I think I let this blueness overflow a bit
Mother’s being tender again
She talks to me like a bee does
To a sleepy sunflower
And does not mention the missed classes
Does not remind me of the exams
She says to me
‘Ayesha,’ she says,
‘Ayesha, you brood too much.’
And I know mother.
And she jokes that she might have to
Burn this notebook I keep scribbling in
Because it does not make me happy

She says to me,
‘I know you’re brooding when you write
And all that writing makes you grey.’
She says she’ll have to throw it out
In the street
But I know she never will
She’s too tender
Too tender, my mother.
I think, ‘Will I have to myself then?’
And I think, ‘How many will I throw?’
And I think, and I think till the sun
goes down

But I brood when fairies are on their way
To the stars
And mother,
Why are dead things always the scariest?
Sorry, I know I’m supposed to be
Focusing on these Orbital radii
But I can’t stop, mother
The atomic structures
Keep mingling with dragons
And their pretty eyes

Mother’s being soft again
I am a little child stumbling up the hill
And she never asks me to help in the kitchen
But when I wander around
Light as a wind
She lets me chop the vegetables
I do
There goes an onion, so quiet
Chop, chop, chop
Mother, do you think if trees bled
We would still butcher them to pieces?

Chop, chop, chop
Mother, who carved this goddess out of my name?
It feels heavy now, wings mighty and huge
I can barely stand this mortality
Chop, chop, chop
Mother, does it not pain you
Seeing all the coriander dry in the pots?
The dirt that birthed it from a quiet seed could not keep it alive.
How are you so strong?

Mother, mother
It reminds me of my Morning Glories
Last year
They bloomed so happily every morning
And they’d wilt by the evening
And the next day
The slender plant would make more blooms
They kept dying, mother
All of them
On and on and

There was nothing I could do
Nothing the stems could do
I watered and watered and watered, they kept dying
Born to wither
And in the winter, when the sun wasn’t as cruel
Cold did the job
And all the leaves fell down
empty plastic wrappers, they were
And I pulled the hollow vine off the railings
We burned it that night, I and Faizan
The fire ate away what was left, and
Ate herself when nothing was

chop goes the last lamb
I sacrifice a lot to my wolves
The sparrows outside ask me why I do not talk
I do, mother, don’t I?
I talk a lot, a lot, a lot, my skin gets tired of hearing
The silence hops around the kitchen,
a mad cat

Mother wipes the heat off her forehead
The stove whispers on
‘You’re brooding again, Ayesha.’
‘Whatever, I told you it was not just the poems.’
Everything’s a poem to you, Ayesha
No mother, I’m just tired—