I thought I had run into you when I saw Zoya on the brickroads of Karachi. She was carrying the weight of her uncovered head with Rumi on her lips and rumours in her smile; I couldn’t help but wonder if she too hummed Tagore on lonely nights.

As I approached my past, the unmanned dinghys of the Arabian Sea seemed to have followed me from a different harbour, where the skyscrapers stood like unopened letters stacked to impress your firstborn child. The salty sea breeze might have been your childhood friend, but then these waves were always mine.

Maybe It was time to let go.

We kissed for 12 months while the bullets made love to the crumbling walls of Karachi, a city with the infinite passion of penniless poets and warrior saints. Draped in the lightest of cashmere, Zoya couldnt help but be worried – the curtains of my thoughtful musicals never cared much for bulletproof jackets.

Zoya’s grandfather was a veteran of two wars, the smoke from his imported cigars still fills our balcony like the laughter of your firstborn fills the halls of your new sea-facing mansion – I wonder if Naina even knows my name. My books have begun to sell now – you should make her read ‘Summer Wounds’ one day.

The newspapers tell me I am widely read by the underground leadership because of Asif – my brother in law who has taken up arms against men who want to burn Zoya for walking with her head uncovered – Karachi is no longer the same.

They have banned my books now – apparently God hates the words I use to describe our summer love; do you also feel the same way ?

I dont know, maybe they are right – after all Zoya still flinches every time I mention your name.

Zoya’s grandfather is sick – the years of tobacco have now given way to the gunpowder smoke – I am lucky you stopped me when you could. Do you still make people change their ways ? Maybe. But something tells me even you can’t help Karachi.

Its your birthday today, I know you haven’t gotten a piece from me in the last 10 years but this time it will be different. There is a fading sound of Zoya’s screams as I leave for the post office; i cant let her love wipe my past.

A bullet hits me from nowhere ; I hear a distant cry of an animal celebrating the first **** of the day. The pain is blinding but they shoot 10 more bullets into me, there is no modesty in ****** it seems.

As I lie dying with eleven bullets buried in a heart that has known more wounds than love, I have begun to wonder if I should have chosen a different harbour for my love – the words of Tagore suddenly seem far more familiar than those of Rumi.

Maybe its time to let go.

you could shoot a bullet through my head and I still wouldn’t be able to forget about you.
What we had was a special kind of love;
one that made me feel electric.
I have not been able to feel that way since the day you left.

So go ahead, shoot me
I won’t be able to forget you;
but at least *the warmth of my blood will remind me of what it felt like to be in your arms again.

Earth to earth, Oh ashes to ashes and dust to dust,
How strange, how familiar, human connection is untrusted
when we awake, each passing day, knowingly that by sunset
Those words would be read out loud
Over an innocent, black brother’s grave site tonight
Too many tears, too many mishaps
who scattered those bullet caps,

Too, many innocent lives have been taken
By the hand of the nervous police,
Even The birds keep gliding in the air shows solidarity
In respect of the dead:
Some human wish they were like them they said.
A charge is one thing. A conviction is another
Black lives does matter.
Who pulled the trigger, which got the last laugh?
The innocent or the victims

More weeks of demonstration,
the fight for the white house continues with words not arms
Blood in the Inner City Streets, subways
and shopping malls, bias and frustration, sound the alarms

Who pulled the trigger, which got the last laugh?
The guns, or the victims,

My poetics tone this morning.
voice your opinion

A girl with a gun and nowhere to run
The last bullet loaded, a mission to be done
Completion will defeat her demons, her beast,
The voice that keeps her awake at night, prevents her sleep

It compels and yells at her, gets her to cut
Her wrists are slit and she knows its ******
So she clicks the safety off, and draws the slide
The bullet and her skull like planets collide

Looking down at her body, she sees the blood
A tidal wave of red, a sluggish flood
Her sight fades to black, and then it's gone
The weight off her chest and in Death; alone

She forgot about me...

I might be
“Here,”
And you might be
“There,”
Better yet,
We might be both
“Now,”
But “Newsflash!” –
The glass,
Between us,
Is just thick enough
To let me see you,
And keep you
From hearing me.

Rust my iron fist,
But let the silver
Always coat my tongue;
A wraith and wrath,
To the taste society has left –
Bitter, boiled, blistered,
Corrosive and
Nearly anti-anything
Come the cuffs around
My eyes
And the bullets burrowed
Backs.

If I shoot you down,
Please, don't take it personally.
I am a walking trigger warning;

It doesn't take much to set me off.
I explode at the slightest provocation
And make sure the cause

Is stained as red as my vision.
Your shirt might never be clean again.
Neither will I.

There is only
One job  
For me to do
To meet flesh
And go right through

I wonder
How many
Brother bullets
Have I in this world
Today
And how many new
Brothers
Are born
Every day

How many die
Because of me
And how many
Suffer injury

Good thing I don’t
Have a mind
Where I go
I don’t decide

Could be any soldier
But without his body armour
If he wears a metal hat
I couldn’t go through that

Could be a baby
In his pram
In Siam
Or Amsterdam
In London Town
Or Paraguay
But
More likely
In The USA

Could be
A newly-married girl
Anywhere in the world
Or maybe
A holy priest
Anywhere
In The Middle East

Good thing I don’t
Have a mind
Where I go
I don’t decide

Sean Hunt  June 13 2016

another bullet fired
another one killed
how am i supposed to react?
do i write a speech on gun control? do i condemn a gunman's actions i could never fathom?
should i think of the ones who won't live to see another day?

another gun loaded
another life scarred
let me write a Facebook post about the victim
let me take a deep breath and articulate my feelings
and wonder why a young woman who was living her dream have to die in front of her brother and fans

Did you pen this in a depleted moment
Indiscriminate to your heart waning desire.
Everything I did was for you, our life was
To be a unity of majestic significance.
Over again did I think about those syllables
Greeting my mind in a confused state.
Either I was yours or no one else's,
The tears that fell, like fake snow meaningless
Hearing you understand what we had to do
Every occasion we shared culminated in this
R**eal declaration of love, two shots and our hearts stopped.