http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o3Jsn4iLzo

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http://www.mariamparacha.blogspot.com

So,
you decided to go back
your mind on rewind
back to the days
where you were basking in praise
“she’s so clever with her impeccable grades.”
Through chai-flavored breath, the news pervades
But even before their breath can recover from the first cup of tea
Another piece of news comes buzzing like a bee.
The news and their views float like paper boats
Clumsily they drift as it climbs up their throats
So easy it is for them to decant their advice,
Sometimes your personal opinion will more than suffice.

Now you sit prepped for the role you were made to obey
A woman, a daughter now you are made to relay
‘What a clever girl with a gifted source!’
So they decided its time for the accelerated course!
‘We like your daughter very much’ they said
A phrase young girls will always dread
‘It’s a good family’ your parents thought
So what are we waiting for! Let’s tie the knot!

Race past the basics, hypothesis and theories
Blindly trusting rulings without any queries
Your books, like yourself hold back their views
for being a daughter you must first pay your dues
They’ve found the divine answer so you can stop discovering
Your starry eyed youth reflected in the flashy hovering
Of women picking apart your choice of dressing,
While occasionally passing on their blessing
Bright scorching lights hang over your head
Your blush and foundation gradually spread,
Your proud family greets the guests with glee
You’ve been promoted to the next level, without a degree!

back on track
after two daughters you are finally twenty one
I guess we’ll just have to try again for a son…
“hmm what did you say” you ask so dazed
your complexion is dampened as you’re perpetually fazed
you keep staring down a path so dark and deep
a  path made void when you took the leap.
A doctor?  A poet or maybe a vet
But before you could decide the table was set
neatly laid out like a routine
now you can’t even recall when you were a teen
dark hollow rooms become your resort
lying in bed and brooding is making your sanity contort,
from what you were and what you have become
you wallow in distress as you have become numb
to the cries and needs of your child
the sounds that have you perpetually riled.

So I continuously wonder what brought upon such fate
She is a person before anything, especially a mate
Do not define her life before she grows into her skin
Only self - satisfaction brings upon that grin -
The one that we strive for throughout our existence
The one we proudly flash against any resistance

So give your girls a chance to stand on their own
Become their own person so they can never bemoan…
Or maybe sometimes they may
because us girls have our days
You know the ones that make all men say…
“Please God just take me away!”

So little girl I pray for your revival
you will find new meaning for your survival
“it’s never too late!” might be trite
but it is essential to help your mind ignite
and just in case you ever fall through a crack
always carry self worth in a backpack,
So you are always buoyed,
against the cavernous void.

My chin rests on the dent of my palm,
I am hopefully staring into space
where the blur of the white wall that is before me
becomes an empty palette for me to draw on
to paint a map of the future,
of the roads and paths and routes
untidily scribbled on the
blank canvas plotting my dreams
with sketchy untidy thoughts with blurred out edges
of a vision full of innocence and lack of experience
but making the raw marks easily amendable
leaving room for mature modifications
as my dreams ripen
I am dreaming of days that will come,
Dreaming of ways that will let me become
But our dreams are like clouds,
They are made in the air
They keep floating with time
Further from us
To distant places where they will be lost
And we will be left staring at an empty sky
Not knowing in which direction to go.
If we sit idle,
Lying in the grass, staring away
expecting the cloud to descend one day
We are mistaken
because dreams are meant to live in the skies
high up above which is why we strive
and achieve for higher ground
because if they were as prevalent as the flowers
on the verdant grass
anyone could pluck it without any stress
but like clouds our dreams travel with time
mature with wisdom and age
the further they blow away
They become faint distant memories
so don’t just sit and stare
and always be aware
gather pieces from your life, and create a platform
pieces of experience
that will stack up to create
a stairway bringing you closer    
to help you attain your cloud shaped dream
and when you are near, hold it close,
nurture it and help it grow
and never let it go

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.

It is a bright new morning
You settle your feet on the cold marble
Freshly refurbished,
A mirror to the light
An inverted world reflecting in your eyes.

The chill from the polished floor
Infusing through your bones
Reverting you back to yesterday
Remembering it,
As a carpeted foundation
That tickles your skin,
With flocculent strokes
At an instant,
You pull back your feet
And latch onto the memory
Of yesterday

This moment,
Now,
Is a clean gleaming slate
An unmarked palette for today
For you,
To scratch the surface and stride across
Carve new tales,
To make another,
yesterday

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.

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.

Breathe in the freshness
of the arduously picked commodity,
That you hold between your lacquered fingers.
Don’t let synthetic ingredients
dissolve your thoughts
and obscure your vision.

The liquid remedy we sip  is drenched,
With pain and protracted nurturing
Carefully fostered
through inclement weather
drink in the story that comes with it
That fuels caffeinated conversations.
Refined and defined leaving us blind
to the painted secrets of lives that were once lead
different lives intersect,
different thoughts and opinions interject.

