The Departed - R.I.P

My pen dribbles parts of my soul away on an empty canvas, trying to paint a forgotten dream. Putting together pieces of who we were to resolve the madness that drove us to annihilate each other.

Every centimeter of my universe became alive with the whisper of your presence, as you strut in and out the chambers of my heart. An unbreakable bond, that was celestially approved, was forged between us. Each with a broken wing, together, we began to soar. I was yours and you were mine. Through toil and trouble we pressed on, like proud soldiers, holding their heads up, victorious from the war. But when we began to face the enemy, we found it inside rather than it lying beyond us. Our own demons and shadows set ablaze all that was innocent and pure, leaving behind a trial of exasperation and hollowness.

Like the turning season, I, then, began to change. As we marched forward, the war became a lost cause. A realization hit me that I only embarked this journey to escape the shame of facing who I was. I sold myself off to you for a dime so you could love what I hated. Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, I waded around, sometimes stopping you in your tracks to discover how valuable I was for you.

I walked great lengths to cover the distance in your eyes but still you were nowhere to be found. Silence, happily, crept up to my heart and wrapped it in a cloak of misery. Questions and questions hounded me until my mind went numb and choked the essence of our love, completely tainting it away. Illusions that never became real tore me down, brought me on my knees with eyes wet towards the open sky, waiting for a miracle.

In the heat of the battle, I mustered enough courage to raise my white flag and throw my hands up as I surrendered. I could no longer fight, this fight beside you. You, with your selfish agendas, could not convince me that all this destruction could justify the end. I felt impoverish in a queen’s robe, confused of all the admiring eyes because, all this time, I felt I was alone in this even when you were lying right beside me, right here in my arms.

The abandonment overwhelmed you with feelings of betrayal to the point you only spitted out words of anger and hate. You gloated about how you could simply hold me to the ground and bring my life to a halt. But you know I would never hurt you that way. So blame me now, for the fall, if it allows you to hide the truth behind the masquerade. Set yourself free of the guilt. There’s no one beside you anymore to judge.

But in the abyss of the night when darkness shields you away, do I still run inside your mind, swearing I’ll be the one beside you to watch you sleep? To run my finger on your face, in awe at the beauty of your soul? Would you look me in the eye and swear that you would spin out a whole new rhythm for us to move to, if time could be reverted back to where it all began. Does your heart still cry out for me? Do you still taste the nights when my sweat trickled down your skin and every breath you took was mine. Is my soul still somewhere tangled with yours?

Or have my memories already faded to black? Can you hold your pride up high, adamant, you have no regrets and swear I was always dispensable for you.

O my beloved, despise me, for all the years I gave you, if it makes you feel like a man. Scream poisonous words that are meant to break my heart. Everything will easily slip down my shoulders. Your reign over me came to an end, when I found my way out, and you’ll never hurt me again. Never again.

Now, I’m returning to the lands we marched on and left behind for the sake of our love. This time, I as I and not as we. All alone I plant these seeds of love and hope and I’ll wait for them to grow until all this death is, slowly once more, replaced by the colors of life and you and I gravitate to the ones to whom we really belong.

Forgiveness

So the façade comes tumbling down, leaving me exposed to the open wounds, I so blissfully accused you of. The scars I paraded around on your name have begun to change. They no longer hold you responsible. The silence that ran parallel inside of me screams my own, as it hits the walls of my heart over and over again, leaving my body paralyzed with fear.

So now, layer by layer, the truth falls to the ground. I was so numb to my own existence that when I took you in, I felt my pain flow inside of you. I, deliriously, deceived myself for it to be yours. Your love became the drug in my veins that slowly dissipated throughout my body until I was rendered crippled without you. I, so, conveniently loved to point fingers at how you made me feel so broken. Yet, I found myself unable to let you go. Your voice made my body sing with pleasure. It made me dance to the songs that were unsung. The more you etched yourself inside of me, the more I felt alive. Until I completely forgot myself, and you became the reason I lived.

In our fervor of passion, we lost all sense of identities, pulling each other down in the quiet drone of our madness until each faded away into nonexistence.

So now that you’re gone and I’m alone, night after night, my body throws out the poison I fed myself. The tears go rumbling down, seeking forgiveness from my soul, for the atrocities I submit it to. You were merely an actor for the script I wrote. Finally, the time has come to take a bow and let the curtain fall close. You are free to walk where you will…and so am I…

You made me special

Dedicated to Imran Ali Gul, Fizza Zehra, Sumbul Mujeeb, Zubia Basharat, Omar Qureshi, Anees Ahmad, Sukaina Juma, Sana Ahmad, Sabba Khawaja

There was a time in my life when I felt my days slowly crawling by. Minutes seemed like hours and hours felt like endless days. I spent them isolated in my anger, in my frustration. My mind numbed from the pain. My heart emptied from the tears that had fallen. I walked on an unknown path leading myself astray every time.

