I wish for the most common dream
of the uncommon mind,
to sit on the high of the highest building
kissing the stars,
a conversation, a coffee and letting go of every lie,
just me, you and the sky.

-

I thought you said you were okay
I thought your smile meant you were happy,
but then why did you go away
leaving us with just words written in red and pain?

One innocent life lost every fifty five minutes
another set of people left to grieve every fifty five minutes.
We've become masked smiles and fake laughters
afraid to talk of what hurts
because the wounds are unseen
and the stigma of being psychologically unstable is called for.
We're afraid because our health is degrading
but a thermometer can't measure it anymore.
We're drowning and we see help
but we're afraid to be heard,
so we stop paddling, we stop fighting,
we find saying goodbye easier than confiding.
And well who is to be blamed, the ones who left
or the ones who shamed?

-

I stand on the border of no man's land
built inch by inch on broken corpses
of father's and sons murdered by political archives.
I stand on an enormous grave of men used as pawns
and tomb stone read of all beautifully said press statements,
not of the cries of the widows left behind.
This land is painted with ruthless innocent blood,
bordered with shrieks and bullet shots.

I speak of the dead burried in pride
I speak in shame of their centuries long war,
I speak of a mother's cries who died waiting for her son,
I speak of the rage in the eyes of an unborn orpaned child
I speak of the political wars that killed men on land,
I speak of the baffled hearts who lost their home,
I speak of power up for grabs that has created a bloodbath,
I speak of the unhonored stories yet to be told.

-

On a cold night on the city roads
I saw men in tie and woman in heels
under the glow fairy lights
drowning in the cup of overpriced coffee.
I turned and I saw the darkness
a mother covering her child with her nakedness,
a kid trading away his nights for a little warmth,
a man sleeping on the bare floor I shiver to step on.

On the cold night on the city roads
I saw the silver spoon I was born with, seeming evil
I saw the warmth of privilege fall upon me like a concrete roof,
I saw the darkness spread by the glow of the fairy lights.

-

Aren't we all stories,
scribbled on the last pages of our notebooks,
drawn with the imperfection of uncertainty,
in the midst of chaos waiting to be heard,
somewhere lost on the shelf of a library, waiting to be read?

-

This is an open declaration of emergency,
an open challenge to try censoring our poems now.
We will not see this nation fall into the hands of immoral silence anymore,
we will neither teach nor learn the values we were evilly taught.
We will write of rapes, of the inhuman boundaries of the society,
we will write of the rights of gays and unjust policies,
we will write of your obligatory silence as the dark days.
You have tried stopping our voices from surfacing for too long
but now we've become the resistance to your supression.
We are not going to let the dream of a progressive country become just a fantasy
and we will change history on the roads this nation with our blood spilled.
This isn't a revolution of the voices you suppressed as noises
this is a war of all the journalists killed and of all the writers hanged,
this is the unbecoming censorships and the beeps you've stamped,
this is us claiming our freedom of speech in a country known for it's democratic values
this is the stuggle in history our children will read.

-

I was born in the section of the world
where we talk about sex behind hushed doors.
I was told not let my father know if I was bleeding,
and love was for all but belonging to same religion, caste, creed and what not
but two guys in love were social criminals.
Men were taught to keep their tears inside
and women ought to know that their cleavage must stay hidden.
I was born yet I belonged to a different section of society
where my son brought sanitary pads for my daughter
and my neighbors were two beautiful women so in love.
The man I worked with looked handsome in pink and no one took him to be gay,
and my sister stayed out all night and she wasn't classified as a whore.
The girl next door could make love to her boyfriend without any judgments
and the couple upstairs celebrated Eid as well as Diwali.
You see, I was born in a society who thought of love to be found in boundaries
and I found home in the one, where love was believed to come in all types.

-

I think we're a century of people
trying to create an aura of ambition
but some of us have found the shore,
some of us are drowning.
Satisfaction is said to be an end,
we're running behind black holes.
We've lost the skills to engineer our lives,
yet we're building sky touching towers
I say aspiration is no wrong
but we're trading lives for achievements.
It's a catastrophe.
We're becoming physically weak
and mentally weaker.
We're contesting for a greater number of zeros
and yet none of our graves will be made of gold.

-

To all the men who've treated us like objects,
who are lured by the depth of our neckline,
You need to stop,
you need to know how unsafe you've made us feel,
how hard you've made for us to trust any guy,
how heavily it has pained when we dreamed of philogyny and lived misogyny.
You need to stop right now,
you need to realize harassment and teasing aren't trending,
you need to recognize the backwardness you've created,
you need to see us as human fellows
and not as a satisfaction to your lustful eyes.

-

Dear long lost sister,

It's been a while since I've heard the babies laugh,
the ones we tickled together
I think they would've all grown up by now
and probably just remember us as a fade memory
but do you remeber us? I do.
From the heart shaped cakes you baked
to all the games you lost,
I remember it all.
You're certainly nowhere in my recent contacts
but I'd be there whenever yon call.

Love,
Someone you used to play with.

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