Think the saddest thing about this land
Is how hard it tries to live
To hold, to let go— how it
Stills in the middle of a catastrophe
How it sings
Only when no one’s about to hear
How its silence
Is never wholly true

How the clouds go by
And the suns
The crescents grow up and pass
And people—
Yet it, shuddering, remains
And how it struggles
To weave peace out its
Wavering fields

And ever-dancing cities—
The dance of a Persian woman
In shackles
How it slaughters its own flowers
In search of their seeds
How it breaks apart
In the middle of a night
In the middle of a little girl’s question
In the middle of a smile

How the maidens
Keep on hanging their dresses to dry
And children keep hunting
For helpless worms
And snows melt into grasses
Till they too sail away
Yet it, shuddering, remains

How it will gnaw away the town
It carved itself
Feast upon its own beautiful bones
How hard it struggles to stir
In its own queer death
And how it will wither
And wither, and wither
And not tire—

It is its own hateful god.

Do you sense it?
The little men
are mixing up a stew again
They are chopping their children
And grinding all the toys
Breaking the women and
Breaking them on
They will peel colours off the swings
And shred them to debris

Do you sense the moons all hiding
Covering up their silver eyes
And the night is angry
It roars and stomps—
A drunken frenzy; it fights
Its own decayed, black being

Oh, Palestine
You and your fidgeting hands
Fingers fight fingers
And skins are ripped
fingers fight fingers still—
There goes the ballad you never sang
There goes the ballad
You sang all around
There go the plastic dolls
Chaste slingshots, fruits never shot down

Oh, Palestine
You and the lightning
Stumbling through the clouds
You, your tumbling birds—There goes the wind
Mourning a violence unmourned
There goes the silence
There goes the noise
There, all the paintings
Eulogies etched in whispers unfathomed
And there go the stones
Cold and blank

All plunging within the gaping mix
As the *** sits quiet
Upon a fire
Birthed from their own white bones
The little men
are cooking up a stew again
Sprinkled with gold, with ashen stars
It boils and burps
A viscous storm
Never to come
As the *** sits quiet all night long

Oh Palestine,
You, your lovers
Lovers and the rest—
When in the morning
The flames are tired, and bones
Bones no more
The stew will still be stirring
With winds raging on
And no one will be left
No one will be left

With winds raging on
No one will be left

Oh Palestine
Where did the little men go so wrong—

My life is being shredded away.

— my little brother while shredding cheese that he was bullied into doing by mother’s threats of having his Laptop abducted away

Hello poetry
Hello p**try
H'llo poetry

your 502 bad gateways are
freaking me out
I got no copies of
all my ******* man

I wander around the house
Like a heavy ghost
My room.
Turn off the A.C. and open up the windows
Faizan’s room, little brother
Mother’s
My room
It is too barren in here
The kitchen
Open the fridge; I am not even hungry
Drink some water
Faizan’s room
— What up?
— Doom
— Cool. Carry on
He sets a zombie on fire
Hoping around the mountains
Like a wounded bird

Mother’s room
Bathroom for another shower
My room
I might just be passing through the walls
‘Cause man do I not recall
Heading to the kitchen again
Older brother’s room
— What up?
— Hmm?
Exposes a red ear from beneath the headphones
— What up?
— Shut up.
Touché.
Mother’s room
— Do you want my help studying?
— Nah, I’m sleepy

My room
Turn on the A.C.
shut the window
The evening sun pours in through the purple curtains
Washing the room in a faint blush
(not that anybody asked)
…
…
Cannot sleep
…
…
Faizan’s room
— Weren’t you dying? He asks
— Couldn’t
— Ah, sad.
Kitchen
Might just make coffee
Faizan’s room
— Hey! Not here!
— Won’t spill it, chill dude.
He sighs,
Roaming around a darkened cavern
A diamond sword in hand.
He puts on a song he knows I like.
It flutters around us
Like a swarm of frightened moths
I feel I might explode—
Mother’s room
Wait, it’s night already?
But, I just had—
Perfect.
Beautiful.

My room.
The books laugh
The walls laugh, the clock laughs
I feel I might be melting
A night stands dressed up
At the end of the aisle
And I, a bride to be butchered,
Butchered, butchered
Then wed again

Time to study
(not the books,
the ceiling)
Haha.
Tricked ya.
Here, that rhymed, ******
Is this a poem yet?

(Why the hell am I in kitchen again?)

A laugh is not a pretence
I wanted to tell you that, Urooj
And maybe to myself too
Because I know you saw peeps
Of the vacancy
Nestled in my skin
And I too was acquainted
With your queer sorrow
That rises and falls
With a schedule of its own
We saw the jolly winds flirt with olden trees
And heard many a strange talks
In golden fields of youthful wheat
And mustard flowers alive

But we ran too, didn’t we?
I pointed to the slender tree far, far away
Count as I go, I said
And count you did as I rushed
Rushed clumsily on
My feet twisting in troughs
Eye-lashes fighting dust
Twenty, you shouted, as the tree grew
But I barely heard
my body singing a battlefield

You stumbled through the ploughed soil
Hardened through suns
Crushing the remnants of harvested wheat
beneath the flat soles of your sandals
(who wears those to a field?)
Then more
Through soft, chestnut soils
Trying not to damage the baby onions
And I laughed through my burning lungs
A smoke piled up in me
Yearning to gnaw all away

And we licked the gusts singing gossips
Of sour, raw mangoes
Then relished the cool water that
You forced the earth to puke
(I still don’t get how that hand-pump worked)

And I know you sneaked along a wilted rose
From your sister’s grave
And wept, quietly sniffing
Seeing her in all the birds I pointed out
All the leaves dried to immortality
In my notebook
I too treaded through rows of childish guava trees
And struggled to will my ghosts away
I too got stranded in the insolent rays
of the dusty sun

But we joked still, didn’t we?
And when, on the way home,
I reminded you stories
Of the silly children we once lived
Your laugh glimmered all around
And mine mimicked

And the radio was ****
So we swam in our own private silences
Got lost in the rowing birds
And I know, at some point,
All the dead days
And all the rotten mangoes
Seated themselves in the car
Along with us and our shackled beasts
And the villages and the stalls and empty fields
Ran past in silence

But we had laughed
When the restless winds nearly sent me
Tumbling down the tree
And we had laughed when
The freshly-watered soil tried
To **** us under
And a laugh is not a pretence
Urooj, a laugh is not a pretence.
I wonder if we know.