You are my place. My safe haven, the only home to all of my poetry.
You are the mystical embrace. You are my dark man’s space.
I have become so much more in the years. So much more than a girl who loves to write in her diaries.
I make diaries now.
It’s not weird, it’s classic. This is where the mind whirls and we only end up with cliches.
Yikes. You walk all the way from the mountains to the village to the city to your own bed where he says he fucks you hard
and then a therapist and a coffee café and another guy and some French and some toast and a shard
And then you come back to the room to the bed your parents got for you and a can of milk, a laptop brand new and you say
You cannot write?
What else do you want! — a life?
We came there holding baby Ibad in our arms, family awing together at the three-bedroom space, girls chattering about which room should now be theirs and then suddenly screaming because there are pigeons sitting inside!
“It’s okay, it’s okay, we’re not shifting today. The house will be clean when you come.” Today we were only seeing.
And then it was. We kids don’t know how but we know who did it. Baba. Baba and some workers. Baba and some electricians. Baba and some movers. Baba and some van walas. Baba and some plumber, carpenter, chokidaars. We only found the house ready. And clean.
Today we moved again, baby Ibad now seventeen, and one of us little girls married with kids of her own. The house is four-bedroom big, and we’re awing at it even more, but the feelings are not so singular anymore. There’s fear, there’s joy, there’s tiredness, there’s a thousand thoughts and jobs to do. A full rain and rainbow. Even Baba is now old but with Ibad and some men, he has handled most of it.
And then we’re handling the rest. We’re coping with the sweet change but also with the monstrous rain, no-signals, no Internet, no cable for a few more days. We’re also trying to manage the inside of the house and unlike our childhood, shifting and moving requires way more work than it looked like.
Anyhow, it’s also very spiritually moving, this whole experience. It’s shifting perspectives, memories, and making space for new beginnings. So when chaos lifts, there’s ease nearby.
inshaAllah ❤
Hmm. Here because everyone else shunned ya out? Uh-oh. Okay, what brings you here where you’re not even real. But reality can be so scary, you know that already. Never judge anyone on fearing it. For not being their harmless-for-others untrue self.
Still so complicated, your sentences. Ew. Told you I didn’t like poetry. The f with you.
Acha what brings you here then? Go on, I’ll listen. Wow, ehsaan much.
I read this poem from twenty seventeen. Was going through my archives to find something to letter. I did pick a line from it that you see in the photo above. And then put the poem in the caption. Read it out:
Sometimes,
When I should be elsewhere
Inside Dreams,
I lay awake instead, and
Assemble a questionnaire in my mind:
Everything that I have now yearned too long to ask you, I would;
“This is going to be a very, very honest conversation,” I will say.
It’s our final friendly law.
A sudden surge of happiness like a reflection of seven colors on my sooted heart—
If you call me again I might at least find my name
And as we’re talking, I will ask— no harsh feelings, hey!— but why did you think it was okay to do what you did?
How many others have you scarred the same way?
Alas! In the back of my mind the colors shift
A curtain closes
Rubbing the drama away in one swift move:
How will I know if you won’t still be lying?
Idk if the ending feels as clear to me now. I remember knowing back then also that it was vague but for me the meaning was clear. How will I know if you wont still be lying, huh? Ajeeb matlab. Duh.
ANYWAY. I’m ranting to not think but I’m thinking all sorts of things. With so much speed that it’s hard to catch up. Painful that I can’t take your and your and your name. Matlab pagal hi bana diya.
Sigh. My bud-dua or yours? I remember this other poem — feels like another life when I wrote those but hey, — and it talked about the dua part will remain even after nothing else does. And then I think I mocked it in the same tone. I totally meant the mocking, you know? Because you’d think it’s a “good dua” while it might not be? And other meanings so f it too.
It’s such an important day I don’t want to use a wrong word. Especially when I’ve kept the decency salamat so far. eh tainting the image now? No please. Wont even dare.