I moved through crowds of nameless, faceless people. Strangers hurried past me, as my body was tossed back and froth between them, but they always moved on without a single glimpse. A mist of hopelessness crushed my spirit. It silenced my speech. I reached out to hold something but found nothing and I finally fell apart. I was alone. Slowly down the road, the mist began to clear and in life’s brief moment, I saw you standing, smiling at me. The light you emitted was radiant like a star. You were a beacon that guided me through my dark journey to a place I finally called home. That place was standing right next to you.

You were my angel of love, my pillar of strength and my ground of support. Every time, I stopped in my tracks, I looked up and found you. Still standing. Still smiling at me. You stood there in my darkest hours of despair, in my anguish, my confusion, my sorrow.

You saw through the ugly parts and helped me embrace all that I was. If it was not for you, I would have still been drifting in a sea of uncertainty. Flung from the shores into the sea, like a little pebble, lost in the depths of the ocean. Just wading, never hoping to be found. You gave me the greatest gift ever: you completed me by being who you were.

So this is dedicated to all the hands I still hold and to the hands that slipped behind. When I feel the world’s hues have turned to shades of grey, I remember the colours you painted my life in, just by loving and accepting me. The time you’ve taken out for me will always remind me of how beautiful everything is and that I’ve been blessed to have been part of your life and to have to you part of mine. And no matter where we go, your gift will remain somewhere in my heart. So thank you for walking this journey we call life with me.

The Final Letter - Goodbye

I wanted to write you something before my memory entirely fails me and you become a dream.

Even though my life without you had began long time back. I carry you secretly inside my heart. Hidden and protected from all, including myself, like a butterfly in a cocoon. Sadly, you’ll never come out to grow wings and take flight in my world. You are destined to die, as silently as you were conceived.

I do wish I could just take a peek in your life. Look at your smiling face and feel the radiance of your warmth seep through my skin. Look at you and know that you understand why suddenly I chose another road to walk on, away from you. Look at you and know that you have forgiven and see me the same. Just would look at you from some corner of your life, imagine holding you close to my heart and say goodbye, all over again.. live through the hurt of losing you again, just so I can relive that one precious moment of having you in my arms and smile, after you have gone from my sight, gone from my days, gone from my life, gone from my memory.

But I dare not step in the waters where you tread, fearing it would create a ripple in the calm then return once more to stillness. Fade back into nothing. Exactly, what will become of the time that is now. But somehow, since it is goodbye, it seems better this way, leaving everything unsaid and sealing our hearts for no one else to see what really existed.

Maybe words spoken, after years, would be powerful enough to draw up an illusion of what was left behind. Perhaps, never completely forgotten, lingering somewhere at the back of our heads, wondering, “What could have been?”, “How it should have been?”

Maybe, you still might have enough spark in your heart, not to have any regrets and smile at the thought of me with a sweetness in your mouth. Or possibly you might wake up one day and never have had felt my presence missing. Could you have already forgotten me?

Either way, what does it matter? I’ll never see you again. I’ll never hear your voice or your laughter. I’ll never even spring for my phone when it rings, quietly hoping its you. I know our lives have taken turns and can never go back. We craved out our paths, carefully, no matter how, unfortunately, it tore us apart. You were never mine to begin with.

Someone else will have the grace to look in your eyes. To touch your celestial skin. To feel your soul merge in theirs. To burn in the heat of your passion. To spend their days silently lying besides you; with you. I already retreated from the grounds where battles raged in the name of love and lust with you. There was no bugle sounded, when it all came to an end. No knights riding white horses came to save the day. Just the bitter reality that I lost you so suddenly, so quietly, so easily. I would have liked to have held on to you a little longer, a little tighter, when we waited for the bus, if I knew how short our time really was.

But alas, I have nothing left of you, except a few images of the person you embodied to be and the reminiscence of the days we wiled away in each other’s company. The places where you stepped, that once blared out your name, have hushed, as time created spaces between us. They no longer seek you, having turned themselves into a sanctuary for my solitude.

In my consciousness, my mind was intoxicated with guilt it drew from the bottled up emotions, you tried to hide inside. I felt like a stranger in a place I knew so well. And I couldn’t come in terms with it. A million questions raced through my head when I tried to reach out to you. I felt you turn away and did not want me to see you in your struggles. I could no longer hold on, so I let go. I picked up the integrity I had left and I moved on. Your happiness meant everything to me. And now, I refuse to look back because I’m scared to know how much I really loved you.

