birdsong this heartstring
twing
ing aflutter, sometimes
joy, grief, despair
sometimes the sing
song, monotony of existence
humdrum beats
life courses through your veins
your eyes are red
alive

sticks and stones

i
live in fear the
tumultuous beating of a heart
wrapped in slivers of plastic
my
ribcage cages my breath cloaks
coal black fear choked
up in my throat i
cannot scream.
i cling onto life like
a slippery seal doused in oil this
world is like a big rock on the edge of madness
rock like my heart, rock where
my soul used to be.

ankhon men silay hue ho, udhero na

strawberries and salt

rosy pink some
days are like bleeding lips, some
days like
grains of salt lodged between
the toes, they (you) remind me of
sand, sea, spirit
run free. There is a
pinky hued edge to my memories
my hair still reeks of salty ocean my eyes
still drip with longing of
homelands,
never mine to claim.

I keep
strawberries and salt
close at hand, close
to my heart
the strawberries remind me of home
the salt reminds me of me

like a cavernous hall the mind, ensconced in silver, silent and hollow. thoughts ricochet off the walls like mercury pellets, the tinny impact twinging off the caverns, echoing in the blank silence.
there was a time where I, cross-legged on the floor would watch in amusement each thought, until eventually they dropped, rolling towards me in shame for the ruckus, the chaos, the echoes and echoes and echoes. I would cajole, comfort, hold it close and then release it, watching it dissipate into the white void.
Now I sit in muted horror as I see them grow, multiplying like a terrible cancer, ricocheting faster than I can take stock of each one, overwhelming, shrouding me in fear, rendering me incapable of action. Like gunshots in waves, crashing against each wall, topsy turvy the caverns tilts and spills and I go along with it.
Madness it feels like, and I am terrified to admit it to anyone. Sometimes on particularly troublesome days where the xanax is the only relief I get, I will ask myself, in that small corner, holding my knees to my chin, whisper it between the hollows so only the kneecaps bear witness.. 'could it be Madness? is this how one begins to lose their mind?'

fear is a terrible terrible thing.

-eeda

if words would come

they don't. So I sit shaking in silent fury barely able to contain the rage brewing inside me. Quivering at injustice, horror, fear, a blazing defiance, capped under the calm demeanor of professional corporate slave.

To write is to admit, and to admit means there's a problem that needs resolution. In my heart of hearts I know this is a problem, without resolve. I sit through the cursing and the taunts and the balled fists and the finger in my face with tight lipped anger to protect protect protect always protect this glass image of feigned domestic bliss. Inside everything is shattered, shards and shards and shards of glass raining.

Is it that I am loathe to admit it affects me so? weakness? Is it denial? when I am shamed amidst family, pushed to a wall and involuntarily locked in to a room, when my anger makes me charge and scratch and scramble for my freedom and ability to move as I please, is it this I am unable to comprehend and process and admit? Denial is far far far easier than facing the monster that lives within you and sleeps next to you, asks for forgiveness in drunken stupors and rages in wrath when you deny it the comfort of once again saying, 'it's ok'

it's not. good god, with every cell fiber and rational pulse in me, it's not. i'm not. so I shake in silent fury because everything is always ok on the outside. it has to be.

-f

I guess the hardest thing of all is to try and make sense of everything that has and is happening. To try and cut through the lies with the truth, the real with the intoxicated ramblings of the mind, the genuine with the nasha-driven lust

Nothing makes sense to me anymore

there are various stages of anger. science will tell you what they are, but i won't go there.
for me, it started off with disbelief..for about 2 years.
then the rage. the burning sense of injustice and loss, the wounded 'how could you?' and that was more akin to who I am, as it let me lash out, scream, want to shake the world with the chaos that was inside me.
now it's just a deathly silence. the kind that erodes your soul on the inside, and eats away at you. the kind where you know all that could be said has been said. maybe it is the disbelief revived, maybe it's a stunned sense of losing despite struggling so hard, maybe it's resignation or just limbo.

Jin cheezon se hum dartay thay wohi ban gaye

if words could come to ease the pain
or tears to ease the rage
too late to let him know the truth
the mask you wear your cage

As Lancelot loved Guinevere
and Camelot did fall
Relationships will crumble here
If you choose to speak at all

................
These words were scribed by an anonymous writer somewhere around the world, as part of a global anthology of poems put together by a leading publishing house in England. My poem had been published in that book also, likely the only reason why I have it, but that wasn't quite as remarkable as the fact that to this day I can't recall as single verse from the poem I wrote.... but these 8 lines have stuck with me for over 14 years.

