He doesn't have to be
A poetry person
To be my person

Showing up unceremoniously
From behind prissy waistbands unyielding,
Giggling out between breaths ****** in,
Unabashed, untamed rolls of me,
Not needing flattering illumination or angles,
Only truth-shopped and real-brushed,
Sharp with their curves and bends and curls,
Their glory making me feel like the cover girl
That i am.

Never really mastered the art of intrigue,
I sometimes wish I had that skill,
Of treading light,
Of being the diva
Surrounded by a mist of aura,
Controlled in laughter,
Calculatedly revealing,
Measuredly unraveling
Her inner self.
I stomp in love,
I bare it all in love,
I laugh with abandon,
I shout with animation,
I cry in immoderation,
I never really learnt to leave
Anything for the imagination,
And it's the greatest gamble,
The toughest game,
To tear your heart out and
hold it in your palm,
And show it to them,
Look, this is how I beat,
Not many can deal
with someone this real.

I wonder how much sugar it'll take
To drown your bitter aftertaste

You'd find the curtains lightly dancing
to the tune of that song,
to which we'd bashfully waltzed
the first time you had held me,
You'd smell the musk
Spreading its wings in the air,
That you once said, drove you
dizzy when you were around me,
You'd find poetry singing softly
Behind the veil of silence,
Reading aloud my verses of love,
Calligraphed on the bare canvas
Of my skin, in Urdu,
Curving and turning shyly,
For you to trace with gentle fingers,
Right to left, misra to misra,
Sher to sher,
The beher of each caress
Matching the stirring of my breaths,
Culminating at its pinnacle,
Into a ghazal, your ghazal,
That would, with demure grace,
Take form and calmly embrace,
The raging fire, the desperate uproar
Lashing at my parched, starved soul.

too long your lips have stared
into the body of my thoughts,
studying the patterns
and the features,
deciphering the blueprints,
my irrational being

...those petals,
their textures burning in the color,
popping out like embers, fed
every regulated breath

you are compelled
to lick away the dryness,
wipe the prints and traces,
put out the flames covertly...
but make it look casual:
you cannot be caught spying;
or the government of words
denies everything,
severing the strings,
abandoning its secret desire
behind enemy lines,
to be captured, questioned,
and tortured
by your very own
collaborationist conscience

He was sewn into her life like
Fine embroidery on silk,
In he went, sharp needle tip
Into her softness digging,
Then piercing her inside out, emerging
Only to be driven again back in,
He was the rose that was carved
On her pale, plain form;
His red completing her deficiencies,
His fragrance camouflaging her inconsistencies,
A Prince Charming,
Made just for her, she was told,
With sword of steel and armour of gold,
His grip hurt?- "It was supposed to, a little bit!"
His thorns stung?- "Oh surely you can bear it!"
Why was he there?- "Hush, woman!
You aren't supposed to ask that!
The rose is your crown, it is your badge
of honour, of modesty, of shame,
The little holes and their bleeding flames
Are marks of the strength of a woman, you see!
The strength that to only you, nature brings,
To stitch your man on to your fragile skin
To exhibit the flower, hiding the thorns within,
To gracefully mask the bruises, the puckering,
For you need him to fill your shortcomings"
-*without questioning.