Phew. All our issues and one. This late night. This needed apology. This lack of understanding. And not me. For once, I’m not the issue.
It’s suddenly so cold.
I’ll always miss you.
Will I always miss you?
I saw you in a dream. Again. How many times I think about taking your name but dust it off, it’s not possible. It’s not good. It’s not useful either.
I saw you in a dream again and it was so real. Like our two separate lives. Manind e Khushfehmi. I ask him “haal e shuma chitoray” and he takes his time. I imagine him opening a new tab. He searches for it and replies: “theek Alhamdulillah.”
I am already 4 languages down but it doesn’t create a mess in me anymore. The loudest is the language of art only. And some day I will tell you it was the soul’s.
All of the songs
I sing
All of the words
I think
All of the art
I do
It was
Always
For you.
All of the time
that’s gone
All of the dreams
You took away
All of the flaws now
What do I do
It was
Always
For you
It was
Always
For you
Some humans are your safe places. You confide in them and share your night and stars.
Some other humans are the reason you crave those safe places.
This guy with a cool book says talking is procrastinating. Silence is the power of doers. Talking is stalling action. Ye wo. So I shouldn’t be talking about you.
If I say things that somehow poetically disguise just this that I miss you, it would take away all this energy and probably (actually) go to waste. Ye kia baat hui na. I’ve already wasted enough. You don’t deserve more.
Now ideally this inner self would say so? Wo deserve na karay, you deserve you. Take your time into healing ya. Go easy. Hey, you.
But then this inner self is pretty lazy. Sadness makes you lazy. Outer mind is chillest and brutally honest. It’s telling you that. Beta, act. Stop with this nonsense siyapa. And now you feel better enough to go do something productive. See ya! x
Aqal sawaal uthati hai ishq amal pe dorata hai.
By now I have thrown away more things and (almost-)neatly packed the things I am saving back in the drawer. Can’t say it’s done but sure feels lighter.
Besides that [literally] grey old diary that I didn’t bother reading, there are all these papers – mostly poems that I wrote (even those sad Urdu ones), and then other handwritten accounts of things like our regional Spelling Bee contest that we won, my ninth grade result, an essay on “My most memorable day of life” where there is McFlurry by the sea, last school exam and a really fun night ending with dramatic sentences like ‘I bid farewell to my family and the full moon.’ Not just mine but I also used to give my brothers topics to write on, then I would check them and sometimes reward them. That was a whole system. Look at this part from Ibad’s story about a ‘mejician’s whose spell was ORAME SIM SIM where O is for Omnivorous animal, R is ramp, A is and, M is maar do, and E is eel. The omnivorous animal walk on ramp and eel eat the omnivorous animal. And magic were not worked the people laughed. He did spell 3, 4 times but his magic did not work. Moral:- We dont want to be a mejician.
There’s also a super adorable sorry card. Lined paper and pencil, a highly decorative spelling of my name, a bag of 5o rs drawn as a gift. You will accept such apologies with a kiss.
I used to write essays and speeches. There is this one I won a competition for. Starts with a stanza I learned from Sam and very much adored. I had read it with a lot of energy.
Then I am looking at these goals I had, and it’s neither saddening nor surprising but there but there’s still a hole – and you wish it was big enough – that we don’t think like that anymore. There are more screens and more individual chaos than deeper thinking, or better yet, practical anything.
And I think you feel it too
What I no longer try to hide
It’s buried beneath the scars
Truth behind the lies.
7 July 2019. My most recent material in that drawer is a bag of gifts and Eidi. The space that wasn’t there before reeks of maturity.
“Don’t run on the stairs, Maria”
“Miss, I am Moniba”
Or was it vice-versa? 😂 Even the memory is jumbled now but we know it was Miss Ismat who scolded one of us and smiled the very next moment because she had mixed us up. And it wasn’t the only time it happened. Oh, not at all!
