Burning neighbourhoods into silence

Dark windows stand,

within towers of concrete

Partly lit. Part in black hues.

Shadows move left and right,

tending to bare tables and filled plates,

Painting lively pictures

Others are desolate,

Resting.

Echoing snores in burning stars,

silent twists in breathless clouds.

A meal

Chairs dragging,

glass clinking,

spoons dipping in sinking liquid.

Pause.

Still.

A sip flowing.

A speeding pause.

Light 

Bright and burning. 

Crashing.

A fallen star?

Burst, thud, an explosion

Echoing snores now silent 

Fire

Up down and all round,

Shadows crisp and crumble

In a dark caused by starving flames

Another pound

Another bomb

More orange rain 

Burning a neighbourhood into silence,

Into permanent darkness

This you do,

Daily

Hourly

For how long?

Until screams of the dead fill an empty town?

You're already there

It's no cure

Please stop

The Deep End extract

My toes sank into the warm sand. I wiggled them in deeper, walking toward the fierce body of water ahead. The sand became cold and wet. Wind blew against my face; echoes of the past whispering in my ears. I brushed my hair aside and started to move towards the ultramarine waves. My family called to me as I neared the sea. Shouts of ‘what are you doing,’ ‘come back,’ ‘it’s too dangerous’ were heard spreading in the wind, but I kept going. Waves tickled my feet as I wandered deeper and deeper. The sand beneath my feet vanished and I was paddling. The sea enveloped me. Waves struck me violently. I was deep enough. I stopped paddling.

*

A sea of gold and red hung from my body and lights flashed in my eyes. I looked down, my heavily mascaraed eyelashes trembling slightly. Out of the corner of my eye, I peered at my groom. He was a few years older; broad shoulders, a firm mouth and ruggedly bearded. He was grinning at our families’ attention, I was grimacing at it. A tear fell out of my eye, crawling down my made-up cheek.
The wedding ended. I was made to walk alongside Anwar, my husband, just as I was made to accept his proposal. I had no choice; my family’s wishes had always mattered more than mine. That was how it happened in our social circle. I didn’t know how I felt about it. True, I hadn’t found anyone. But I had never wanted it to be like this.

*

I was sitting on my marriage bed; it was decorated with soft, blushing rose petals. I leaned against the canopy, watching Anwar walk in. He took off his coat and my heartbeat raced. He sat down beside me, touching my cheek gently. He took his hand away; his fingers were wet. I looked at him anxiously, sending him the message that I wasn’t ready for this tonight. Thankfully, he backed away.
An hour later we lay in bed beside each other. I stared at the ceiling.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. I could see him turn. He looked at me, puzzled. Stroked my hair with his fingers.
‘There’s nothing to apologise for. It’s natural to be scared. Let’s sleep.’

*

I was lying in bed, my palm on my stomach, making squiggly lines on the ceiling with my mind. Anwar was at the office. I was here. I always seemed to be here.
A piercing cry interrupted my thoughts. I tried to shut it out. But it went on and on. Louder and louder. I clenched my fist. The baby was always crying. Har waqt. And Anwar was never here. I was. I had to be.

I sat on Primrose, my curves picking at the gripping grazed ground with twinkling red flowing around me. Creation stretched itself out in front of me; lazing and bustling, soaking and striking, still and rushing. Bottles of liquid poison tipping down throats, cylinders of unearthly smoke pressed against lips of paled pink, wrestling the cobalt of cloudless. Destroying the verdant that rolled below.
I lay back whispering too low for you to hear. Softly begging to unearth the limbs that cling you to the toxic dimples of sand, and instead reach out towards electric titbits bouncing on roaring waves of cotton that extend ruthlessly. You continue watching, never embracing. I know, so do I. We sit among bright magic tricks every day, that hold clouds surfing on fluent rays, turning around the hypnotic gold that is broken only by a whizzing that cannot be replicated. We sit amongst it, only deepening shadows fleeting soundlessly in the everlasting orange that turns circles of rebellious pink shaded gold blinding white around us. We have our place amongst it but all we do is press flash.

No more

My wings continue rolling into a deep abyss, chipping away bit by bit, their glow dimming ever so slightly as they crumble from the mountains of my back that curve inward and outward when I pull myself towards the twinkling above, but also when I bury myself inside dry earth.
They flutter rapidly, rustling in the tornado created by the twirls of your index finger round and round and round until it becomes crisp delicate air that carries me off to a land unknown.
They fall like suckling fireflies, drop by drop, bright and vibrant until they are ripped out like threads unraveling from the cushion that we wrestled with. My skin is ruby with each extracted vein lying dully in your fingers. I'm bare and there are no more threads left for you to pull anymore.

