A cruel night that permits me no sleep
The music is indistinct from silence
Soon, the sun will be up.

God, blessed. Me with my atheist prayers
Agnostic, if you will. Thank you.
Al-hamad ul lillahi rabb-ul-Aalameen
I spread the prayer mat
I kneel with my shorts on
With my headphones on
With music, with my unwashed feet

I say nothing. I do not weep.

It is just an old ritual.
My mother's anti-depressant.
She takes those arabic verses
Twice a day, with mildly cool water
Preferably before meals
And after difficult arguments

Me, I
Hah.

I get bored. I turn to boys and paints
To rage driving and boxing.
I dance terribly to myself.

I would drink music if I could.

Cruel daylight tip toes in
I wish I could tell them
How much I can ache. How much.
So much so, however,
I do not skip my lectures.
I do not fail my tests.
Day after day after day

I will zip the crude self open
And fix it, tick by tick
To pull through one more study session

And God - or God-not if you will -
Is just a pseudo-political nuisance now

Grief does not make us more human.

Why doesn't he talk to me?
Does time pass slower in France?
Or does he forget to remember me

What do I do?
Time does not pass slow here
One faltering minute over minute
Sleep evades me. I am unoriginal
In this saturation of pain
All rhyme, flow, rhythm, quirk
I can say nothing. I weep
Generously.
I try to be kind to myself
I dance to routine, to responsibility
I try to draw. I cannot paint.
I try to be kind to myself
Everyday, everyday, everyday, the same
Old stubborn silence, and this nauseating
Love and this this pain that breaks me

Little chip at a time

How do I tell you, man
That what I felt was good and gentle
That I gave without doubt, that I -
That when the grief comes
It comes without restraint and it
Constitutes me wholly. And I weep
Horribly into my hands
And wipe my eyes like a child

And when I am done and tired,
I am yearning still.

I wish he were kinder to me.

Do you think that frogs
Sense the immensity of winds
Of dust blows, of a thousand flailing
Objects? Or do frogs just sit
And ponder in that frog-like way.
And when they die, do they even notice
Will I? Notice. When I die. When someone
Or someone-not is weeping beside
Or the beeping is calling forth
A calm crowd of white people
Or or nothing - the bed does nothing
To adjust to my weightlessness and I
Will lie, unware of myself
Till morning comes and spreads the word
Maybe it will reach everyone but me

Do you think, in sharp sudden halts
Of mediocre afternoons
That maybe there is no distinction
Between being and non-being, between
The sun and the hand, the fingers
Tangled in with cloth, the soil
Rushing forth in disciplined ranks
To ruffle my eyelashes.
That poetry is nothing really.
And that I am nothing.
A vessel for the universe
To drain through, into itself,
And then, and then I will become a frog
And the frog will croak, for some reason

Rattling; a swift, strong to-fro god of quietness
Of collective anticipation: everything lurches
From wall to wall, accumulates
In suddenly-spotlit corners. The news
Of the bombing splashed from the sky
And shook the country awake.
Sightless in confusion, we turned
To terror for comfort, and everywhere,
The crooked bells of fury
Were waking each other up.

I sank on my bed. I was shuffling
From app to app, and you
In France, were excited too. I was waiting
Only for you.
My piston-heart small against the night
Fraught with petty indecisions
Of an exhausted love, it breathed the scattered wisps of news
And sneezed, sneezed to let you through.

I was sliding the apps over each other
And always, you appeared: taut as
Sterilised steel, scorching hot
With your careless endearment.
Do you think that there will be a war?
Well, I heard they shot down some planes.
You say you will miss me, as a joke.
But I am here, incapable of humour
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting
My eyes dim like a low-battery lamp
And the glitter of your name settles
Like dust on the floor.
The 3 am clock is awake with me
And I know I cannot afford to skip one more lecture
But 00 turns to 30 and then 40 and I think
I will just make the coffee a little bit stronger.

-

But what am I awake for?
I load, reload the news. An hour ago, for the first time,
A word, like a broken tooth, rang its metallic sound:
Home. And I shivered from the sincerity of it.
My hands are tied to the pungent hands of this land
My words are here. When I yell,
It is these broken streets that hear me.
My paltry heart is fed on its blood. Its abuse
Is indistinct from its love. This grotesque
Is the only love.
And they tell me, sympaths from far off lands: leave.

The mosques are awake and singing
I do not care for prayer or god. But I permit
The sounds of worship tease me.
I permit the thought of you instill me.
Although sweetness runs stale from disuse
I caress - caress you still before sleep.
My hatered is indistinct from this.

My - my mumble-mouth, my hesitancies
My thin laugh and my thin silence
I can afford to heed you
No more than this. I can turn, return
In stuttering strides; and you play
So beautiful, with your sharp soft face
But the night crumbles. The mosques
Have sung and knelt in prayer. The impossible
Hours pass - one after another.

-

There are questions. Will the schools open?
Will there be more attacks? Did you
Hear the fighter jets too?
Nothing ever dies but man, and nothing ever lives.
A white sun spreads its wings
And content,
I bid your absence goodnight and sleep.

-

[In the morning, I will take the little car to 160
And turn lustrous sharp corners
Because the roads will be empty].

How crisp was the sorrow
How swiftly it went
Left not a trace or word
Just a light wisps few
Of the night last lived
That seeped and itched
Unnamed in dream
Then morning white
To reveal the eyes
That fumbling curled
To escape themselves

Then coffee, then comb
And an eyeliner thick

And not a stain or crease
To dare and speak.
How simple it had been
To break and mend and to repeat
I slid from lane and sped to song
I was to reach the class in five
Then reached and left
I ate the day in three big bites
Then day again, again
And how quick they all go through
How easy it is to make do
-
God, but the night
Heavy, goo in my shoe

you say this that garbage
and I love it
those books sag, I forget and
their pages slip from my fingers
music becomes merely music
and I - I risk bravery
I dare weave you carefully
into my words - my skin - with
with an obvious softness, I
want to break you down
overturn, unwind you
I want - *******.