A Thousand Deaths

She was dying a thousand deaths and I couldn’t save her from the carnage taking place right in front of me. I could see her struggle to breathe with every gasp of air that felt as thick as molten lava slipping down her throat. And she had no other option but to chug it. Let it burn holes through her windpipe with every intake.

The pain though, was in her eyes. It was an avalanche and I could see her asphyxiate under it. There was a torrent of undiluted anguish- as crude and concentrated as venom. And I could see how with every thump of her heart beat, it was being pushed down her veins and into her arteries. Deeper, deeper, deeper. Much deeper than I could ever manage to reach.

I could do nothing but sit there and watch that pain gush out of her system like flood, as an outpouring flux engulfing me. If only she didn’t have to die a thousand deaths in front of me. If only our love wasn’t a tragedy. If only saving her was as easy as holding her hand at this very moment. If only, if only, if only.

If only she would lift up her head and see me looking at her. She would understand, how somethings are not meant to be fixed. Somethings are better left broken. Because sometimes, broken is beautiful and so is she.

_______________________

Side note: This post is dedicated to everyone who has ever suffered from loss. For anyone who has known grief. For anyone who knows what it’s like to lose someone you love. Whether the loss was physical in the form of death or an emotional/metaphorical loss. I see your pain and I know how it feels❤️

(Daily post: Missing, New Horizon)

Jaan-E-Maan

‘Girls like you’ your mother says
‘are going to be disappointed a lot.’
She’s chopping coriander so fast that her hand is a blur
and you’re 12 and you’re standing
like a tremble, grubby knees and tear stained cheeks,
an offering in front of her.

‘Why?’ Your voice is a quiet shake.
She puts the knife down and calls you ‘jaan’
she holds your face in her wet hands,
you don’t flinch because this
is what love looks like
she kisses your forehead like forgiveness
‘because you mean what you say,
you think other people are the same.’
She tells you that she spent four years
trying to learn their language
but people ask how you are
and walk away before you can tell them.
‘I’d rather be silent.’ She says.
‘At least being quiet is honest.’

You’ll come home seven years later
wearing your heart like a bruise
on the inside of your sleeve
‘mama,’ you’ll say, voice like a thunder crack
‘he said he loved me, and I believed him,
I shouldn’t have,
I think that he lied.’
She’ll be older then, but she’ll kiss you
just as tender, just as birdlike.
‘Is it my fault?’ You’ll ask.

She is half lioness, half woman. She is all roar.
‘Listen to me’ she calls you her soul again.
She says it in your language so you know
that she means it.
‘You are so infinitely tender,’ she takes the frown
of your face in her hands and holds it carefully

‘People will not always know what to do with that.
You can’t ever be sorry for the way you loved,
You can’t be sorry for who you loved.
Don’t ever let them bend you backwards
don’t let them make you hard or bitter.’
Her voice turns into a growl

‘You did not get this from me.
Somewhere inside of you there is rain.
Somewhere in your stomach,
something beautiful is growing
and it is infinite.
Don’t you let them try and take that from you,
you are open and you are a flood,
someday someone is going to want to die in you.’

   – “Jaan-E-Maan” by Azra Tabassum
(via 5000letters.tumblr.com)

(Jaan-E-Maan means “My Dear” in Persian and “Darling” in Urdu language.)

(Daily Post: Vanish, Sacred )

We Bleed (To Transform)

(Transmogrify)

I don’t know what it is about blood. We claim it’s a bad thing yet we can’t stop bleeding. We let others wound us over and over again until gash is a foot deep into our soul. Sometimes we wound others and get wounded in the process.

We clutch tightly to barbed wires of emotional attachments and walk on the burning coals of expectations. And by the end of it when we fall on the ground profusely gushing and wounded to our core, we make promises to ourselves; never again. But as we all know, promises are made to be broken.

The wound is by now infected because you didn’t take care of it well. You didn’t suture it on time and you didn’t put the bandage when you should have. You just let it be; as a reminder of all the things you loved that ruined you.

We fall back onto bed made of thorns of disappointment, exhausted. And bleed some more. We bleed until we can’t. We ache until every muscle in our body refuses to ache anymore. We suffer until pain itself screams in pain. Until the infection has spread onto every small vein and down to our very bones. Until we find ourselves disintegrating- crumbling, decaying, withering.

