The dust storm
Whipped the world red
Trees all freaked out, I and my brother
We climbed up the solar panels
On the roof
And laughed
In the face of the sky

The city swirled
With the drunken stars
And lights bled
In our flooded eyes
Laughing does that to you
We did not weep
For the sky did
And darkness
Was a horde of wasps let loose
It devoured our sweet,
Ripened day

I grabbed his wrist
And spun him around
Our feet kissing
The grumpy, old ground
We blended
Like ink in milk
Stirred round and round
And round ran the heavens

We laughed
Laughed our stomachs
To painful exhaustion
And the gusts hissed on
Rain sneaked down our clothes
Ran soft touches
All over

Do you ever settle down
On the edge of the world
And watch the beautiful
Oblivion chase itself?
Do you ever laugh
Even a dog moves on from its tail
After a while
Or whisper
“Will you not stop? Will you not stop
For I am here
I have climbed a thousand peaks
And slaughtered many a ravenous
Creatures
In the valleys of time
to get to you
Will you not stop?”

A gust of hues.

It says something
And you grasp it, you
Grasp it almost
Almost
But what is it
If not an oblivion?
Unfathomable

And a voice comes
From around, inside or
Maybe somewhere in between
Maybe
Maybe nowhere at all
It ruffles your hair
And pats your cheek
Have you forgotten your place
Little human?

Winds then shushed
The clouds away
From their beloved sun
And gold gleamed
Up, below, and in between
Every pearl that plummeted,
Blushing
I watched the sunset
Peep out the night
And I wondered
If rain was overrated

Have you forgotten you place
little human?

Because when the euphoria dies down
And cold begins to bite
You watch the raindrops
Beat the world to silence
And day breathes its
Last laughs

You wonder
“What now?” What now?
You wrap an arm around an arm
And shiver
What now?
Even a dog gets tired
Of whirling

What now?

Nothing,
The hues whisper
Now sit on the edge of oblivion
And we will do our magic

And maybe the world
Still chases its tail around
But you forget
For a breath or two.

You know, this woman
Never fails
To astound me

She is mixing the ladies’ fingers
Chopped and fried
With sautéed, spiced onions
And I watch
As she dips the pan
Toward herself
And all the oil runs over
Like a lost child
At the sight of his sister
In a crowd

With the other hand
She pushes those vegetables
Into the awaiting ***
Places the pan aside
And grabs hold of the ***
Twisting her wrists
Working up the magic

She flips the greens
Over the crescent onions
Mingling them up
And in front of my eyes
She has cooked up a dish

Then she spins the wheat dough
In between her fingers
Nimble as a dove’s beak
Tossing it from palm to palm and
All of a sudden
It is a flattened sun

She turns it around on the griddle
Before exposing it to the flames
It rises, rises, then falls
A breathing thing
And
Goodness be ******
She doesn’t even burn it
Not a single mark
She cooked the sun over blue fires
Turned it into a moon

I wonder how she does it
My mother
Master an art she doesn’t even like
While I—
I fiddle around
With my pens and brushes
The smug blankness

Of neglected canvases
And unfilled pages
Mocking me of a fairy-light child
I could not become—

I think I let this blueness overflow a bit
Mother’s being tender again
She talks to me like a bee does
To a sleepy sunflower
And does not mention the missed classes
Does not remind me of the exams
She says to me
‘Ayesha,’ she says,
‘Ayesha, you brood too much.’
And I know mother.
And she jokes that she might have to
Burn this notebook I keep scribbling in
Because it does not make me happy

She says to me,
‘I know you’re brooding when you write
And all that writing makes you grey.’
She says she’ll have to throw it out
In the street
But I know she never will
She’s too tender
Too tender, my mother.
I think, ‘Will I have to myself then?’
And I think, ‘How many will I throw?’
And I think, and I think till the sun
goes down

But I brood when fairies are on their way
To the stars
And mother,
Why are dead things always the scariest?
Sorry, I know I’m supposed to be
Focusing on these Orbital radii
But I can’t stop, mother
The atomic structures
Keep mingling with dragons
And their pretty eyes

Mother’s being soft again
I am a little child stumbling up the hill
And she never asks me to help in the kitchen
But when I wander around
Light as a wind
She lets me chop the vegetables
I do
There goes an onion, so quiet
Chop, chop, chop
Mother, do you think if trees bled
We would still butcher them to pieces?

Chop, chop, chop
Mother, who carved this goddess out of my name?
It feels heavy now, wings mighty and huge
I can barely stand this mortality
Chop, chop, chop
Mother, does it not pain you
Seeing all the coriander dry in the pots?
The dirt that birthed it from a quiet seed could not keep it alive.
How are you so strong?