Leaving lipstick kisses on the porcelain skin
Sipping away worries and pain.
Inhaling the smell of impelling advice,
fragments of sugar coated anecdotes melt,
integrating within, interfering
with the raw, strong, sharp taste
that can pierce through.

the rare intense, earthy aftertaste
is tainted with artificial garnishing,
suffocating the fresh natural essence
neatly contained in the teacup
ready to serve and ready to present
taking shape of the porcelain guise

Don’t sprinkle it with processed collaborations
of sugared doubt,
Contaminating your imagination
Manipulated by dainty voices
Resonating in your head
Like the delicate teacup
You anchor with your soft hands
Weighed down by the overly sweetened tea.
No longer holding significance
of the vast fresh fields it sprouted from
Forgotten and drowned
in the voices of someone else’s drum beat.
cloudy vision reflected in the saturated tonic
you sip elegantly, pasting a smile
suppressing your own desires,
under someone else's acceptance.

I think,
it was the time between what now and what then.
I think,
I lost my precedence like my guitar pick
camouflaged under the leaves of my bed sheet.
It was there but it was hiding
from me.

You don’t know how to hold the chords yet
so how will you play the song.
It was teaching me
To take steps before I leap
To conclusions
But I thought,
I’ll just strum with my thumb.

My clumsy strumming
Slashed against the metallic ringing
My fingers, too young to press down hard enough
And the cavity in the body
amplified my mistakes -
A hollow rhythm of deceit,
Became the soundtrack to my life.
So I filled in every hole
with cement
And I did not pick it up,
and let the strings rust away
like an old memory…

Until you bought me my new guitar
This time,
I learnt how to play it,
The right way.
Filled the gaps in between with careful strumming.
This time,
I learnt how to hold the strings before
I jumped to any more conclusions.
I practiced through the hard parts,
Now I can sing when I play,
Coordinate my voice with my body
My mind is more seasoned.
My calloused fingers - a promise
That I can press as hard as I need to
To ensure that our song never plays out of tune.

Neon lights from salt rusted beach buggies, gypsy camels and a faint memory of dollops of colour reflect under the milky moon that hangs unnaturally low.

In the car window, the reflection of her pensive eyes are overlaid with the mischievous moon, and a vendor selling animated light toys skip like stones that never sink -
ceaseless ripples in the unconventionally eerie and curious night.

They say the moon has this unnerving attraction to the earth -
a pull, compelling and persuasive. Like a tangled ball of yarn it is unkempt, woven out of threads of enigmas. Each of us having a loose end of the intermingling threads tied around our waists, like our own invisible axis.
Every time our thread is tugged, almost like a reflex we are compelled to look up like a reminder that we might live on earth - on the ground, but our eyes, minds, and our souls are infinite.

The warmth of the sun settles, hugging the lake.
The dragonfly flies low, hovering above the tranquil water
the light seeping through the paper thin skin,
it hums across the lake, refracting light off its wings,
An array of colors make patterns on the wings,
wearing it like a cloak, a rainbow embedded within.
The colors tilt and shift as the dragonfly gracefully cruises through life,
laying close to the water but letting the air propel it forward,
floating between two different worlds,
it is like a dream where our thoughts are separated from reality,
and are scattered like refracted light for us to assemble.  

Through a screen of our dreams, a world can be seen.
A world of hopes and desires that is dormant within
The light of life just soaks us bare,
our skin turns frail,
under the scorching glare,
the glare of eyes that want you to be,
someone that is accepted by society.


the dragonfly bathes itself in the sun,
the iridescent colors shine on its skin,
flying and floating, he’s determined to win
a predator, determined to get what it wants
nothing blocking its way or paving its path
making the most out of life and never holding back

spread your wings like the dragonfly
that hums its way through life,
dipping its wings in the sun to shine,
breaking free a life of colors,
that we leave locked and forgotten,
behind a reality made of black and white,
the black ink seeping through our minds,
injecting us with ideas of the 'ideal life'
where money and fortune, and status define.
Bathe your mind in the wonders of the world,
soak your heart in life's warmth and glow,
and pave your own path,
with the dreams you sow.

The match struck and I ignited,
My heart melted like strong cheddar cheese
Bubbling,
with juvenile hope.
You taught me how to nurture my smile -
Let it run free.
You were the guide who helped me relocate
my laugh that got lost somewhere
on the left side of my brain

Now,
Every time my smile tries to fade,
Like comfort food seeping
through my punctured happiness,
Your fondue jokes take me back to that day,
like the burning cheese
that seethed into love.

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.

Spider

Walking into a corridor of neatly aligned cobwebs,
that have your history strewn across, like telephone wires
intertwining and intersecting,
Making all the conversations and voices interweave,
crossing paths - causing a disruption in the line,
the static disturbances echoing through the dark corridor
embellished with these cobwebs that have been lost in your mind.

