(The clock is ticking, tick tock tick tock)
He returns from office, It was a bad day
He throws his files on the table
As he loosens the ties, exhausted.

(The T.V is not working again)
He smashes the remote against the wall
And collapses on the sofa,
His eyes are now closed.

(The water starts boiling)
She turns the stove off
And rushes to the t.v lounge
As she hears the shattering sound.

After wiping her face with the corner of her shirt
She manages to put on a smile weakly.
"Hey darling. Welcome back home
The dinner is also almost ready."

(The bulb starts flickering)
He opens his eyes staring at it.
He curses aloud as she stands waiting for a reply
Then he lights up a cigarette.

He puffs for a while and
Asks what's for dinner
She is frightened to upset him,
She starts to stammer.

"I asked what's for ******* dinner!?"
"Boiled vegetables and steak, dear."
"I told you to cook rice for me ******
How hard was it to remember!?"

Tears fill her eyes as he curses again
She pleads for him to stop
But he holds her by the arm
And kicks her out of the house.

(The T.V is now working again)
(And the flickering of the bulb has also stopped.)
No one is there to blame anymore
(The clock ticks, tick tock tick tock.)

What is time?
Ticking of the clock,
Movement of the hands,
A game of numbers
Or maybe nothing at all.
What is time?
God of life and death
It keeps you running
It counts your every breath.

Today I have a question to ask
From the coward thieves and murderers
Who attack their prey in the dark.

Today I have a question to ask
From those who consider her as a toy to play
As she fights to keep her virginity safe.

Today I have a question to ask
From all the soul killers who take pleasure
In hearing her screams and cries while they laugh.

Today I have a question to ask
From the dark demons who enjoy 'the game'
While she hopes to die at the end of it.

Today I have a question to ask
From these monsters who fulfill their needs
As they steal away her identity.

Today I have a question to ask
From those who make her hate herself
For they leave inside her some of their part.

Today I have a question to ask
From those who feel mighty and powerful
As they curse her forever with the scars.

Today I have a question to ask
From every ****** ****** in the world
How will you pay for those innocent lives
Who were a victim of your fun and lost the fight?

I smile as I whisper your name to myself
It raises a pleasuring pain somewhere deep
I wonder if my name buries you alive too
Cause darling, you are the one who lost me.

Let's go on a walk sometime,
you and me
down the dusty road
that leads to my place.
We'll talk for once
or maybe the first time actually
so that
at the end of our encounter
you realize
how wrong you are honey.

the red light
was more
of an invitation
than a warning

She was just another tragedy
that everybody stayed away from
yet everybody loved to read.

I've trapped all those fluttering butterflies
in mason jars that are placed in my wardrobe.
They're locked so they can't fly anymore
For it's too cold for them outside now.

I hope you think of me every time you kiss someone else.
And when you do, remember honey
It's a curse from which you can never escape.

Perfectly packed tubes of paint cannot create any art
Until they are torn and messed up, like a broken heart.

The day we combine would be the day when this world will meet it's destination.
We would have just a fraction of time to fulfil all the desperation.
For we are like two burning stars in love.
When collide, we can set fire to the whole universe.

"I am yours." he whispered as he kissed me to prove
But her taste on his lips told a more bitter truth.

I remember staying up
all night just to watch
the stars with you.
Side by side,
we made a castle
based on promises
and dreams.
We took the stars
as witness
and lit up the
candle of our
dreams in the
darkness of that
night.

Little did we know
that the same stars
would witness the
evasion of that castle
by the darkness of
the world.

Painting, for me, is like making love. I paint when I am frustrated. I paint with a chaotic mind. It leaves me tired but at the end of the day, I feel satisfied.

humans are beautifully complex creatures
living simplest of the lives
whereas they deserve
more than they think they do

they deserve love
they deserve care
they deserve more than
all the hatred and despair

So many different phobias in this world
and here I am
scared of you.

Only if I could sleep at night
and see the dreams like a normal person,
I'd start hating the nightmares.

Oh Madam Honk,
I was thinking about you last night
and how you taught me things
about this life.
I miss you more than those lesson that
you gave me as a gift
Now I know that
I was wrong and you were right.

I want to get high with a stranger
and spill out my deepest secrets
to him as I make him
fall in love with me.
The stars and the moon that witnessed
our love will now see
how I leave everything behind
and turn my life
into a tragedy.

the death angel is knocking
on our doors tonight
please lock them all away
cause mama we were just born yesterday

we were born in those class rooms
and jokes and those smiles
we were born between those two years
God knows we had to fly
we shared memories,
filled with laughter and cries
we were born together on the same day
we were narcotic nine

the death angel is knocking
on our doors tonight
please lock them all away
cause mama we were just born yesterday

we lived in those moments
we lived like a new born child
who knew the world was harsh
who knew it was the last time
God know, I swear He knows
we were meant to shine.

the death angel is knocking
on our doors tonight
please lock them all away
cause mama we were just born yesterday

we were a family, born and raised together
we were a family, bonded by the time
oh God, oh God, please listen to our prayers
oh God, oh God, please listen to our cries

the death angel is knocking
on our doors tonight
please hide us away,
please bring back the time
we were meant to stay
together till we'd die
cause mama we were just born yesterday
cause mama we were just born yesterday

If there was no heaven and no hell,
then would have people been the same
as they are now?
wearing masks and pretending to be
something they are not?