Mother, mother
It reminds me of my Morning Glories
Last year
They bloomed so happily every morning
And they’d wilt by the evening
And the next day
The slender plant would make more blooms
They kept dying, mother
All of them
On and on and

There was nothing I could do
Nothing the stems could do
I watered and watered and watered, they kept dying
Born to wither
And in the winter, when the sun wasn’t as cruel
Cold did the job
And all the leaves fell down
empty plastic wrappers, they were
And I pulled the hollow vine off the railings
We burned it that night, I and Faizan
The fire ate away what was left, and
Ate herself when nothing was

chop goes the last lamb
I sacrifice a lot to my wolves
The sparrows outside ask me why I do not talk
I do, mother, don’t I?
I talk a lot, a lot, a lot, my skin gets tired of hearing
The silence hops around the kitchen,
a mad cat

Mother wipes the heat off her forehead
The stove whispers on
‘You’re brooding again, Ayesha.’
‘Whatever, I told you it was not just the poems.’
Everything’s a poem to you, Ayesha
No mother, I’m just tired—

Wilted jasmines look like popcorns
… that wasn’t very poetic, right?
I was just watching the bushes sway outside my window.
There is no wind today
Just the hot air breathing
I have turned on the A.C. and the fan grumbles quietly

I feel as if my heart is in my stomach
Huh.
**** it,
I really am forcing it out today..
Whatever
I rested my palm on my stomach
As Faizan’s strange playlist chattered nonsense
Outside the blanket shroud I had built
Around myself
And I could feel the beat
The rhythm
Like a drum or a gong
I don’t know why it matters to me
Maybe because I feet as if nothing else does
Right now
I know that sounds exactly like something
A sentimental teenager would say

I don’t know
I want to talk to myself
A heart-to-heart
I want to ask that *****
What is going on
What is wrong
What the **** is wrong, girly!?
I want to hear her ramble on about stuff
Be bored of her talk, but feel kind of happy
That I’m the one she’s confiding in
I wanna give her a hug
To show I don’t have words good enough for comfort
Which I probably do
But am too lazy to fish them out my gooey head
(Besides
I think the poor **** needs a hug)

I wanna zone out and nod along to her words
Just so she can let it out for once
But that *****’s a *****
She acts tough and all smart
But she’s a sappy preteen girl inside
I say,
“Yo, Ayesha, you can cry, you know—”
And she goes,
“Yeah, I know.”
A flip of that inexistent hair
That she long ago butchered
And, bam, she gone.
She tells me
"Yo, Ayesha, you can cry too, you know?"
"I know" I tell her.
I don’t know what to do
So I lie around
Feeling this stupid ***** dance in my stomach
In my wrists
In my temples
I run my fingers down my neck,
Feeling for the echoes of the gong
That keeps talking, talking, talking
Untiring
As if calling me to my people
gathering us together for a battle
that is yet to be fought
yet to be fought—
yet to be ******* fought

And, hey, my
Money plant doesn’t even look rich
That *****—
(Hey, I got a rhyme!)

I heard you like to sing
In broken, barren places
Well, I have found us a mansion
Old and rotten
And, say,
Will you not come over for a cup of moonlight?
I have built us a garden
With twigs and weeds
And hung up a swing
From the black, velvet sky
Will you not come by
In your wildest gown and brightest jewels
Bring along the gossips
Bring along the feathers
And all other abandoned things

Spare me the news of Palestinian wails
Or how a young girl was stolen
From a loud street
Put aside the talks of rising waters
Or how the things that are legal
Aren’t always moral
Do not bring along the laughs of explosions
That are known to bloom in
most arid of places

Tell me about the stars
Tell me the talk of the sparrows and doves
Or did that slender lady
Finally dye her hair green?
How are the dolphins?
Sing me the songs you wrote for fire
Sing of the ocean
And her fluttering veils
Make me forget I am not a gust

Will you not come by?
I have sought out a trapdoor
That leads to the purple forest
We will play hide-and-seek
In our frail, little world

They say the place
Was home to a lady who,
One day, washed her body
And hung it to dry
Will you not help me wake the dust
That sleeps all around?
We will hold a slow dance
With scared spiders and rats
Bring along the tired stars
and all other extinguished things

Bring along the debris
And maybe a ****** shoe or two
But do not bring the stories of still children
Or the shivering ones
Leave behind all the prayer mats
All of the prayers

We will swim in the shadows
And feast upon wilted blooms
Sing me the ballads of the clouds
I’ll sing you those in my head
And when, in the morning
The town’s folks will talk of the dead lady’s ghost
Swaying and singing
I will pretend the mansion
Never knew of us.