The name of it left buzzing malls empty,
sanitizers out of stock,
masks and hygiene products booming.

It revolutionized responses to sneezes
from bless you to get away from me.
It shut down schools and flights
bringing governments to its knees.

It snatched sleep from health workers,
that now risk their lives every day to be
the hustle towards the cure of it.

It declined stock markets,
dissipated jobs like
they were a mere nothing.

It ticked off the many goals of our buckets list
by travelling across the world,
and leaving the world impacted.

It disconnected touch,
grafted face masks onto people.
But wait, France is this a veil you’ll ban as well?

It revolutionized greetings,
made many of us home bounded –
is this the final push to making every inch of our lives digitalised?

As for the kids,
the final teachings of their doctors,
teachers and parents is put to work;
they’re finally washing their hands.

Did your body not warn you
before you were wrung dry?

The day you found yourself depleted,
the nights that lead upto it became fragile,
your cell heavy as they were heaved onto the bed.

Did you not listen to your body,
when you woke up with a heavy chest
and your body begged you to sleep?

Did you not acknowledge your heart
when it had become
a black hole the night before
as it ****** you out in.
Your bones like gravestones
prominent among the barren skin.

Did the suffocating dark matter
not ring louder
as you gasped for air with burnt lungs.

When you stood there overworked,
with signals mixed and sensitive
rewired and tangled
did the response fit their norm of you?

Did your voice not thud,
with the lump in your throat?
Did your heart not pound
against your ribcage,
your stomach not curdle
with that war in your chest,
as your mind raced
and your chest pressured as you tried
to clutch that breath?

Did your hormones
not muddle with your thoughts?
Did they not drown them in depths
and set them on fire all at once?
Did it not ache your muscles
before it all turned red?

Did your body not scream
when they came near?
Your feet cemented,
as your body froze?
Did your gut not twist
till you felt nauseous?

Did your toes not curl
when the feeling sunk
through your spine,
sat in your bones
like an unwanted guest,
and you like an unwilling host?

Did you not feel the chill
shiver down your spine
as terror spread across your face
and painted it white
before the quake came?

Did you not acknowledge
your body is the vessel
that you kept giving and pushing
depleting it of the right to rest
rather than opening
it to the abundance of love
it was surrounded by.

Your body became over extended,
your mind became forgetful
a body that is now a red flag;
travesty.

Your thoughts are far from the ground,
Like cumulonimbus clouds thundering by
And pouring rain. 


Life seems to pass by, scattered and wispy 

with the sound of the wind like a whistling train playing
as you stare at the elusive silver lining.

The pit patter of Peter Pan being lost
dwells heavy in your heart,
As you revise the sequence of the cumulus memories.

Life paces
As you ignore the malice and bantering of the crowds
Sticking your head above up into the clouds
half-deaf to reality in the room.

You have a foot in a fairy tale,
And one in the abyss.

A nation that seeks to craft
what the forefathers draft;
a declaration of independence,
a nation of acceptance and coexistence.

A nation that weaves laws
for the ones of different colors,
wears,
and of worship —
building a homage for them all.

A nation with the vision of a blend of culture,
welcoming them into progressing lands  that play the tune of harmony
as blankets them in safety.

A tolerant nation
of multicultural lands,
and foreign tongues.
Building Seven Pillars
that stand tall and high
to inspire and ingrain
tolerance in every
crannies and nooks of the nation.

This is UAE.

As you read stanza per stanza,
words interwine with your emotions.

They embrace them in their inked grooves,
like your depths, tangles and cobwebs
has found words to finally be tuck into
and call home.

The waves of emotion lap
against your jagged shores.
Their 27 alphabets playing the cords
and heartstrings of your heart
as though the cadence was at the same
wavelength.

Threads of connection form
to another soul that you did not know of.
Their books become your home,
etching parts of your soul,
mind and heart as though it is a
torn page of the book that has returned.

The whispers of tomorrow
tainted the marble walls as
the ones in the room painted
different shades and visuals
of their tomorrow.

The one with their hand jittery,
spine made of anxiety
stutter with their fear coated tongue,
the bouncing and rebounding words of
the chaos and panic of the heart;
the thought of uncertainty that
tomorrow dawns upon them.

As the word tomorrow is passed
on like a parcel amongst the ones sitting
the one with their pupils radiant
paints yellow and white
the hope a new day brings upon,
whereas the ambitious shouts
that she is a day closer to her goals
as she stands armored with passion and dreams.

The students have tomorrow
tattooed on their tongue,
a word that never comes
but morphs itself into the word procrastination.

But when it comes to me,
the moon dissolves into the sun
and the sun dissolves into the moon
as my yesterday, today and tomorrow become the same;
the shades of my life are painted all the same.

I come from a place of empathy
where perceptions
is a mix of colors
of hers, his and their
perspective.

I come from a place of empathy
where ears are made of patience,
drums sensitive to the change in wavelength,
de-weaving complexity
into simplicity.

I come from a place of empathy
where the emotions lacerating
hearts – sliced,
run parallel through me.

You lock into my embrace,
finding the comfort of compassion
amongst the rusty and scraping conditions.
  
When you project anger, fear, and angst
I start dissecting your past,
your rearing,
justifying and understanding
the origins of the
hand and experiences
that shaped you.

You render your mind open,
as I step in
walk among the stars, darkness
and the turbulent waves crashing within.

Your emotions tingle my skin,
and linger within me
as I understand wor(l)d apart,
developing cross-cultural understanding
and objectifying subjectivity.

Though I begin to understand
the origins, stem of your being,
swaying with your words
and hazing in the paradox of other’s being.
I choose to succumb to gravity,
and remain sturdy on certain beliefs.