14 years later, the words couldn't have been more apt for what I feel right now.....

-F

Why I look at pictures now of people getting married, I want to scream.

Run. Don't do it. It's a scam.

He will break you apart into so many pieces you won't recognize yourself anymore. You will be the animal you never wanted to be.

Sometimes I think back to that exact moment where my heart gave in to him and I just want to wrench it away and say  no no no no no for God's sake..no. This will not end well.

I don't know how I ended up here and I don't know what happens next. I don't know if I should go or if I should stay. I don't know if the rest of my life will be filled with my questions and your lies, and I really don't know if that's what I want.

Mun tu shudam tu mun shudi,mun tun shudam tu jaan shudi Taakas na guyad baad azeen, mun deegaram tu deegari

I have become you, and you me, I am the body, you soul; So that no one can say hereafter, that you are are someone, and me someone else. -Amir Khusro

today he lives for her.
tomorrow she'll die for him.

When we finally got through the door that night, exhausted from having taken his cousins all over Manhattan in the 97F+ weather all day, we were met with a sore sight. Well, I was met with a sore sight as I walked down the stairs into the basement.
Our entire overhead kitchen cabintery was half hanging onto the floor, barely supported by the kitchen sink and the dish rack. Fortunately, the cabinet with all my plates, glasses, spoons and expensive ceramic serving dishes I had bought from Cancun was intact, having caught onto the dish rack which prevented it from toppling and shattering everything onto the floor.
Eventually me and syed heaved it up and settled it onto the floor, and had to put everything back later the next day.
What I will not forget is how he came to me later that night, apologizing for the dismal state of affairs, for the accidents every couple of days in the basement, the no dryer, the allergies, the no a.c, the floodings, and told me I deserved better.

I don't know what I deserve, but I do know that my living condition is barely on the list. There are so many more important things I do deserve, like love. respect. security.

I may have lost hope.....but I'm not done here yet. Up and on you go eedz.

novel fodder

she stood in the New York winter cold, looking at the dewy haziness shining off the metallic towers and thought instantly of Mordor, but also(and now chuckling to herself), of Karachi. Those early winter mornings bundled in blue cardigan over coffee colored uniform, walking across the long fields hazy with dew settling on the grass in her convent school. It reminded her also of Dubai, but the haze was golden bristling sand in the sun, masquerading around twisted metal and steel sculptures.

One of the other side-effects of diaspora she thought. Not only did it never really leave your genes, but also, you found a little bit of one place in ever other place you ever went. Or maybe, you were so busy trying to make one place less foreign and more like everything else you had ever known, that its own uniqueness was completely lost to you. Unless that is, you moved again, and then the nostalgia would re-shape every dusty mote into a gleaming gold memory you would now long for.

.............

Nomads never really stop longing, do they?

....................

Razia bano spread her gharara over the divan, tucking her legs gently under her and conscious as she did so that Bai peeped at her from behind the wooden jalli, sniffing her dis-approval. Maybe it was all in her head, Razia thought. It was winter after all, the season for the common cold and Bai Ama was old. Bai had been around for generations, almost as long as the neem tree in the verandah of their house, which ... had told her, had watched over the five Khan-nawab generations and the Single Heirs.

Razia wondered if Bai had ever known about the story of the lost son, and resolved to ask her when Bai wasn't sniffing at her, cold or disapproval.

'Raz, my jaan' ..... sauntered over and seated himself on the Divan, creasing her perfectly fanned out gharara. 'There is much hubub on the street today. You should thank my lucky palmlines I made it back alive'

'And which of your lines should I thank for forgetting my paan, again?' she asked, absent-mindedly taking his hair off his eyes.

The many years at Oxford had done nothing to dull ....'s casual elegance that came so easy to the Nawabs. He sat cross-legged at ease in his kurta and still looked suave despite his goofy smile.

'What do you say Raz? Could you ever leave this? (motioning towards the open verandah in front of them) for an unknown in another land?'

'Depends. We are so comfortable here and the violence seems so far away. But then there's this'


to be continued.