Ayesha

Hiding seasons in your cheek.

The color of your nails, 

changing the course of the wind as you go.

With you, Maryam, 

each day, a new autumn.

In you, Maryam,

You carry the harvest moon.

I write about love.

Or a word that comes close to it

A prayer?

A promise?

A bargain?

You are the toothache,

After a syrury brook on a hot summer day. 

And the burble of the sugary lemon-drink,

You are the longing before it 

And the anguish after. 

I carefully counterfeit the birdseed in my pocket for your love.

Or a word that comes close to it.

I recklessly call you everything they've already called you.

Or something else that comes close to it.

A forest?

The thud of the big bang?

The dust that touches my forehead every time this body gives in to sajdaa? 

Can you tell i wrote about you

even before I knew you?

You begin right where the sea touches the shore and right when the city decides it's time for the lights to go on. 

You see the sky, Maryam, i'm obsessed, you see how it's everything and nothing all at once,

just like us. 

You see no matter how much i try, i cannot fall into it, i cannot/should not fall for you either.

It's your eyes, i think, it's how you don't look away when i tell you i have issues, stay away. 

Or its the kajal. 

Please don't make it darker than it has to be,

This/us/me harder than we have to be.

 it's how you don't care how much more red my lipstick keeps getting with each hangout. 

Funny word, hangout, it's a place where i can only call you bro or Dude, when all I want to do is say, jaan listen, you feel like slow traffic and im a sucker for those. Jaan, listen, i don't know about muhabbat, but this feels like ishq, jaan. 

But I'll use your shoulder as my headrest platonically, watch galaxies collide and glaciers melt and call you bro every once in a while. 

Love is his eyes and every taylor swifts song and innocence

Love is trying to memorize his hands and the back of his neck to make shitty poetry out of on a rainy day.

Its not missing one day of school

And trying to be good at math and love

Its safe to say i didnt know shit about either.

14 and love is knowing what forever looked like

Knowing there is nothing hotter than that boy after every PE class

When the sun runs out of its warmth and the music quiets down and no words make it home.

Come back and lie beside me, put your head on my shoulder and rest now, lover.

Let me tell you about all my days and the loneliness they brought.

Come back and let me hold your hand, i have make playlists out of the pink sky, let me kiss you with all its gold and let me tell you how the darkness of the night still follows.

When all of this ends,

When the movies go mute and nobody wants to dance anymore,

Come back and let me show you the city on foot.

The street where I fell in love,

The lamppost which i think is cursed,

The bus rides which save me everyday,

And the cafe I first met the boy I could've loved,

I think the city will fall into this love-hate relationship with you, just as much as I am or not in whatever this is or not with you.

When all this ends,

Promise to give this tragedy a chance

And please,

Please come back, lover

Talking about some random song you loved,

Hinting about some random girl you loved.

You sit across me,

and this empty space between this end of the sofa to that is deadly, begging me to look away.

In between your sentences or the lack of them,

I notice how your voice sounds like crashing cars,

Soo fast and fierce that your eyes scream of loss,

And ive never been a fan of speed.

You sit across me,

and I notice how your hair falls on your eyes

Slowly falling into its wilderness.

And me, slowly falling for you,

Or falling apart.

I read somewhere that the distance between the earth and the sun is 149.6 million kms,

And the earth and its nearest blackhole is 7800 light years.

And somehow my end of the sofa to yours

Is the farthest one I will ever know.

Mera yar sa hasin

Chand ne kaha, chandni kee kasam

Nahee, nahee, nahee" Mohammad Rafi sahab sang silently over my headphones,

while you lay,

Far away from my skin,

some place, which isn't next to me.

Near someone, who isn't me.

I recite each word in my head,

break them down until they mean nothing to me

Or the world

Or the writer himself.

I tear them apart and put up a fight with everything that looks like your eyes or sounds like your silence

until there is no moon left in the sky.

The next day, I ask the moon again

Hoping for a different answer

Hoping that the moon has forgotten your songs

A different end to this tragedy that my love is.

But then again, Mohammad Rafi sahab sang,

"Maine puchha bag se, falak ho ya zamin,

Aisa phul hai kahee

Bag ne kaha har kali kee kasam

Nahee nahee nahee"

How do I kill the flowers for being too in love with you

Or the sky for standing it's ground despite the thunder in your voice

Or myself

For having no choice at all

but to fall

How do I kill everything

For you to not exist anymore ?

So instead,

for tonight,

And all my other nights,

I let the moon tell me,

That there will never be anyone,

Like you.

And break.

Probably had sun rise or set to her accord or the heavens roared at the speed of her heartbeat.

Maybe that is why you loved her.

Your favourite song, I think it reminds you of her. Maybe the guitar strums the exact number of times you smiled at her.

She was beautiful, I think.

I never dared to ask her name

Or if she liked chai

Or if that is why you liked chai

Or if that is why you stopped looking for home

Maybe because you already found it

Her arms must've been an orchard field

Her voice, a song that plays in all the malls and radio stations

Her laugh, an echo of everything you are.

Maybe this is why I never dared to ask about her

I think I was scared that you might just answer them.

Maybe someday

After what seems like an eternity

I'll sit across a boy

And he'll ask me

If you liked chai

If that is why some songs hit a nerve

But he manages to catch a glimpse of me swaying to the tune every now and then

Maybe someday

After what seems like an eternity

Ill find myself sitting in the same cafe we were supposed to go to

And he asks me " what was he like?"

In between our words

In between the lifetimes

and time lost on wrong lovers

On wrong prayers

In between the ticking of time and loney winters

This boy whose smile stretches as fearlessly as the grand canyon

Smiles again and he tells me

" he was beautiful, I think"

about how's and this and that and love

Through all these lines she keeps forgetting to mention heartbreak.

Girl sings about a boy on the radio and its 1.29 pm and I'm too sober to believe her. But I'm also too desperate for anything to fill the space, the hollow, so I let her tell me how she think she's falling in love or something like that.

Girl sings about a boy on the radio

And I believe her like sunsets over Ganges are life changing or how I'm the happiest when I'm in love or how I'm short of words most of the time. She talks about how she's falling and feeling and drowning in his eyes.

How do I tell this girl, that I've drowned before and there's nothing

At the rock bottom.

You with your lilac heart

And me with a wildfire for lungs, I breathe you in on the way back to some place I'd like to call home.

I find myself saying your name like a prayer.

Over and over again.

Forgetting to remember it's meaning

Forgetting to forget you

Forgetting to forget you forgetting me

My mother tells me religion can save lives

That it can also kill

And I keep chanting your name over and over like a prayer

And I forgot to remember that religion

Kills.

Asking me to back off while i still can.

Your laughter, a forest fire

Bright enough for me to run.

But

Iam anything

But

Cautious

With

The chaos of this distance

The hollow of your chest and the numbness of my being

Or these words left unsaid

Will ever matter

A sigh away from 21

With no words left in my lungs

With a ticket going any where but home

With all the music in the world, all to myself

And I'm 20,

And I got no where to go

And right here to begin.

Too long since ive compared someone to afternoon drizzle

Or midnight breakdowns.

Its been too long since ive looked into a pair of eyes and felt as though whatever this is

Or isnt

Is enough.

Its been too long since ive wanted to leave so badly

That i stayed

That i lingered long enough to remember what it is to have nails for hands and know that everyone you touch is bound to die.

Its been too long since you

Left

and i still keep forgetting

Because in my head youre still