I stepped out,
finally, a terrestrial in Istanbul.
My leveled shoulders carried
an empty satchel of undone buckles
To let every fresh sip of raw experience
tumble inside,
my adventures impatiently plucked
from the closest branch  
of a banyan tree bearing
a crisscross of endless tales.

I rescued my lungs with air,
thick with resentment while
swallowing astringent flavored symphonies
and ballads of orchestrated ruckus as
women deflated their lungs
blowing out antipathy, through high pitched whistles -
A forgotten kettle blowing off steam.

Adorned in scorn, sardonic welcoming mats lined the airport.
Women pushed at their car horns as if the dragging sound,
like a severing saw can cut through
the tenacity of the ones with innate ear plugs.

They have become obsolete traffic signals -
First, their green light diminishes - like their wages
Then, their red light is dimmed -
it stops too many people in their footsteps.
And thus the world just races past them,
And they are left only with yellow -
Telling them to slow down.

They said it was an act of love.
That their plumped crimson lips,
Glossily complimented with nails
that matched the tails,
of the so-called mile high club
was just too much to handle.

Priming for work meant neglecting their love
for the perfect shade of watermelon lipstick,
No more sweet ketchup fingertips
Showing you the emergency exits. No more,
lipstick stained glasses
of a self made woman.

These cumulating lip kissed glasses  
stack up like trophies,
that sway in the heavy panting
of the ones who can’t keep up with this generation.

So the women gracefully conducted the orchestra
and through lipstick stained whistles,
They tried to drown out the dogmatic policies
And with unrelenting strife,
they passed on some advide
stop shattering our liberties
And underminining our abilities for
Endless possibilities.
Because we are the ones
Who fly high and soar
And we will always
look fabulous
while doing it.

Succulent to the core
Chilled to the bone
I likes the way your speckled body
Rushes through my veins
I like the sound of my
Sinking teeth excavating through
The avenues of your perforated skin

You were born in the sun,
Hot and bothered,
A summer fling.
My sweat streaked back
Goose bumped
With thoughts of you

I do not wait for the sun to
pick apart the buds of spring,
open them up like wrapping paper
a gift unraveled by April’s heat
No.
instead I wait
for your sweet taste to come
when the heat is on the brink
but has not yet fallen into the
gorges of summer
They say -
‘A tree is known by its fruit’
But you do not grow on trees
You grow on the roasted earth with
Vines that intertwine
Wildly,
a green mangled field...
Maybe that’s why I like you so much

Mine.
I am possessive
Aggressive
I carry you around in an opaque bowl
So no one can lay eyes on you
Your red bloodless interior
Is a sin
Greed-
green like your hard shell

I pull you out
When everyone is asleep
Tiptoeing across the floor
Smuggling you into my room
Carefully picking at you
Taking you in and spitting you out
Until nothing more is left
Except for the red sap I spared
Only because my teeth
Could not sink in it
Because it
Slipped through
the narrow alleys between my teeth
sliding down
the side of my mouth
Sweet indulgence.
Wiped off at the back of my hand
Sticky –
like a hot summer night.

Why is it always so funny when someone trips
When they lose balance as they take steps progressing through life,
Reminiscent of those infantile days when you were first learning how to walk
When each step was carefully counted, an achievement
When your furthest destination was your parents arms,
Stretched out like a warm blanket ready to be wrapped
around your shoulders after a great fight.

But when you have walked miles and worn out many soles,
made flat strides like zig zagged dust stamps
or tried to balance on  thin pivots that make you look like
a graceful ballerina in a music box
blanacing your life on the tips of your toes
trying to look above the shoulders
of the ones who got in line before you,
Why is there a rush of blood to the gut when you fall?
When you trip like a switch on a day with low electricity,
When the power is too much to withstand your energy.
Like a continuous circuit
a race of electrons.
It suddenly stops
This world is always running,
And we are running out of breath
To say what is on our mind
so instead
We mime our anger through relentless acts -
It feels so much better
Stepping over the line
Trying to hold on to time

Is it because our breath is just meant to live through our noses?
That are held high up in the air
That we forget to look down and see where we are going,
To look out for the small crevices that life has carved in the pavement
Through which small five petal flowers peek through
An organic life from within the concrete
Because if you think about it,
life is made of many twists and turns,
free flowing
always growing
There is so much more beyond you and me
Just dare to see
I know it’s easy to forget the world’s size
when your world becomes the size of your mind
where there is only space for thoughts of yourself,
your life and strife
But your eyes are made to be outside your head
so your mind could be entwined with what else lies ahead.