We got asked in the lift as well. And then we would always measure if we actually looked that alike. Lekin kahaan se? Oh and your maami’s. 😁 and then “are you sisters?” even in university. Yes, yes we are.
But one of my favorite twinning memory has to be sharing our pair of shoes while going to Taye abba’s. A school shoe and a casual chappal wappal. Best. Feeling. Ever. 😆
Not even a day to your Nikkaah and here I am, far but there. May Allah always keep us close. 💜
Ily. So much so much so much.
MashaAllah, Alhamdulillah and everything good.
Three days to go, three things to show.
A heart pebble. You love pebbles so much there is an entire collection of it in a box on your table. Probably left it for your niece here. Of course you will find another in Dubai. Achi jaga hai.
But we won’t find people who would gift us PEBBLES. And flowers. Look at that cloud, sit on the grass, come let’s admire this abnormal looking very fascinating tree. SubhanAllah. Remember our walks from Sufi? VS. Leaves falling. Magic, magic, magic.
A key. It might not be the same but I think it is. Because I saved it in a very old piggy bank type of thing that I got at my aameen or something. It had these little memories packed aesthetically. And in there was this key. Of your “secret drawer” that you had hidden from me at your old house. So I sneaked it, all those years back, think pink maxi and Nayalish at your party, it’s that old a story. What did the drawer have? Your socks?
This poem. You are my quart. That’s an emotional one so I will say it without words. I love you.
I do wish I could tell you about this but I dont know you.
We three are in some transition modes. Or like, some major life points. All three. Very different, some you would call more important than the other and youd be right. But dil hai na. Dil feels enough all the time. Like how they say about pain. Ke you cant say one suffered more than the other. I mean you can actually. But if you drop the comparison thing altogether…. then we can come to our second point:
We are all pretty empathetic. We dont blame each other. At least thats what I think and believe. About them too. So we give each other the space even when we need it so much but in our own spheres this all-of-it is hurting and messing up.
So I would know that I am hurting. But I also know theirs can be bigger in magnitude because of course. I think the thing is that we can’t all be with each other this time. We know it will settle but letting it settle like this is a lesson itself.
( We are unaware of each others background stories this time. Ideally we should be with amd without in it but realistically things run not like that. I edited to add this bit as well as cut one word from above. Because shit )
How fake am I? If I was head to toe fake, I would become unreal. And that isnt possible. So I am being hard on myself.
But in this world in this time, fake and real are so mixed up. Ethereal matters. You think your head is one and your heart another. Yo soul what was your game?
Things have of course changed.
My phones battery is low and I have an alarm set on it. Pity. I couldn’t even write about the important things. Such drama. And here I choose the title of this post. Or not.
I am not even thinking. Or am I?
3:51. Department of Zoology. About 52 students sitting right in front of me writing their exams. And I, their almost-same-age teacher sitting with one henna-stained hand under her chin, writing words that are either coming or not coming at all. They are all so busy like I once was. I can see myself in that audience so clearly. And from here? It’s very different. I remember the tension of that time. The need to give it your all. But once I had done, I couldn’t wait to submit and end the drill. It would take all of my good stuff to recheck my exam once because important, can’t take risks right?! And now I wish they would finish theirs sooner.
..
The difference between dpt/o Zoology and dpt/o Psychology is that I have Z’s exams in envelopes and P’s roughly tied. Z’s office was actually so cooperative. They sent a volunteer who did a lot of work and were overall so respectful. P isn’t. One I thanked and meant it, the other I thanked but that’s it. Always goes both ways wesay, feelings are mutual you say.
..
A student from P met me after it was over. She said she wanted to personally thank me kyunke hamara bohat acha waqt guzra aap ke saath. I thanked her and told her the same, and instantly thought of Sir S who thanked US when we totally totally were indebted to him. It was a cycle.
Other things happened as well. But I am done writing for now. Happy whatever day it is!