When I was a little girl, I wanted to feel loved.
I wanted to look pretty and make a lot of friends.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be so many things
I wanted to be an astronaut and an archaeologist.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to feel loved.

But

Now that I have grown up,
I realize,
looks and friends are nothing but a deception
and dreams are just dreams
that always remain the same.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to feel loved.

Now that I have grown up,
I wish I had never tasted
the forbidden fruit.

He came back home, crashed on his bed. He then took his tie off and inhaled deeply. What a tiring day it was! He closed his eyes to drift off to a peaceful place when he was pulled back by the crying of his baby. The baby cried and cried as if he was screaming, struggling for his life. The man rushed into the next bedroom and found his wife curled up on the bed.
"What happened? Where is my child? Why was he crying so much?" The man looked around but could not find any clue of the child. He turned and ****** his wife, "Where the hell is my baby?", he screamed in her face but she did not open her eyes.
Her lifeless body slipped from his hands like sand and fell on the ground near the bottle of pills. Like the dead, he too collapsed on the floor.

The baby had stopped crying, he had finally met his parents.

I don't remember all the names
of the boys I fell in love with
in the days of my youth.
But I have preserved
each and every one of them
in the words that I scribble.
So which poem are you?

Tell me which building should I go to pray?
For I am a nameless wanderer in search of Him.

i am not a person
i am not a thing
i am a path, a way of living
i am a set of rules to follow, a religion to believe
i am a world changing idea, a beautiful dream
i am a genre of another dimension,
a painting with another meaning
i am not a person
i am not a thing

Desperate and drunk, I walked into a mosque for shelter
But the bearded men kicked me out from the stairs.
I got back on my feet and laughed as I asked God,
"Are you not mine and only theirs?"

In the dark abandoned street of Swat
He stood there holding a wrecked doll
Nowhere in that familiar scenery
There was a place to call his home.

The shadows of the death surrounded him
There was no sight of a shooting star
Standing in the ruins of his own life
He whispered, "But why war?"

They say it will make the world better
They say it is for the sake of peace
With so much bloodshed and destruction?
Liars! It's all for their ****** greed!

Prejudice,
Power,
Pride.
I feel pity on humans
For such desires.

You were like the summer that kept me warm

And now I am knitting sweaters to feel you again.

all i ever wished
was to sleep peacefully one night
without the pills singing the lullaby.

No one ever suspected her for his death.
They all just saw a poor guy
who drowned in the wishing well.

We all are familiar to the storm that rises
inside us when the hell breaks lose.
An arrow shot straight into the chest,
A volcano erupting in the throat.
The flood that leaks from the eyes
and drowns the dreams hanging on lids.
That's when we hit the ground bottom
shattering into million of bits.

How many marks will you cover to forget my existence?
My love, I've branded you with scars that are a part of your soul.

For all those men who think they can understand how it feels to be a girl,
You can’t.

You can’t understand how it feels to open your eyes in the world
With everyone looking down on you and your mother
Because they were expecting a boy and not a girl.
You can’t understand how it feels to be raised up differently than boys
Because boys will be boys
And girls, girls will always have to compromise and sacrifice
For every man to enter their lives.
You can’t understand how it feels to see boys running around, chasing their dreams
While girls are stuck with barbie dolls and fairness creams
And how they are trained to sit and stand and talk and eat
And oh, my God, girls keep your voices down
The society should not even hear you breathe.
You can’t understand how it feels when a girl is growing up
While she is considered as a toy by men around her
For all the ****** frustration
Did I say something wrong? I meant “for all the love and affection”
When he comes up and says
Oh, little one, don’t be scared, I am your uncle
And we are going to play a little game
It’s called you keeping your mouth shut and not calling it a ****.
You can’t understand how it feels to have a pair of eyes on you all the time
Whether you’re in your home or out in the streets.
There are men all around, staring you, tracing your body
As if it is their responsibility to check out every girl entirely
From head to toe, whether she’s in a burqa or a pair of jeans.
You can’t understand how it feels to carry the weight of all the honor
On tiny shoulders, which are supposed to be carrying school bags
Honor of your family, your community, the society
Even protecting the honor of men with fragile masculinity
Wrapping it all in duppatas longer than their *****
While hiding your own identity behind the tags that you’re given.
You don’t know how it feels to live a life designed by men
Making every single move based on someone’s decisions
Like a lion in a circus performing tricks to please an audience.
You can’t understand how it feels to listen to all the filthy jokes they crack
About girls getting better grades or washing dishes or driving in the fast lane
No matter what a girl does, no matter how much she gets successful
At the end of the day, it is all a joke on the dinner table.
“Go bring another gol roti, beghum”
You can’t understand how it feels to carry another life inside your body for nine months
Enduring all the pain and cramps and still doing all the work
While all you hear is how it is a woman’s job to give birth
And oh, to make sure that it is a baby boy
As if a woman has the choice to choose the gender.
You can’t understand how it feels when after all the struggle they tell you it’s a baby girl
Your heart fills up with joy and sinks down in your stomach
When you think about the fate that awaits her.
And you hold her close to your chest, trying your best to protect her
From all the people looking down on you and your daughter
For being a girl.


