Yaad-e-maazi

The night of our love

Came to life

We sat on a sunlit porch

Sipping red and bitter tea

The sunset happened very slowly

And the nightingale

Of Ghalib's yet to be created tea garden

Sang in it's heated joy of imagination

And then came death

Someone left

The night of our love

a few moments back

was moaning with pleasure 

Soon it gave away it's soul.

Like a dead body

(Hands under the shoulders)

I am dragging it 

Through a thick forest

It's not stinking yet.

I'll bury it 

When I see the sea

Turtles will come next year

And lay eggs in it's grave

"I was stillborn"

The epitaph would say.

I am petrified of forgetting it

Like my Nana

I close my eyes and remember 

His beard, his spectacles

The distinct smell of his room

"Why do you have this old brush papa?, You should throw it away" I told him once.

"I am also old maybe you should throw me away too"

He smiled and I had fought back tears.

But today 

I strain to hear his voice 

There is not even an echo.

It's a ritual for the dead

It's takes more every day 

To keep them alive 

And one such day

I will have forgotten 

The night you kissed me

The night you spoke to me 

About loneliness 

And adventures

The night

That's all we had.

Artwork By Muretz 
Reference to Ghalib's couplet
hoon garmi-e-nishat-e-tasavvur se naghma-sanj
main andaleeb-e-gulshan-e-naa-aafariidah hoon
translation:
Behold, I sing in the heated joy of imagination
For I am the nightingale of the yet uncreated garden.

Thick Horrors of a Melancholic Midnight hour

When the night pours over me

Like mildly heated mustard oil

And I can distinctly hear

The jasmine 

Outside my room's door

Every bud snapping in to a flower 

The anger is palpable 

The hate, not far.

My dead cat puts his forehead to the door

And it creaks, ever so slightly 

I wait 

I wait

I wait

Dead don't come back.

My several selves

That loved and ached

That moaned and pained

My many faces 

Flushed with your thought 

My hands with darkened finger tips

That I held to your nose

And you smelled the night on them

That me will always be

seated inside a small box

With a million moths

It is easier 

Like a habit you never had

But do now

The price is still the same

Rotting of the flesh of my heart

That's pumping hard

And the raven named WHY

Calls out to the vultures 

Diseased and dying bald monstrosities 

Perfect in their ugliness 

They scorn at the thick blood 

That flows from my nose

But they wait nevertheless 

To have a taste

And I can hear them 

Chanting in a chorus

Louder and louder

We don't fear

What's still alive 

What's still alive 

We don't tear

I splatter on the roadside 

Like dark americano

Exhausted and tired

I lean on the white CP pillars

I flick a lighter, take a drag

Even the vultures won't have me!

I exhale for 8 counts.

In the night 

When I am lonely 

My bed is crowded

Lifeless bodies pile on me

Choking me to the last breath 

The ghosts don't rot

They sear

And mark me

I run through an old house 

With rotting doors

Crushing blue eggs underneath me

The birds just shriek and howl

I cover my ears

I know loss

I know loss

That's all I manage to shout.

Artwork By Saoirse Huang