The cobwebs speak like conversations
from broken telephone poles
that are overlapping and confusing the mind,  
muddled and disarrayed, lacking any sense.
time has consumed these thoughts,
leaving bits and pieces,
that only mislead you


You swing across paving new paths with silken threads,
crisp and new, like adhesive,
glistening with prosperity.
Yet you keep these deep rooted cobwebbed memories
locked in your mind,
like Pandora’s box ready to unravel.
So just let them retire,
they have fallen and become undone,
and now they just collect
dust from your memories
Reminding you of thoughts,
that are specked and flecked
with dusty recollections.

Those worn out thoughts can no longer collect,
they only eject,
tangled stories confusing you
and bemusing you
So don’t collect
your abandoned webs,
like a memory book - they are no longer relevant,
they were just webs you wove to learn
how to weave the web you now conceive,
strong and secure,
fully capable to endure.

Across the street,
Live the community of the old.
a network of inbreeding
left the branches of the family tree
entwined like a pipeline of too many years
that swim through the convoluted paths
forever,
sealing in the contents,
preserving the past.

Long bedraggled tresses
brush close to the latticework ground
Not a comb has come close
To break the wild knots that weave.
Nets buoy their authenticity
Forever wild,
Even though,
the world survives
on bowls brimmed with metal screws  
The phantoms of depletion rise,
They are weightless, until
Pulverized
and they tumble,
Like hostages
They get caught between
The wisps of eternity.

Backlit sunset,
Illuminates the evergreen leaves,
The bulky necklace of frozen memories
Decorate my stiff neck
I am a victim of too many days spent
Watching screen protected versions of nature
that I forgot how thin skinned leaves really are
How the nervous system of enigmatic veins
hold DNA of their ancestors
Now, bathed in evening light
When heat from the stars erode from the sky
They are nothing but silhouettes of the past
Faceless, like torn out pages of a history book
shunned for its omniscient wisdom
so that the ashes can be planted
burying the past in the ground
standing still in the present
but reminding me,
the future is always as high as the sky.

Intertwining and overlapping
Fingers wrestle to weave its tresses
Silky and smooth as it rests atop its lair
The light frolicking on the surface's glare

Bustling conversation and echoing laughs
Intertwining and overlapping
Diverse aroma's are transpiring and lingering
The sound and the silence are successfully mingling

So prim and proper they sit prepared
Dressed to impress in their clothes so bright
Intertwining and overlapping
A chaotic order concealed by the wrapping

So carefully selected and beautifully disguised
An assortment of emotions concoct within
As i enter the room it cues the clapping
Intertwining and overlapping

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.

Mistakes are like fists full of firewood, waiting to be struck -
We light up like saffron fused matchsticks,
draining with tears the color of grinding lightning.
Every time things get heated, I get lost
in the mist of not knowing enough

Everything we know gets lost in the distance
because the distance casts spells of mist that
Climb up all my windows and screens,
my view becomes pigeonholed bleak.
Your cowry-shell smile is now cast away in waves of doubt
Our mouths are now perpetually filled with
retorts soaked in vinegar,  heavy breathing and static squabbling –
this is what it feels like to be the one who loves more from a distance.

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.

Frayed and grayed
Oversized and overused
Why you still hold onto it,
has everyone bemused.

Freckled and speckled
Like a cinnamon stick
warm winter stories
Keeping it thick

Pale fingernails, peak through the sleeves,
Tears and holes decorate the wrists.
From between cupped hands
Rise cinnamon flavored mists

Warm memories ride down your throat
Thawed hearts melt with every sip
Cinnamon specked bubbling froth
Settles above your lip

Cinnamon flavored laughs
Punctuate the conversations
Spicy aroma tickles the nose
Sniffing for winter’s indications

Warm memories on cold nights
Fill up the empty holes in your sleeves
Packed with stories soaked in cinnamon
And the sweater becomes fuller with the memories it weaves

You had become an expert at
Helping people go
You knew exactly what they needed
if they were going to palm tree skies or
to breath that always looked minty fresh

You had become an expert at
Filling bellies
You knew exactly how to gauge
The potential of the suitcase according to all
Scheduled meetings and recreational activities

You had become an expert at
Letting things through
You knew exactly how to pull
The thread through all his loose buttons
While you waited for him to come back.

You sewed back his negligence
with fingers suppressed with haldi*
That pushed deep into your nails like
A home remedy for faster fingers,
You watched reruns of who’s the boss
Switching between
Reversed gender roles and Madhuri dixit.

When you ran out of buttons to sew you
Opened up the windows so the dust can
Bake you a cake on the shelves
So you could eat it all on your own,
with one clean sweep. It is your birthday.

Everyday the clock is like a see saw
you sit on all alone
while he is on a swing set with his
feet pushing the ground he knows
how to move on his own
how to touch the sky -
you were never taught
how to be your own friend.
But it is never too late to make friends.

Have you ever tried the slide?
there are no limits
To how many times you can climb

So slide, glide
let go of gravity,
undress from reality
We keep shedding like the moon,
glowing like torches inside us
that help us stand out
from the crowd.

take your turmeric magic
and build a fire with the friction
of your spine and your mind
sprinkle it on
the crackling heat...

we all need fire to keep us warm.