Shedding skins of old –
                                     peeled from my frigid bones,
                                     touched by sizzling cold,
boiled down
            to just my soul:
Here, I roam.
                          Learning as I go, the beauty of alone.

For we are not yet there, you know,
although it seems like months have passed
we've got another mile to go
and then one more, one more... at last
upon some distant future day
we'll reach the place where we can say:
"We did it! Now we have arrived!
And most of us are still alive
after silent passages
through the tedium of time
alone." We'll dwell in warmer climes
after long March ravages.
But first slow April's patient flowers
must bloom and bend within their bowers.

If thou perchance hast longed for my embrace;
thou felt its spectre linger on thy skin,
thou must unearth a paradise wherein
abundant is the fruit that thou shall taste.
     Its sweetness and perfume will thus invade
thyself, who art perplexed by strident din,
(which one mistakes to be the medicine)
and shall be cured of solitude's malaise.
     And thou may wonder where doth one procure
this nectar so sublime that guarantees
escaping from the claws of loneliness?
    In silence, these empyreal orchards endure
the perturbations of the fleeting years,
and in the fruits they bear - thither I rest.

it's exhausting! Isn't it?
existence is exhausting
I feel like a city under the war  for decades
battle after battle
death after death
trauma after trauma


It always feels like
a pair of lungs half-filled with water
I need something peaceful
the sound of the trees
and smell of dead body
when the war is over
you know you lost so much
that it might take three lives
to fill the gap
but you know that now it's over,
as the wind swipes through the street of a post-apocalyptic city.

آئینے میں خود کو سنوارتے وقت جو انسان نما عمارت نظر آتی ہے۔ اس کے گریبان میں جھانکنا اور اگر ہو سکے تو دل کے دروازے پر دستک ضرور دینا۔ اس عمارت میں جیسا بھی انسان ہوا۔ مخاطب ضرور ہو گا۔ اُس کو جاننے کی کوشش کرنا اور اگر پہچان سکے تو اچھا ہے۔ ورنہ تنہائی میں اور ایمرجنسی حالات میں اُس پر نظر ضرور رکھنا۔ جب بھی غلطی کرنے لگے گا۔ تو اللہ سب سے پہلے آپ کو جاننے کی توفیق دے گا۔ لہٰذا آگے بڑھ کر فوراً بڑے ادب کے ساتھ اسے روک لینا اور بہت نرمی سے میرا پیغام اس کے کان میں سرگوشی کے سے انداز میں سنا دینا۔ کہ
"میرے بھائی! جس کی طرف تجھے لوٹ کر جانا ہے۔ وہ دیکھ رہا ہے"

one day
when the night is no longer lonely
and when the day starts to get sunny
I will find my way
into someone's arms,
which I can lean on.
someone's hand,
which I can hold on.
someone's heart,
who can love me.
but for now I will wait,
pray to God
to continue guiding me.
and lead my way.
but for now,
I will find joy in these lonely nights,
and patiently wait for my sunny days.

May I be infected
with a sureness
of your love

May it spread within me
like an IV flowing confidence
in my okayness

In the face of fear
and desperation may
I be a cove of calm presence

May you be well
whole and robust
in every cell

In this time of solitude
may I encounter
the awesome power of now

I write poetry
in the midst of solitude

of infinite miseries
I yearned to elude

words engraved
in a rose-kissed canvas

are fragments of hidden
memoir of the past.