But,
How else could we have become anew,
If we had not first become ashes?

Let’s Make A Change

(WPC: The SunShine )

“Let me tell you something: no one is going to look at you, broken and shattered 
and think -
damn, you are beautiful.
No one is going to come pick up your broken pieces off the floor and
 assemble them into a beautiful whole.

Hell,
 you won’t even look at yourself and think – 
I made broken look beautiful.

You know why?

Because all those writers lied to you.

Yes, 
all those with their poems of scraped knuckles and 
blood dripping down chins, 
pomegranate songs and loves that ripped through you like 
hurricanes.

Liars.

So you and I, 
we are going to make a plan.

You are not going to romanticize days when your brain tells you to smash that mirror,
You are not going to romanticize the lover who doesn’t understand you 
but still writes about you.

Here is what you are going to romanticize instead:
You are going to romanticize the first day of spring,
Its gentle hands all over your body,
Lifting you up until you are as light as a feather.

You are going to romanticize the tea and honey kind of love,
No hurricanes, 
but sunshine that builds you up from within,
That helps you make it through the worst days.

You are going to romanticize gentle hands of a friend 
in yours,
Telling you that it is going to be okay.

Because it is.

And don’t trust poets, 
we’re no good,
 we love pretending that our jagged edges tantamount to a beautiful disaster, but in reality – 
there isn’t nothing beautiful about shaky hands holding a cigarette and 
empty eyes staring at the cracks in the walls.

You know what is beautiful, instead?

The days when you can look at yourself in the mirror and smile, 
scars and all.
Music that makes your soul flow like a river, 
books that offer comfort, 
families flocking together like overgrown birds to keep you safe and warm,
 friends that give you strength when you can find none, 
lovers who make you laugh through tears.

Baby, 
from now on 
you are going to romanticize healing;
Honey dripping down your fingertips,
August nights that stick to your skin, the day you find your purpose, 
long car rides and singing so loud that no one can shut you up now.

Bad news: 
no one is coming to save you.

Good news: 
you can save yourself.”
– Lana Rafaela (via wnq-writers.tumblr.com)

( Daily Prompt: Millions )

Where The Heart Is

(WPC: Local :Show us where the heart is.)

Home is in the infinite space surrounding the sky.

The hotel room was surprisingly clean, two single beds were joined together to make it a bigger bed against the wall. The interior was comparatively simple, with green carpet and plane white walls. Two arm chairs with a table in front were placed opposite the bed. It wasn’t very luxurious but it was fulfilling his purpose for now. He gave out a tired breath and let himself fall on the chair. The chairs were conveniently placed closer to the window. He looked at the deserted road at 12 am which still showed a hint of night life as few cars passed by. The summer wind was softly blowing through the windows and onto his face. He closed his eyes to take it all in. Her face flashed in front of him as soon as he closed his eyes. The vision of her hair being softly caressed by the same wind that was now touching his face. Damn, what did this woman do to him, he cursed himself. As clock ticked by, with his tired eyes, all he could think of was her. In all the hours, in all the minutes, in all the seconds she had captured his attention. There was something about her. He couldn’t figure it out and it was killing him.

He felt frustrated, he wanted to hold her tight with a strong grip and ask her to look in his eyes so he would know what exactly she carried beneath those alluring lashes. He wanted to tear off the skin she was wearing so he could see underneath, the soul she was carrying. Despite his best attempts he couldn’t figure out who or what she was. This woman was driving him crazy.

He took out a cigarette from his pack, there were only two more left. There would be none left by morning he was sure. He wished there was something stronger to drown his anxiety. But for now cigarettes would do too. He took out a lighter, burned his cigarette and inhaled a long puff and slowly exhaled it out. Watching the smoke make patterns in the air and then dissolving in the summer air by finding escape through the open window.

This woman was like smoke… Mysterious, beautiful and a killer. She was killing him softly, with her infectious laughter and her enticing eyes.. The way she would touch him, ever so lightly and then disappear in the crowd. And he like a madman would follow her around. Trying to catch another glimpse of her allusive beauty. God Damn, this is getting out of hand he thought to himself. He was probably no good for her or maybe she was too intense for him. He didn’t know anymore. All he knew was he wanted to see her again. He wanted her fix like an addict. It was like this woman had completely taken over him. In his veins, in his blood, in the air he breathed, she was everywhere. She was all around him. He wanted to hold her against the wall, pin her and kiss her till she would beg for forgiveness for all what she made him feel.. If only he could do that. Taste her lips. The lips that lied with a smile. If only he could look deep in her eyes. The eyes that usually betrayed her smile.