Needless to say, my pen moves at the thought of you when my defenses are down. When the world around me is in their peaceful slumber and I lay awake, thinking of you. The way you held my hand in yours. The way your face lighted up on seeing me. The way you looked in my eyes knowing it was wrong for us to be together.

Your love blew in my life like the spring breeze carrying the sweet fragrance of the blossoming flowers. And I felt you crawl under to the very essence of me. For awhile I squirmed at how you made me feel alive. Then I began to bask in the glory of having felt you. Till one day, you finally passed through me unto other lands where you really belonged. Your fragrance is still clinging stubbornly to me, slowly dissipating, until my body will engulf it whole and you will be lost.

This is how I choose to finally say farewell even though you are already gone.

Good morning, Sunshine!

So here I am again. Breaking promises to myself. I wasn’t suppose to be shedding tears but that place, where we made a thousand memories, missed your existence terribly and somehow along with those memories it witnessed the tears as they fell. Forgive me for my weakness, if that’s what you call it. There were too many emotions that were anew to me but, finally, I’m letting you go.

You were a hope for me. A constant reminder that I deserved so much better than what I had bargained for. You were that single burning flame in the darkness, my own love had drowned me in. Your laughter defied the sound of the sadness perpetuating inside me. You were the sunshine, greeting me, after the long silent night.

You gave this motionless body, a soul to feel life, touch it and feel divine; your divinity. The crystal clear glance that you laid upon me washed the sins from my scars to restore purity and innocence to this unholy flesh of mine.

And there you were, always silent, yet your voice echoed through every inch of me. And I heard you, I came, I stumbled, I fell hard, I loved and then I lost... only to be born again. So here I am again. Alive. With a heart filled with love and a face full of smiles, yet somewhere inside me, my wings are still broken and I’m learning to fly… but I’ve been changed by you.

Forget Me Not

Step inside my world, you’ll find pieces of me thrown across the floor, crushed under your weight. You come around here knocking, knowing how the door was torn down and how the path remained open for you to rob what you wanted. You took what you felt was rightfully yours and wasted it away, leaving me barren. How you chose to take the parts of me that made you feel beautiful. How conveniently you tossed aside what was broken and ugly residing inside. But don’t you forget that was even me.

Ode

Explain to me the difference between a delusion and reality. Explain to me, why I’m building up fantasies around you, when I know you’ll never be mine. Why does the sight of you make my body tingle with happiness? Why do I want to kiss your forehead and feel like a woman? Why do I find myself wanting to fall into pieces, just so you can put me back together? Do you know the way you break down my defenses without even trying? You leave me feeling stripped of my skin, looking at the core of me. The vulnerability you make me feel is frightening yet it arouses me. You evoke feelings in me which I thought I had lost and once wanted so much.

Why do I want to cover you in a wave of passion and just bind you in my world? Just hold you for a brief moment and pretend you’re mine forever.

I wanna keep watching how beautiful you look when the sunlight hits your brown eyes. See you laugh, even though its not with me, but see your precious lips curl up and kiss your dimples. I wanna walk with you in silence and listen to what you are saying to me. Are you saying something? But will you risk it all to stand at the edge of your world to accept what is really mine? Or will our lives collide and shatter into fragments which we won’t even recognize and forever live to regret…

Extinction

Eyes of love fixed on a world that does not exist.Twisted words played to keep the dice rolling.It's own thorns are killing the rose, which lies in the hand that doesn't hold.

Lucifer and I

Rodents mark their presence, as they skitter away, behind the locked prison doors. Those rust eaten bars and these iron shackles, hold me back from sensing the light outside. Bloodcurdling screams of indiscernible demons, throws my mind in frenzy. I, desperately, try to break free. Tears of helplessness run down my face, as my skin rips open and blood oozes out. I remember the words of my Lord; “seek Me and you shall find”. I got down on my knees, carrying this naked body with me. I bowed my head and closed my eyes, with my heart asking for liberty from this horror. Happiness swirls over, as I feel myself devoid of the bond that held me locked. Footsteps peel my sight once more to the dungeon around. Fear descends heavily where my happiness had been. I, now, watched the hands of Satan put a leash around my neck. Feelings of betrayal sterilize my spirituality. Ashamed, I turn to face the ground below me. Despondency kills the faith left within me. He laughs in delight, as my weakened body struggles to crawl behind him. Every fall hardens my conviction: the Lord has isolated me. Satan pulls me where he wills, with me, following him blindly. I have been enslaved in the realm of the Prince of Darkness and there is no way out. Yet, the shielded light draws my attention. And, in the light when I look up to see, I realize that Lucifer is none other than me…