#zulfi

What makes you believe that anyone deserves love, let alone anything else?

I thought I would never know where my Istanbul would be hiding — how could I,

I’m only here for like four days and I don’t even speak any Turkish, but

So it goes,

There I was,

“You seem to believe that everyone deserves to be loved and here is my primary disagreement:

No one deserves anything and, yet,

We are not living in a world devoid of satisfied desire;

You do not deserve love (as doesn’t anyone else) but you might be able to get it, because,

After all,

You either get love or you don’t.”

Haye Allah:

First of all, I cannot believe that I am sitting in an entirely dark, currently unused,

Sixth floor of some random tall building in Taksim,

Two queers (really, it’s just two guys/AMABs/kids with permission and indifference from their parents) are making out in the booth behind me,

Around 50, at least, are dancing to really sick fucking music on the 7th floor,

And, here I am (God has, it seems, already sent me on my way),

My legs outstretched, I am so comfortable, with a bewitching (read: BITCHIN’) view of Istanbul,

From, did I already mention, a sixth floor where-the-fuck-are-we building in Taksim that only

Honour could have casually led me to,

Getting told that the foundational assumption my politiks and intellect stem from might be

An innocent, but childish, fallacy that

Everyone (and, absolutely ANYone) deserves to be loved.

Secondly, what the fuck, I hope [he]’s not right, and what an absolutely chutiya move to just outright denounce that anyone might be less worthy (deserving or able, whatever, bitch) of

LOVE

than another human being, let alone,

a human being who might not carry proudly the lackluster belief that there are

economics to this practice of love,

scarcities within it,

time running out for it,

medical operations necessary to ask for it.

When we went back to the AirBnb,

I rolled us a spectacular Joint because [he] told me [he] does not like how weed makes

[him] feel but that [he] also does not like holding such an opinion/experience, and so

I rolled,

And [he] ran to make such a J possible —  takes three borrowed cigarettes, and only one lit, just in case you’re out of tobacco and aatish ever in the midst of rolling a J —  

But the weed was too heavily spliffed (in my opinion) and so it only worked to

tire us to fulfilment,

give maybe a humbling headache,

and force us finally to sleep.

Dear God, I’m tired.

I am tired of proving, of fighting, of “asserting,” of looking, of second-guessing,

Of blurting, of feeling uneasy.

I know what I know because I learned it and felt it but I have not practiced justifying it because the art of rhetoric is,

just like the arts of wit or passing, both tired

and tiring,

Kind of like a factory,

The sort of feeling that makes you make your language more practical,

Your flirtations planned,

Your eyes kind of hungry,

And it doesn’t matter embarrassment-caused if you willed it but bare your claws, to hell with embarrassment that I shall not will.

Honor said to me, and [she]’s a princess waiting to happen,

That sort of determination,

No Sufi has been ever able to prevent,

There are dancers in Lahore too,

And dancers on meds, operations, and identity politics in Amreeka too, But wide as ever the reach,

Of the hungry married man and his transgendered beloved,

right now in my DMs, right now on someone’s grindr,

right now on someone’s prostituted bed!

what did they say about the young girl’s lust who, what, was paid for:

no one can love you more,

and it will be beyond and before any politics

this whoring that i’ll do

and no matter my saleeqa, it’ll be whoring that i do,

and no if there’s a sexy boy in your eyes

a man in your mouth

and your limp-dick secession from what could have felt holy to you

and not kill you,

what could have been holy in you,

and not ask you kill you,

what could have been holy in [her],

and not mere confusion,

but when i bow down and say the name of the God you think you own,

the God i know i know,

Yey jo qaum hai jo apney baapon ki tarhan banana chahti hai

Iss sey toh pyaar nahi hai

Unn khaandonon main jahan mummy raj hai

Beyshumaar hai, beyshumaar hai,

Pakistan don’t become a capitalist pig

at least keep lying

imran khan ur spokesman proclaiming Islamic socialism

at least keep lying

Pakistan don’t become a capitalist pig

Jhoot hi boltey raho.

We know India’s too far gone

Delhi has a Gucci store now

White girls visit the taj

White girls make YouTube videos

Pakistan don’t become a capitalist pig

Offer no white girls free hotel rooms or spa packages

Try to rebuild your relationship with Iran

Learn Farsi again

Go and ride the Metro-ye Tehran

Women find women to talk to, to assist

Bachon, you do the same.

Theek hai, let’s find a way out of this outside of US help

Karro cancel aid, inhi paison key neechey philusteen dabba hua hai.

Nahi chahiye.

Pakistan don’t become a capitalist pig

Or an army general’s awful decision

Or lose yourself in the lie of immi k philosophy

I want a bandi for prime minister

I want mummy to be prime minister

I want there to be no prime minister

Pakistan don’t become a capitalist pig

We are so near the end

Educate house feed the poor

Educate house feed the rich

Every huge shaadi every maarty could have mandatory public service

If we can’t have a new metro service

Localise industries and markets and commerce and education

Localise ur whole damn dil

Why the fuck should I go from johar town to defence anyway

build an Aitchison in every gaon

This time welcome the girls and the khusras with open arms

Kya faida gor’on key syllabus ka?

Bachon ko khooni darinday bananey key liye toh nahi paida kia tha na.

Pakistan, what is Pakistan even?

This teesra tukra, of what once was so together, every one in their own dhun,

In the same tamasha.

Pakistan don’t be a capitalist pig,

Kya faida?

Baarish bhi zehreeli hogayee iss dunya ki.