I read this again today. Because of course, it’s the day. Three years to Taye Abba. Just three!!! It feels like forever. I am feeling a mix of things right now esp. because of going through that old one.
I got featured on TV for something recently so Tayi ammi called me to congratulate about that. She said your taye abba would have been so proud of you. Like he always was. And in that moment I said thank you, tayi ammi, it feels special to me that you would say that.
It’s like everyone in the khaandaan finds moments to think and talk of him randomly. He is still very much there in that sense but DEATH does this THING. Death tears everything apart and it’s not true. Nothing after it is true so there’s that.
Anyway, another Ramadan is here. I don’t even have anything else to add right now.
Bring me to my paint brushes when I am away from home.
Remind me of this freedom when I am crying of suffocation.
If my hand is pulling for a noose and my eyes are blinded by rushing streams
Gently hold me by my shoulders, guide me to art and silence,
And give me enough time.
I will hopefully carve out a creation out of chaos.
(I mean, actually inshaa Allah and aameen to that. It’s…like…an actual thing)
Or were you not? Will there be a way to find out?
Hashar uthay ga raaz khulay ga. Raaz khul gaya tou izzat rahegi?
Smiling there, standing tall. It’s only a moment’s time until you fall.
Heck that rhyme.
When poetry falls silent
Mushairon ko aag lag jayegi
Thunder songs and then: sannaata
THEN. Then silence will screech.
I never told you and never heard it. But when morning sun rises its especially assigned metaphor does too. Bless hope. Burn hope.
I never told you but I wonder if you kind of knew. You know, kind of. And wonder is the keyword. Because what else are we capable of? Oh existential dread.
I want to write something poetic. If I thought of you long enough, maybe I could. But who has the energy? I mean, even you would know that. Neither of us.
Ouay huay huay yaar. What sadness mashaAllah. Like not exactly sadness – and here I am tryna put on a nice and decent facade – honestly well I don’t like this pronunciation of the word and would rather it be called faCAde please. Acha khair.
So basically I have been somewhat stressed. This time I’m not even talking to the anonymous listener kinda thing though the fact that I was reminded of them today speaks to me about the obvious halat. Other things also remind me of that because I remember being in this phase before. For other reasons but I remember this and I am imagining if this is stronger in any sense now. Because of any and everything at its root.
Do you mind talking about sadness? Is it a hard topic for you? I have been teaching some Japanese students and I give them a few personal writing exercises and man, what an experience that is. Like I am allowed to do that but I won’t cross that line and still enjoy a glimpse into THAT creative side. Pretty wow you know.
Also what else. We have another book fair at university these days, tomorrow being its last day. My voice is kharab suddenly, the kind of it some people like especially. Today we went to a mall. I don’t like malls I dunno why. But we had fun. I guess it’s shopping that I don’t like. And whatever. Etc means ends of thinking capacity aka spare me because I’m not bound to complete this sentence. Uff.
Okay anyway. Here’s to speaking better some other day. Allah bhailay.
OH ALSO I read a book after AGES matlab can you believe that? I had 100% stopped reading – actually not hundred because I tried and all that but it must’ve been like do saal or so. And I read Dan Brown this week. Such a good feel, seriously.
Also I WROTE after so long. Matlab I was going back home and chaltay chaltay I change my direction and there is this huge sports ground and I start in its direction and then I am sitting on that stair type (mundair? but better) and I open my bag, take out enough content until I can pick this black notebook and WRITE. I write in roman angraizi because it’s really a mix of Urdu and English and I vent. Like now but more secretive. And I get it off (only to that very extent as it goes) and bus. I put it all back and continue on my way and take a bus and go home.
Acha khair. Allah bhailay for reals now
First day after four years of being a student, i return to your premises with a role reversed.
I notice you with new eyes, and a very conscious emotionality.
You carry so many stories. And a piece of my heart.
Randomly Abstract 