Words on the tube

This twisting and turning
deafening,

Tracks that curve,
Into
every glistening edge

Piercing tires
dragging us along

Pounding,
Back and forth
Back and forth

Run
2 minutes
Stop,
A minute
Maybe more

Run,
Again

Perfectly desi?

I am not

a piece of glass

ready to be shined and polished

prepared to be shown around

picked and admired

until the next customer chooses

I am not 

a traditional woman

silent and bashful

excited about recipes and bells

one that speaks only when spoken to

I am not 

perfect

perfectly desi, if that's what you mean

I am

mapping my future according to

my whims and choices,

kind, and determined 

to be the best I can be

I am

what I want to be

what women want to be

what every woman strives to be

before you try to strap us

in your version of perfect glass

Unfortunately for you

I will always be

What I want to be

Our hypocritical definition of terrorism

Terrorism. The most used word for violence in the 21st century. The word blinks in front of our eyes ringing loudly repeatedly until it is engraved in our minds. We take in what the media tells us what the politicians tell us what the people in power tell us. Without so much as a curious peep questioning their message, without really processing what they're telling us.
Terrorism. What do you think it is? How do you define it? Its probably linked to ideas about a brown middle eastern black man with a beard too big for his face in your mind shouting 'this is for Allah' pressing buttons screaming violently until he explodes. That is what you're fed of course and you're too complacent to think of anything else. Hey its not your fault, if I was fed a single story like a bowl of soup again and again, I would also dig into it without thinking too much. Its easier that way.
But let me tell you abt the definition of terrorism. The Oxford dictionary defines it as 'the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.' Nowhere does it say that the person has to be from a minority community. Turn over the pages and read, it doesn't say the person has to shout some bullshit thing he was brainwashed about because its convenient for him to blame a specific kind of people for all the crimes he does under the sun. Turn over the pages and pretend to spot the ideas you have about terrorism.
Guess what? Those pages are blank. Because they aren't definitions of terrorism. They are beliefs that you have associated with the word because it is easy for you to call a coloured person a terrorist and make people hate them bomb them hurt their husbands wives children and destroy their countries. Because when you do that, you aren't called a terrorist. No way, you are a saviour or maybe drunk or mentally ill or some other bullshit excuse that you carve out from the ground to plaster across the world's eyes so that they don't treat you like the evil you are. The hypocrisy is too real. We don't always want to bring up race or politics but we can't be blindfolded by your lies, by your view any longer. It is toxic dangerous poisonous, only encouraging more violence. See the world for what it is. If an evil white person does an act which harms civilians, call him a terrorist. If an evil coloured person does, call him one. But don't make excuses for white people while within minutes of an attack by a coloured person you scream out terrorism. Don't give more importance to lives in the West or lives in the East. Create and enforce the equality that you love talking about. Educate yourself. Question what you're told. Be empathetic.
Terrorism is terrorism no matter what colour the attacker is. Victims are victims no matter what ethnicity they are. Open your eyes and call it out for what it is. Hypocrisy.

Blossoming in hypnosis

Pave your way in my mind
Planting electric glowing seeds where your footsteps fall,
watch us blossom together
Until our bustling roots spin around one another in hypnosis

Crossed

Cross my legs 

fold them over my heart,

Hear them as they pound echoingly

taking me to bathe in the light of the aquamarine sky

Mesmerise

Drive me to the furthest corner of the rugged world
And watch my arms and limbs twist and turn
mesmerising my soul in your spirited eyes,
Until my spins start twirling your soul round and round
on my tips

Speak

Speak 

until your cords radiate in the piercing shine

thunder against the boundaries

And continue to flow in the air that was created for your fluent word formations,

Speak

until they learn to listen

Dapple me

Dapple me in dazed pink

Until I curl and extend into the shimmering wind

Depletion

It will only exist

until the last icicle drips into raging oblivion

"English parh ke kia karogi"

