dear stranger,
i looked through the crack of the window and you had let your hair down and the six o clock Karachi winds make me want to close my eyes and examine the sunshine patches on my hands and trace out the syntax of how your jaw clenches when you have bad news over the telephone and how the freckles on your nose don't give your red nose away and how you stare out at something in between cups of tea and you look down and swirl the liquid and it matches the colour of your skin -
sometimes my poems are what you were on a Wednesday morning - nightsky hair tied up into a hair bun with a red ribbon, one to match your heart. i see you on the sidelines, i write you down in words and everything that doesn't matter to you, matters to me. it matters to me how your eyes dart nervously and how the moon of last night left its traces on your starlight skin while you hold yourself and think of something and thoughts that breathe in between the surprised distance of your chapped lips -
you are the poem in my head because i write it down with how your smile digs into your cheeks and how your hair sticks out and you are the character from a book in the London rain but someone fit you into the wrong story so you laugh it out and are the girl who does not belong because her skin is too white for too much milk in her cup of tea - you glance at me in passing and i have already written you down in miles and miles of invisible ink
and i don't quite know how to deal with it, how to make you understand and grab you by the shoulder and explain to you that you are in my poetry and you are in my prose and they are both seventeen year old but seventeen means being young enough and foolish enough to fall in love momentarily and eternally with strangers and how they laugh and what they sing and how they see me seeing them
i see you, i see you - i see you right now because i asked myself what the patches of sunshine on my skin remind me of and it was you because my bones and my skin take you in and i find reasons to stay alive
so i pray to God that he takes your hand when the gravity of linoleum pride wants to take you west -i pray to God you break free, ride the wind and the wings of the sparrow someone told you were too far away, i pray to God you grease your hands trying to fix things someone said you couldn't and i pray to God that when the six o clock winds displace your hair and you turn your head slightly you find me and i am smiling and i have already written you down and prayed for you and held your hand inside my head and smiled for you in the quick moment i shift my eyes from you to something i don't quite see
love,
a friend
12 comments:
I feel like i can relate to this. you are an amazing writer.
I wonder who the lucky stranger is.
Mera dil...band sa hoagaya hay. Pata nahi kyon.
Ayesha, don't mind please, but let me tell you that you needs more intellectual audience as your readers who'd actually appreciate and analyze your writings rather than just passing moderate or generic comments. I know, mostly we say that we write only for ourselves and not for others but yet again, critique is what tells us how to improve. NO?
I digged out your blog, lately. And I loved the entire compilations. I completely relished this post. This very writing piece has some sort of vague gloominess. I loved the way you inter connected the thoughts and nicely woven them. I loved the unusual realistic way you referred to the skin tones. I simply loved the way you inter related the poetry and prose. I completely felt the beautifully explained subtle feel of love, of all that "bits of this and that".
Ayesha, I read this piece of yours, thrice. I am in love with the way you execute things.
This one is such a nice blend. It has got a soft touch,a bit of simplicity, an overall feel of a little melancholy, a little nostalgia, a little sweetness - over all perfect.
I wanted to be the stranger. Then I wanted to be the one who'd welcome that stranger. You just explained the scenarios with respect to Karachi, where you live. I felt it here, at this very other corner of the country - Peshawar.
Isn't it a huge thing for you as a writer to make your words so living so they'd be felt anywhere? It surely is.
- BOWS -
@Soveyba and Tuba: Thank you for dropping by! :D
@Tayyaba Baji: Mujhay khush hona chahiye ya sympathize karna chahiye? Samajh nai araha.
@Hira: Thank you so much for paying attention to the details. :) I don't know about intellectual audiences but I am very grateful for anyone who drops by and reads. :D Much love all the way from Karachi to Peshawar!
If words do that Aaisha, that means they are some strong, special words. And so are you.
And for what it is worth, I will tell you that you are one of the most heartbreakingly honest seventeen-year-old writer that I have come across and you are capable of weaving magic with words. So, this is to you, words which stop my heart and magic which leaves me breathless <3
This is so incredible, your words are so poetic, completely in synchrony with one another even in prose. It makes you want to read it over and over again. This is beyond beautiful, completely and utterly incredible.
Excerpt from Ammi's textbook: "Among the tribes of northern Natal in South Africa, the most common greeting, equivalent to 'hello' in English, is the expression: Sawu bona. It literally means, 'I see you.' If you are a member of the tribe, you might reply by saying Sikhona, 'I'm here.' The order of the exchange is important: until you see me, I do not exist. It's as if, when you see me, you bring me into existence."
Hi stranger. Thank you for existing. Wasalaam.
*dil*
Thank you for dropping by, Momina! :D
Sawu bona and Sikhona to you, Makola. <3
Out of words.
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