains every bit of sorrow there is in the world–and then she’ll smile too. Hers will be weaker, like something one would give after accepting the uncaring atrocity of life every day, but neither of them would care.

This will be done casually every other day.

You will find that the space of nothing between them has sucked air so much that in order to breathe, you will have to struggle. You will notice that it doesn’t affect them.

You will find that their eyes are empty but their hearts aren’t. They sympathize sometimes, like they did a while ago, and silently assure one another that it is not and will not be okay, but they will see to it until the end. They won’t complain nor hate. Sometimes he would kiss her lightly on the cheek and she would smile. (A year ago she would’ve had spent hours in the bathroom scrubbing, scratching away the kiss and crying. But this doesn’t happen now.)

You will see that it’s not regret that has settled in as a mountain between them. It’s not a grudge that has separated their ways like a sea in between. It’s not the absence of effort. It’s not that. But it still is.

 

That is the future I see of ourselves. Pardon me for saying so but it’s true.

Sauces. #2

1.

Should I delete myself or should I delete other things?

2.

What could be more complicated than a mind? When one enters, one loses most of it.

3.

You say it looks like I’m spending a lot of time in my head thinking about life. Aren’t others doing that too? Why not?

Is it bad?

How do you think one would keep on running when they’ve found a shoelace that has come off loose? You want us to fall?

We are mice. Mad mice in a maze. There’s music outside. We don’t know where to go.

4.

Gibberish is the language that understands me. I have so much to say but it doesn’t come how you would want to hear. I am trying to find a way.

Sauces. #1, Trap.

Fifth blogversary! (6/9/15)

Heey.

randomlyabstract turns five today.

it’s kind of a mess right now, tbh. i also deleted the first one i wrote today. but for the sake of all them cool times i’ve had and people i’ve met and things i’ve written and read and enjoyed and the whole journey which helped me know and grow and stuff, here are free imaginary pizzas and desserts and chocolates and balloons!

thank you everyone for being there. please write a nicer celebratory post on yours.

love, Me.

–