Merey haath perr dou lareekain hai, ma I’ve been tracing them all my life

Aik aap ki, aik meri And I follow each one in my head every night Aik aap key liye, aik apney but in the morning, I think I often remember dil sey aik meri asliyat, aik aapkey sapney

Mera buss chaley na, maa, toh main sab bhool jaoon: Apni zindagi ko aap ki khuwaahish key qadmon pey barrhaoon Aap ki zubaan, aap key dil ki dhun pey nachaoon Mera buss chaley, maa, toh main bilkul badal jaoon Aap key sapnon key aks ko galley lag jaoon Aap ki expectations ki spectacular heroine bunn key aoon Beghair jhumkon key sab ka sirr phirraoon Apni durd şey yoon darr na jaoon Mera buss chaley toh main sachi main sab bhool jaoon; Daadi ki badtameezi full ignore karoon, Aap ki disappointment main apni shakal na dhoondoon Kisi tarhan sey apney dil ko puhanchaoon sakoon Sabun sey apney kharrey rang ko maanjna chorr doon.

Merey haath perr dou lareekain hai, ma, aur aik bhi Maya ka peecha nahi karti. Aik aapki zindagi key mukaam per ishara karti hai, aur aik sharma key kuch bhi bolti nahi, aur aik bhi mujhey batati nahi, keh merey rang-o-insaan sey kyun cheeni gayee iss mulk ki pasandeeda gene, beybunyaad badmazgi, rangon ki yey badtameezi, Barrey Sagheer ki hypocrisy Key I couldn’t be pak and I’ll never be saaf Because I don’t deserve to be Pak in Pakistan

Meinay bhi bola hai, jhoot nahi boloon gi: woh boy kitna saaf lagta hai, dil shayed shafaaf ho sakta hai, Meinay bhi maa’na hai, uss ka rang kitna saaf hai attitude uss pey maaf hai

aur kitni cheating hai na, kitni na-insaafi hai key apney liye nafrat, aur gorrey gaalon key liye maafi hai?

Jab main choti si thi, meri iss anjaan beqarari main khoob qarar tha. main subah subah sheeshay ko avoid karti thi aur foran naha key apney chehray pey ghorr karti thi. kitni saaf lag rahi hoon aaj, saari gandagi dhulla di. magar iss optimism ki dhajjiyan har roz urrthi thi: tu kitni kaali, kitni gandi kitni khaali teri aqalmandi. saari self-perception saalon ney mitti main mila di. itni kaali, itni gandi, hai gehri kitni yey pabandi.

aur athaaran saal lagi rahi, ma, but yey rang hai keh dhulta hi nahi. ka’im hai mera rang, yey saanwli lakeer — terey peechay, peechay lagi rehti hai magar phir bhi yoon is dil main koi naraazgi rehti hai, teri taqdeer keh khilaaf namanzoori behti hai.

it’s so damn hard to remember if i was crazy in pakistan too but it feels like i’m breathing in glances far stranger than the ones hurled at me before. i pretend to find home in allen ginsberg’s marijuana addiction or david bowie’s androgyny but there seems still an angry unease. americans think i’m fucking absurd and the international kids whisper in their pretty, proud accents how i’m “so ridiculous.” i think i wore pinker hats in my dreams, played more juvenile games of friendship. i think i sang much more over my headphones, wishing no one could hear me. i would scream my songs or quickly rearrange the syntax of my jokes to make them sound more human. see, because writing a glorifying diary called the absurdist dreams feels much less cosy than reciting jokes out loud to a dude who smiles at every crass misstep. i wish i could talk in a language everyone could understand but only equally, with the same connotations, the same affinities. english is weird, a bit racist, mostly classist but above all, weird and convoluted and easy to manipulate into and through jargon.

i started working on music this past year the second i was left breathing in the endless abandon of college street. i’m almost half past 19 and everyone hoped, or was scared, that my Big Mouth was going to get me into trouble. in all the tuesday parties in attics or crypts, climbing through as-far-from-obscure trekking trails or smoking at ill-advised times, making ill-advised attempts at humor, falling in love with ill-advised bastards, my big mouth did get me into goliaths of trouble. but trouble is easy; no unease or jagged complexities to overcome, edges only to create and explode, discomfort first to be exploited. so after leaving enough parties surreptitiously, i finally found the person who wanted to head to the studio after woad’s or a night out at a subversive kid’s subversive party. i found the boy who screamed the words to his favourite song not because he wanted to make a stupid point but because he just wanted to. i found the boy who came to yale, proud and vindicated for his loudmouthery from pakistan, breathing in shots of glances, blurry streets and the mangled crowds of phenomenal parties. i’m going to get a tattoo of a still from lorde’s “green light” video, of the moment i relive with her every 3 am, every crazy wandering outside a bar. it’s that moment when she’s dancing with a pretty dress in a pretty street, maybe next to an actual bodega, with her dirty white shoes on and she’s listening to a song that’s making her go crazy, feel an insane ecstasy, shared by the tenenbaums or the kid from rushmore or my deranged eyes from 3rd grade or my best friend who no one understood, of an unfair but so, so innocent a wish from this unforgiving, insufficient world. i think we’re listening to different versions of the same song. a song about a weird intimacy and loathing, maybe advocacy, for oneself. today, i am playing mine. i hope you like it, or like me, or at the very least, that you’re like me.

🇸🇦 Storm and Hail in Zulfi, Saudi Arabia

⚠️ On February 12, 2025, the city of Zulfi in Saudi Arabia was hit by a powerful storm accompanied by strong winds, heavy rain, and hail. Intense precipitation led to reduced visibility, traffic disruptions, and potential damage to buildings and vehicles.

‼️ Local authorities are urging residents to exercise caution. The situation remains challenging.