So, you can’t. You can’t understand how it feels to be a girl.
Because if you did, you would have wished
For it all to be just words.

I remember that fire burning in my bones
as you spit those words on my face
and turned your back on me.
My heart ripped out of my chest
and cursed you for turning into a monster
as I stood there trying to breath.
I still get goosebumps thinking of when
you leaned and whispered to my heart,
"Don't worry fool, you'll fall and get hurt again."

Since that day, I have wasted every second
trying to prove you wrong.
for this time I can't let you win.

You took a piece of me along
And used it to fix her broken heart.

I smiled to see that even in her,
You wanted to see some of my spark.

tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap
Shhhhhhhhhhh
drop your pen and drink your inks
stop your words from polluting
the clean slate minds of the youth
let them memorize the ancient rules
This world can't read what you're writing
Arrange a funeral and bury your thinking
Make it quick and be silent
Don't let them know that you're different
You can write? Good for you.
Now go and hide, or else they'll come here too.
tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap
Shhhhhhhhhhh
How dare you write
against the tides
about your views
about the lies
about the news
and prostitutes
and ****** abuse?
This world is cruel,
don't overthrow
the rule of men
who can only write
tap-tap* about women rights,
tap-tap and the social issues,
tap-tap and the silent taboos,
tap-tap  and the rich and the poor,
tap-tap and about the schools
which are producing  
brain-washed fools.
tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap
Shhhhhhhhhhh
Don't you know? They heard you too
Run for your life, they're chasing you
To erase your words
and silence your voice
To suffocate you
In your own mind
tap-tap, tap-tap
You're still standing here, asking me why?*
Well, you're a threat
to what they possess
the power above all
the power to play god
to decide how we'll live
and where and why
and decide how we are going die.
You're still too young, you haven't seen
How they hide behind the walls
of their own fragile masculinity
and show their strength to scare you away
Ironic how it reflects their own image.
tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap
Shhhhhhhhhhh
Now here they are, calling you names
with ***** meanings that they have made
They're pulling you down,
dragging you around,
making sure you'll never make a sound.
tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap,tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I know
I know
Oh, I know
How hard it is
to suffer all this
a punishment
of their own ****** sins
It makes me wonder
if they even will
punish the angels
on the last day
for writing
down
their *****
*****
mistakes.

While your kids are playing, running in the streets
I am fighting for my life, wandering helplessly.

While your kids have soccer practices in the evening
I don't know if by then I'll be dead or still living.

While your kids are painting rainbows and butterflies
My city is painted in our blood, every time we sacrifice.

While your kids are treated for even a scratch on their knee
It's been days since I am wearing these scars and injuries.

While your kids are scared of little cockroaches
I stand face to face with tanks and bullets.

While your kids are learning about their family tree
I am still searching the missing members of my family.

While your kids are angels, we are not even considered as human beings.
Why? Just because we are born in Palestine and they are from Israel?

He asked me,
"Did you love anyone as much as you loved me?"

I whispered,
"Just your shadow and the memories."

Your body is not just a container for your souls; it is something more than that.
Your body is a place to worship for the saints; it should be clean and pure.
Your body is a hell for the sinners; it should be burning.
Your body is a beautiful memory for the forgotten; it should be colorful.
Your body is a home to the lost; it should be warm and polite.
Your body is a paradise for the messed up; it should be peaceful.
Your body is a fire for the daring; it should be wild.
Your body is a maze for the wanderers; it should be full of wonders.
Your body is a torch for the blind; it should be a guide.


But.


At the end of the day,


Your body is all you have and it should be yours.

You walk by me everyday yet you still pretend
that I cannot see through the holes which are drilled
in the walls you have erected around yourself.

You walk by me everyday yet you still pretend
that I cannot feel you struggling to keep yourself away
from all the memories for which you (and I) fell.

You walk by me everyday yet you still pretend
that I cannot hear your heart beating like a drum
because you're still in love and you can't tell.

You walk by me everyday yet you still pretend
that I cannot realize the pain that you're in
when you try to hard to forget my existence.