"English parh ke kia karogi?"
You ask me again and again until it rotates in my membranes pulling at my anger cords. I look at you just as repeatedly, cocking my head to one side like a bird confused about a silly question. Except its more like I'm confused about why you are interfering in my choices. English parh ke kia karogi? I don't know, maybe break your assumptions apart and grind them into burning fine powder, strapping tape on to those critical lips? I don't ask you why you did business or science or law so why do you feel the need to poke your grubby nose into my power over words? Stay out of it.
English parh ke kia karogi? Maybe change your robotic minds which see only a straight path to success by ignoring the highs and lows of education and career that were made to be breathed in and devoured as success is achieved. You ask me why I study English. You, who only think education should be chosen so that it gives you a career. You, who ignore the knowledge books gift. I'm sorry that I'm not going by your rules that are chains that trap any free soul into the money-driven career ground. I'm sorry that I choose to fight you and follow my beating passion.
You ask me why I study English. You think it means grammar and punctuation and reading books. You have no idea what it entails. I study English because I unravel what I've been taught, because I need to learn empathy, science, psychology, and society from two sentences that you take at face value. I study English because I understand that one thing can mean a billion other things. I study English because I want to rewrite our ideas, our beliefs, our constraints, our societies, our lives. I study English because it gives me the power to tolerate and understand and explore and depict without you stopping me. English parh ke kia karogi? Maybe I will use it to create a world where you finally understand who I am. Maybe I will use it to create a world where all career choices are equal and respected. Maybe, just maybe, I will use it to shove your unnecessary opinions underground and continue creating a world where passions blossom from the roots.

Pink piety

When the sky is painted deep gold with baby pink candy floss floating on its waves, I open myself up closing the gates of immorality inside my territorial mind until fluent light fills my veins, breathing soundly through my lungs winking a goodbye at the toxic that existed before.

Harassed by desperation

I walk down the street and eyes follow me everywhere. Every step that I take is reinforced by a blink or a wink that passes from man to man thinking that they are praising me with their leers and smirks. Unashamed among the footsteps of the ants, blindly tracking the curves in my figure, mapping myself in front of themselves, placing their claws on my neck taking me into a clouded haze where I only drown lower and deeper until I disappear. I walk down the street where cars are growling and fires are burning brightly, feeling their eyes clinging to me; they are echoing deafeningly, beating until everything else disappears. In a trapped maze trying to make my way through and I feel impatient dirty fingers slide down my support. Quick prodding poking, hurried desperate invasion that stops me in my tracks for a second but they have disappeared already. I walk down the street only to be explored by unwanted surveyors that I cannot grasp in retaliation. I walk down the street only to be harassed by cowardice and desperation that I definitely don't need walking down with me.

Polychromatic waves

It burns my skin seeping into the ivory waves that used to be sapphire daylight. I mixed the ripples with the scarlet rays until they bled yellow inside me blending with the dazed blue sky that spread out on my dented fingers. Small eyes peeked at me as I folded it, making the waves rumble and rush over one another until they moulded to form a shining silver that twinkled at me.

Thoughts

I'm draining into iron holes losing pieces of myself with each dragging drop of water that drips down my wheat body. Thoughts are tangled with my fingers, pointing and poking my scalp telling me to go left right draw a circle turn over reach out unleash myself curl up. It extends into my rolled stomach, crawling from my wrapped up palms and flowing into my legs that feel like they cannot support me. I climb into a deep dark hole befriending the wolves until they make my thoughts go away.

Hidden in henna

They say a husband's name is embedded in his bride's henna, hidden in the dark patterned flowers of her palms. Everyone believes it and I did too. Sometimes in the past when my palms were decorated in hypnotic patterns, I searched for him, a mr right to my mrs right, our names entangled together echoing in the delicately stained curves. But now its been years since I explored the dents and scratches in my fingers for a face masked under the effortless twists and turns. Now when I stretch out my soft pink hands they are bare of scented henna and I watch as his name lights up in my wrists where it is intertwined with my veins and beating comfortingly in the place of my heart.

Too bad they don't go by their own mantra

Their fluid judgements restrain you. Tie up your tongue in knots that grow bigger and bigger until your tongue vanishes in a mist of flames. You're wrong, they say. Closing off their iron gates bringing a barrier of intolerance ready to strike at the drop of a bowling ball. They preach tolerance but flood your mind with mocking that continues to beat in their chests like hypocrites swimming in a life which they feel is superior and desired by all. Don't judge, they say yet they stray away from the other calling them names cutting them out of their lives like women cutting locks of hair into a disappearing black hole. Live and let live, they say. Too bad they don't go by their own mantra.