Balochistan
Tattered and torn

Brother
Forgotten and forlorn

Belief
Cracked like the arid land

Bridge
A hopeless demand

Bomb
Ticks at the rate of your heartbeat

Breath
Becomes heavier and incomplete

Blood
Ironclad? Iron. Ironic.  

Body
Broken and bruised, it’s chronic.

Bury
Under the infected earth

Birth
What is its worth?

A note on the sectarian violence spreading across the nation of Pakistan.

The break bell rings
and it’s time to enter into the second half of the day
a groan of disapproval hums in response.
A herd of young frivolous minds
bustle past each other,
through the narrow dimly lit corridors
like cattle, driven to their destination with a stick,
with which they measure aptitude.

there was always one window
that opened in from the receptionist office,
it would stick out like a sore thumb
obstructing the path of the already narrow corridor.
You had to watch where you were going,
You couldn’ t walk aimlessly,
or you would bump your head against it.
but that’s exactly the way I would walk in school
so the window was always like a reminder for me,
it made me wake up, it was like a reality check
it made me careful
It let me see where I was going
It was a wall of glass
where the light  would set on it impeccably,
in accordance with the second half of the school day
casting hollow reflections of the passer byers.
When I would stare through it I felt like a porous version of myself,
as if my body had small cavities through which my soul had poured out,
Separate and desolate,
leaving a hollow memory of who I was.
The way I might appear in the mind
of someone who knows how I look
but does not know who I am.

I felt like, I am the way
the future wants me to be-
like a hologram of myself
being moulded out of light
that does not run
on the same frequency as me.
Through the thin frame of grey
that bordered the window,
the color of neither black or white
a transitional color, ‘in betweener.’
it composed my thoughts perfectly
and as I could see the other children pass through me
I realized, I can not let myself
Become a day in the life of someone else.

Insecure, was the sign on your door,
The door was always unlocked
You were quick to answer with every knock
Your back pocket held a mirror,
it is for protection you said.
A faint replication of self worth
Would stare back at you.

On stainless steel
tear stained water spots left paths
tracing back to your regrets
A slice of the world reflected
in the pointed mirror
everything was more burnished,
but inverted.
You used it
to cut through the ****** tension
Between you and your frivolous guests,
with slick, quick witted flirting.
So sharp,
you penetrated through
Leaving a piece of yourself inside their hearts.
No exit wounds.

When you stare at it in your clutch
it points north,
Towards the star that is always there
For you,
that will guide you home
But the magnetic attraction
towards your thirst for drama,
Sidetracks you.
Like a deflecting needle
That is no longer running on its axis
Free will, bouncing thoughtlessly
With the world no longer holding it captive
Not moving in accordance
To what keeps the world balanced,
What a thrill,
You like the way the world looks
So limiting, so manipulative
When it is reflected on the narrow surface
Wrong side up.

You grip the knife, carelessly
Until you overstep the boundary
Of right and wrong
And you trip on the tight roped tension
That you had strewn across
between you and the other side
And you stumble,
your canny dallying discourse
slips away,
hitting hard, landing straight in the back
of the one who loved you
for your innocent eyes
who didn’t come in
through the door with the sign
but instead came in,
through the window of your soul.

You…
Good for nothing, light weighted
Changes direction according to the wind
It does not have a mind of its own
But I trusted it
To shelter and protect me
But alas…
I live in a windy city,
And it tends to be greedy
Gathering things that lie in its path,
Just like a colonizer
blowing across from one country
to another.

I pin together the sides
Of my fly away kameez/ dress
With nervous, embarrassed fingers
Pressing down, as if to close
a window or a swinging door
left unlocked on a windy day
letting black cats and dusty winds make their way.

Incontrollable weightless
It rises, it flashes
Waving like a red flag in front of a blind bull
Eyes on the Prize - You’re such a tease
I fumble carelessly
My hands desperately try
To hold down my dignity
Before it flies away,
Like a feather from a bird
That slowly descends to the floor
It is so light and so delicate.
It can be easily ripped off
and plucked away like a shriveled
dead fly away hair

I become a nervous wreck, picking at my scalp
One by one, wrapping it around my finger,
running my fingers through my hair
only to find bare skin, lying under dead hair.
Vulnerably the naked scalp peeks
through thin strands of hair
like a sheer curtain that hangs in my room
too afraid to draw it,
because I will have to put faces to the silhouettes,
And I rather know the world
as shadows and black outlines
At least that way
I won’t have to see the eyes
that pierce through me,
Unzipping my skin.