glue traps

i take one step
and the ground shifts

like memory does

when you beg it to stay.




the world spins

the dervish turns,

the wheel grinds

& i stay glued.




once more,

the stone beneath the threshold snags my foot

as if it, too, was carved

to remember my stumblings.




the world spins

the dervish turns,

the wheel grinds

& i stay glued.




a rat in glue traps,

squirming for direction,

for a god unmoved by the dance of it's drowning.




whose hands spun this fate

so taut it strangles my sighs

before they’re even born?

i am held hostage

by the divine jest of becoming.

how do i walk to my beloved

with hands steeped in tar,

with knees bloodied on doorsteps

that never learn to yield

i am both bruise and salt.

both ache and the hand that causes it.

tell me

what worth is a soul

fate will not claim

nor death release?




to be still is to decay,

but to move is to be swallowed.

and for mercy i whisper

into the ear of my beloved,

that he might remember my dust

before it joins the silence he never breaks.

floodlights

i was a river,
eager to belong
to banks that stood still
as i broke myself
trying to reach them.

you were monsoon
sudden, sovereign,
spilling into me
without asking if i could bear the flood.

i don’t know where this came from
this ache shaped like a prayer,
this love without a name
that still reads like a scripture.

when you left,
i became storm warnings and swollen sky
a girl undone
by someone who never promised
to stay.

love became a desperate chase
a hunted animal stumbling
through thorns of regret and fear,
caught between want and withdrawal,
between sacred fire and slow decay.

and yet,
somehow,
you did.

through laws, through distance,

through silence so loud,

the rhythm of my becoming thrummed like a secret

and you came back.

isn’t that absurdly holy?

i still tremble

at the thought
of what was never mine
yet shaped every soft part of me.

maybe i loved the power
before i loved the person.
maybe i loved you
before i even understood the word.

perhaps it wasn’t love,
but the illusion of orbit 
to revolve around someone
so radiant
they seem celestial.

but if you could only inhabit
the aching observatory of my eyes,
if you could only decipher
the script etched in the margins of my chest

i wish you could see
through the wet glass of my wanting
how my heart built temples
in your name
without ever saying it aloud.

                                     maybe you’d stay.

                                                          or maybe you’d still leave

but at least,
you would carry the knowledge
that somewhere,
quietly,
unreasonably,
without claim or permission,
you were loved
so much
it nearly
killed me.

between fold and flame

over cheap psychedelics

and too much booze,
let me see beyond
if only for a while.

let the world tilt,
not into chaos,
but into awe.

let my eyes
drink deep
from skies so clear
they taste like forgiveness,
like nectar
for the soul that forgot
how to be still.

let my body
feed only
on mountain air
spiced with pine
and woodsmoke,
chapped lips,
and unbrushed laughter.

let my mind
bite into the bread
of this hamlet’s friendship
torn by hand,
                                                                 passed in       a circle
                                                              of almost            strangers
                                                        who speak in            half-truths
                                                               and whole       warmth.

i want to trust them
these strangers
with tumbleweed limbs
and names that flutter
like dandelion seeds
before they land in my mouth

to cradle
a version of me
still wobbly in its wonder,
still warm from the kiln.

let their unfamiliarity
launder me in moonmilk,
make me new.

let their words,
like feathered teacups and sugarless riddles,
soften the hermitess in me,
till she slips quietly
into the folds of morning.

and for once,
let me not ache
for what’s left behind,
but for what’s
just
about
to begin.

Dancing on Rot

the plant’s petals kiss me shut,

and clasp until i wilt.

a child draws circles around me

with fingers sticky from sweets,

watching like god,

then forgetting.

i have never been fed

anything i didn’t bleed for.

i scrape for crumbs,

fight mold for a place to rot in peace.

i was not kissed into being 

no sunbeam cradled me awake

i rose from filth and yesterday’s scraps,

from larva, from sorrow, from memory’s traps.

i bloom in decay

bred in the bruise of a ripening tray 

in the hush of the spoiled, the soft of the swarm

forgotten before i learn to stay 

and maybe, baby,

i will die that way.

a ghost that takes your hand

some things defy the hush of earth
they do not sleep beneath the stone,
but cling, as moss upon old walls,
to hearts once whole, now overgrown.




love, misplaced,

is suffering

no matter how gently it arrives




a grief

not loud, but ever near

like tar, it lines the breathing breast

with weight no time can truly clear,

nor reason soothe, nor silence rest.




a self

not lost, but rearranged

the same and yet no longer whole,

as if the soul, by sorrow changed,

has learned to wear another soul.




a chill

that settles in the skin,

a place the past has decomposed,

yet still, somehow, it aches within.

ALLURE

i dwelt where lilacs brushed the air,

with golden ribbons i tied my hair,

where laughter rang but never strayed,

where all was bright, where all obeyed.

“stay, my love, the world is cold,”

“soft and sweet, do as you’re told.”

so i twirled in gowns of lace,

a painted doll in silk embrace.

and one fair night, the winds did call,

a silver hush beyond the wall,

the stars, they hummed, so soft, so low,

“come and see what lies below.”

so through the dark, my feet did stray,

soft as petals lost in may,

one step, then two, the night was wide,

its breath like honey at my side.

but velvet hands, so light, so small,

curled round my own and bade me stall.

“hush, my dear, the dawn is near,”

“come inside, there’s naught but fear.”

the latch did click, the sky was torn,

the stars still wept for one unborn.

and in my bed, so safe, so small,

i dreamt of dark

and dreamt of all.