By now the cigarette pack was empty, dammit he needed to stop this, he thought. At least they should have lasted till morning. But the thoughts of her were too distracting for him to notice how poison was filling his lungs all this time. He sighed and moved to the bed. He slept as soon as his back hit against the bed.

He dreamt about her. As always.
And he realized that he could never have her as the day dawned upon.
But he knew that in the night he could have her thoughts.
She was a wish never to be fulfilled,
But a dream that could always be seen.
And so he dreamed. As always. He dreamed.

(Flâneur  )

Moon, Ocean and Her

(Weekly Photo Challenge: H2O )

She dipped her toes in the water to check the temperature. Today the water was warm, not as cold as the other nights. So inviting. So perfect. Ocean spread in front of her endlessly, her eyes gazing into infinity, catching nothing but darkness and with it moon- lit like the last flame after the candle has almost completely burned.

Waves, oh the waves. She heard them calling her name, in the far distance. Enchanting. Dancing. Welcoming.

She sat on the steep rock, her toes still dipped in the water.

Wind, oh the wind. She felt it embracing her. Seeping into her bones, sending chills down her spine. Hair at the nape of her neck deliciously stood at its touch. Enveloping her being.

But the moon, oh the moon. She looked up, was silent today. She was expecting it to beg and plead. But there it was, as quiet as the infinite space surrounding it. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t hurt her. Moon and her had a thing, or so she thought. Her heart fluttered, her stomach churned as she kept gazing at it, as if somehow it would break its silence. The water was now up to her knees.

“So we are doing this huh. I see. You are not going to say anything? After all this time. Nothing?

Well no problem…I have a lot to say tonight anyways. Or would you rather have me quiet and say nothing?”

The water rose upwards about an inch, from her knees to her thighs.

“Hmmm, so silence it is then.”

She laid back on the steep rock, looking up at the sky. Mapping out stars, in hopes soon there will be one of hers up there among constellations too- hopefully closer to the moon.

The water was soaking her back now, it was rising fast. She smiled, as bright as the moon itself. So heartily that for a moment stars dimmed their lights to let her shine. She knew. She just knew; The moon wanted her too. And that was the whole truth.

In that moment, peace came. A tear as heavy as the gravity itself fell down her face. Carrying more pain than salt in an ocean itself.

The tide came & took her away,
Orchestrated by the moon,
For it wanted her too.
And so that,
It proved.

A Quintessential Downfall

At first it was just one pill. Then it were two. And then it didn’t take long for two to turn into three, three into four and four into five. And soon she forgot the count of how many she took. She chewed on her bottom lip until it was raw and bleeding. She liked the pain. But then why was she trying so hard to escape it if she liked the pain as much as she claimed?

Her heart was a black hole she was slowly disintegrating into, disappearing into. Like getting lost into the oblivion of her own self. Her soul had parted from her body a long time ago. Maybe that is why it was so much easier to self destruct. To let herself fall of the edge. It wasn’t jumping off the edge that was hard.
It was the fall.
The infinite drop – a misery of its own.
The anticipation of the splat.
The sound of her shattering, crumbling, collapsing…
Reducing to rubble after imploding, exploding and smashing to smithereens.

What a demise–
A dissolution of masterstroke,
A paragon unsolved,
A quintessence misunderstood,
A baffling downfall and a mystifying tale.
Finally, Coming to an end.

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Side note: I’ll be posting the next password protected post on coming Wednesday. For some reason it doesn’t appear in WordPress reader so you might have to visit my blog if you aren’t subscribed to my blog by email notification. I apologize for the inconvenience. For those of you who are new, if you wish to read the posts please leave your email address in the comment section below or contact me at mine. Thank you.

When A Boy Tells You He Loves You

When a boy says I love you, he means “I’m getting ready to be inconsistent with you now.”

I love the delivery of this poem, the way he so softly let words roll of his tongue without being too overbearing. Brilliant ! One of the best spoken poetry I’ve come across. 

( Passionate )