bicultural but not totally bilingual
kids will understand
the sheer embarrassment of having to copy-paste
what your parents text you
in their native language
into Google Translate
detect language
yes, to English, because it's the only thing
I truly understand
because I don't actually really know
what Mom's saying at the end
Do I really get the weight of each word she crafts
lovingly into characters I've learned
but words I don't quite string together
or meanings I don't quite grasp
I swear I do it's just I don't understand one hundred percent and if I could just
g e t those last few phrases
sometimes the entire paragraph she sends me
rather than rely on a gray text editor that spits back
in solid, black, unfeeling English alphabet
"Coming home is always welcome"
that's not my Mom's voice, with her smiling, sympathetic expression and
steaming rice and kimchi stew, warm laundry, and squeaky slippers
that's the translator mincing her words,
chopping and scrambling them into something
familiar to the brain but foreign to the heart
I know she means "I'm always welcome to come home"
but why
couldn't I have gotten that immediately
"I eat food well and I have to buy spring clothes."
No, Google, I'm sure
she means that I will eat her food well
and buy spring clothes with her
but machine learning algorithms aren't
perfect
not my mom
so how would I really know
I wish language could be copy-pasted into English in my mind
so that I didn't have to go through this
bland, unwilling, frugal third-party
that knows nothing about my culture
I am a copy-paste of my parents' DNA
in flesh and blood
so why is it that physically
I am connected
but mentally, intangibly,
I've lost connection
to the internet, and some features of Google Translate may be lost. Try again?

Cien poemas
     In less than a year
Muchas palabras
     Flowing line after line
Looking back now
     Digo con confianza
La poesía
     Is the best "waste of time"

Mar y montañas
What a great view del balcón
Mi alma en paz
---
Mountains, city, sea
The three meet: ¡Increíble!
Thrilled by what I'm shown

---

Mar y montañas
Mountains, city, sea
What a great view del balcón

The three meet: ¡Increíble!
Mi alma en paz
Thrilled by what I'm shown

گزر کر ساری جہتوں سے وہیں پر عین آ پہنچی
تمہارے تک مسافت میں نیا چکر سہی ، ہمدم

Having traversed all dimension, I’m back where I began
Oh beloved, in my journey towards you, hence starts another span

Couplet and translation. ( mine)

Fluttering by
Quivering by
Oscillating their coloured wings
The delicate butterflies of my poems
From one thought to the other
On the branch of words
Come, pause, rest, and fly away
A moment here
A moment there
And then who knows where
And in their pursuit, with every breath
From one motif to the next
From one night to the other
I run around, armed with the net of imagination
So that I may touch them
With the softness of the caress, my fingers
Tremblingly
Reach their tips....
They disperse their iridescence
On my hands
And instantaneously
Fly away some where else...  

Poem and translation: ©️Arshia.

عین یہ شیشے کی نگری، نقص گننا چھوڑ دے !
جو دِکھیں اوروں میں ہوں نہ خود تمہارے دیکھنا

Aein, this is a house of mirrors, stop counting who is defected
Flaws you see in others, may just be your own, reflected!

Urdu couplet and translation, ©️Arshia
#mytranslation.

ملا تو پھر نہ رہے گا جوازِ شکوہ گری
جو مانگنا ہو تو یہ حوصلہ ضروری ہے

If you get it, you will have no justification of complaint
When asking for something, this fortitude must be ascertained

Couplet and translation ©️Arshia

theres no grief like another day
with each foot
sunken into the sand-hills of contradictory continents

straddling this divide of time and language
the ocean has been colored red
from our aching hearts
since they hammered these border walls up

i’m crying at my computer waiting for my best friend to answer
i’m crying while i write this letter to my dying grandmother,
under her covers
an ocean away

i’m hoping for a call to me
a distinct answer to which
side of the shore i belong

each time i look at my reflection half of me is gone

pieces

strewn across unforgiving terrain
the stretch of an abyss
only as far as the stitches on my left hand

the six hour time divide, waiting for my sister's awakening
to tell her a dream of us holding hands,
which i won’t recall by
her morning

what is the divide anyway?
except an inherent part of my heart

i carry the world within me-
spilling rivers
crushing waves,
but it still feels so far apart