The Cost

spring was wicked

soft-fingered, silver-tongued,

pressing warmth into the belly of the earth

until even the stones surrendered.

she let it touch her.

let it settle in her lungs,

trace rivers over her collarbones.

let it wind him through her veins,

like ivy curling into brick,

like a wasp slipping too deep inside the fig.

petals unfurled.

she let the scent of him steep into her skin,

let his hands teach her a softness

her palms were never meant to know.

her ribs split open,

and love rushed in like floodwater.

but spring had betrayed her.

it gave life where there should have been none,

let her roots tangle in poisoned soil,

let her cradle the teeth of a man

who once swallowed her world whole.

she should have known

the jungle does not love its lovers.

it devours them.

vines twist into nooses.

petals curl into wounds.

the well in her garden calls her home,

and this time

she listens.

the ivy still climbs.

but she does not.

how does the sun burn in a vacuum?

as the light grows warmer,

my heart reignites.

the dollhouse jitters,

disrupting the static of my space.

young fingers press rosebuds into my skin,

& light fills my house with life.

time healed the wounds of the night

the nights i spent picking my skin,

letting my blood flow under the faucet,

the kitchen light watching,

silent,

as it pirouetted in a beautiful set.

i sat where you left me.

a paperweight in your room,

a glass bird on the windowsill,

an old star,

burning itself out,

while you traced new constellations.

and still, i stayed

a book you would not finish,

a song caught in the static,

the afterimage of something bright

that never quite fades.

the sun grows warmer.

the light returns.

why then, does its coming

send shivers down my spine?

why does it whisper a fear

so familiar, so known?

will the night knock again?

will it creep in as i shower,

peek from behind the window,

curl beneath the curtain folds?

the lights blind me

incandescent,

golden,

bright

bending, shaping, reaching, forming

two hands that cup my face,

a shoulder carved for the slight of my head,

two eyes that see me dream.

but when the light is done playing,

when it’s had its fill,

will it go back to its world?

Bechainiyon Ka Ghar: Iztiraar

where in this vast world
is another sorrowful soul like me?

i look in the mirror,
but I don’t see myself
a face dissolved,
just two ears, four hands,
and the faint stroke of a dying sun

the lines of this life
draw and erase themselves,
like a child’s fragile castles of sand,
crumbling, rebuilt,
until what remains
is only the spell of having existed

how do I say I am sad,
if no one will listen?
how do I say I am lonely,
if no one will hold me close?
In my city, there is no one
to call my own

Why do I think so much?
damn this heart,
this depth that pulls me under
so deep that I didn’t know
when I fell,
when breathing became a struggle
in the ocean’s cradle

what wind shall I name,
what force caused this sorrow?

how do I forget
that you too were a king
of sandcastles,
and I, their fleeting shadow in the tide?

smear ash over this flesh,
let the smoke rise like prayers
let the house gleam with light,
let the hearth burn with warmth
i am gone
and with me,
so is the weight of all that sorrow.

Thread Of Becoming

 

what is a life

but the needle’s pass

through the fabric of the void?

a pattern emerges,

not of our choosing,

woven by hands unseen,

guided by whispers

that ripple through the ether

god

is it the weaver,

or the thread itself?

is it the loom’s creak,

the spark of tension in the fibers,

or the silence between each stitch?

fate falls like rain

inevitable, indiscriminate,

are we the soil it nourishes,

or the rivers it carves,

or merely the reflection

on its fleeting surface?

a sigh of birth,

a gasp of death,

and all the fleeting laughter

in between.

the universe blinks:

a thought unfinished

does it dream us,

or do we dream it into being?

perhaps we are the loom,

its hum the rhythm of our hearts,

or the threads,

aching to unravel into meaning

perhaps we are neither,

only the breath that sets it all in motion,

and the silence when it ceases

perhaps life is the paradox:

the chaos of becoming

and the order we seek

A dance of entropy

and meaning

but when the loom stills,

when the last thread is cut,

what will remain?

FAIZ; ONLY MINE

 

i cannot bear
the syllables of you,
falling from foreign lips
a name borrowed,
but never truly yours

no shadow of you
should roam these streets,
no echo of your laughter
linger in rooms
where you do not live

if someone must mirror your face,
let their name be yours.
if their smile wears your shade,
let it be claimed by your sun

for what is a name,
but a river that flows only to you?
and what is love,
but a refusal to let the world
borrow your existence,
even for a moment?

let no one else carry
the weight of your syllables,
no voice but mine
call them to life.

for you are not a name.
you are the silence
that breathes between the letters,
the pause that lingers,
the ache that remains.

Shifts

 

a soft light against my searing skin,

like the moon to a burnt horizon,

it is the way flames flicker

before they are swallowed whole.

hidden

beneath the deep belly of the ocean,

in the darkest caverns of salt and sorrow,

fighting the pull

watching silently,

as the tides shift,

adjusting to the friction,

learning the contours of a world

that no longer wants it to burn.

should the volcano erupt,

shatter the silence with its roar?

should the molten fury of regret

spill into the world,

consuming everything it touches?

or should it remain hidden

the heat trapped beneath the waves,

the pressure building

in places no one can see?

what’s more tragic

the flames that char everything they adore

or the trembling in the heart,

waiting for the touch that might ignite?

it fears the touch of calm,

the quiet that asks it to be still.

for to be still is to fade,

to surrender its blazing heart

to the ocean’s depths.

so they wait as all things do

caught between what is and what could be

and the silence that stretches

into eternity.