سکوت – Stillness

Time. Can you count it? Seconds, minutes, hours, years… yes years. They pass. Can you count them? Ofcourse you can. It’s been 2 years since we last met. It’s been two and a half years since i last layed on this bed in my room. Where time stands still, like all the toys in the huge wooden shelf standing tall against one of the walls. All my dolls, books, teady bears, trophies from school and college, photographs, diaries and my old broken computer. My whole life. My everything summed up. It all stays here, on the same spot, collecting dust and memories. Silent. Still. Nothing ever moves. My mother, who is a bit weaker now than she was two and a half years ago, she doesn’t let anything move. She pickes up things, cleans them and put them on the same spot as they were. It’s been two and a half years since i last visited my room. It’s been 20 years since i put my toys in their spots for the first time.

My room.. it reminds me of you. All those years that i spent talking to you in this room, when a second would feel like eternity. The air, it smells of you. Of us. Of what was never meant to be. Out of all the feelings bubbling up in my heart while lying in this room, your memory is the strongest. It stands still, on its spot, in my room, in the air. Like other toys in the big wooden shelf. It won’t move. Years would pass. Years have passed.

But time… it stands still. Frozen. It hasn’t passed. It can not be counted. Like years. It has made my father older, my brothers stronger and my mother weaker. But everything else is the same. As it was two and a half years ago, three and a half years ago and five years ago. I am home. I feel as if i float here, weightless and still. Burden on the shoulders feel lighter. Walls surround me, walls of unconditional love. Walls that once suffocated me. After years now, they make me feel safe.

Some things, just a few, have changed though. All those years did not pass in vain. They have filled my father’s life with some more hardships, some more pain that’s intense. My mother’s life with some more dreams and uncontentment and my brother’s lives with sime tough life experiences. Their faces look mature now, it breaks my heart. Their eyes shine with the same naughtiness that was there, years ago. One of them is still the most sensitive, one still the most angry and one still the most calm and sensible. Like they were before the years passed. When we were children. When i lived with them. Here. In this house. Where time stands still. Nothing has changed after all the years. This, is still my world. I belong here. In the world that doesn’t change with the years that pass. The world that holds the six people, who mean the world to me. Yes, including you. It’s still you. It always were you. My heart, after all those years, never opened again. Like time in my house, it stands still. On its spot. Closed. Shut. Holding my world of straws. Protecting it from years that pass. Through time.

Time. That can never be counted. Only lived.

 

— My visit to Pakistan. 10th March – 24th March 2019.

I Don’t Wanna Cry Daddy

There was a time when I used to write poems when I was sad and had to ease my pain. I wanted to tell the whole world how miserable I am and how painful my life is. I don’t know why but I liked receiving pity. No one could imagine what I went through, and I tried hard to shout and tell everyone here in blog-o-sphere. May be it was my way of a catharsis. Everyone here, specially some beautiful friends helped me so much emotionally.

Then things changed and I stopped writing poetry. Pain was a strong driving force for me to write. It’s intensity lessened. So did my interest in writing. I just wrote a poem again, after I guess two or so years. It’s my life story, more or less. I don’t remember how to use fancy words and amazing allegoric phrases. It is a very simple poem written in very very simple and plain words. There would be many poetic mistakes, but it comes straight from my heart, that weeps right now.

Is it worth reading or not, that’s upon you to decide.

 

Full of life, shinning eyes

Energetic box of chatter

I don’t wanna cry daddy

She writes him a letter

 

Shivering hands holding a pen

Scribbles on paper damp with tears

She shows him her bruised heart

Filled with heartbreaking fears

 

I am in so much pain , daddy

It doesn’t go, no matter what I do

You are so far away from me

All I need is a hug from you

 

As I laid with head on your arm

Be happy always, you used to say

May you never guess grief in my laugh

Now, while on the telephone I pray

 

You used to call me your innocent fairy

Guess what daddy, the innocence was gone

Long before my sensitive heart needed love

And I searched for it in strangers unknown

 

I needed a friend daddy, to share tales

To listen to my problems, hold my hand

While you were busy earning money

Life tore me apart, turned me to sand

 

My nights became so agonizing and long

Burning wounds, dying soul, bloody eyes

I cried and cried daddy I was so lonely

But in the day I covered it all with lies

 

And then you married me off to far away land

I saw you cry while you gave away my hand

I had a chance to tell you what I went through

Instead, I’m happy, I silently made you understand

 

This time daddy, after a few years

I went through the same heart break

The demons under my bed followed

The curse once again kept me awake

 

The pain tortured your little girl daddy

She needed the mask she used to wear

People changed, circumstances different

But the old depression won’t disappear

 

But guess what daddy, all that suffering

After mourning all night for so many years

Your girl refused to live and enjoy misery

She fought with her demons, faced her fears

 

Tears and pain made her strong

She fought and got her Allah back

Blocked memories that ate her flesh

Forced her dead soul back on track

 

Love and Pain both here but outlook changed

Heart silent, loneliness there but no despair

Still afraid of watching dreams as they shatter

But refusing to live in misery, I stopped to care

 

Remember the day when you were sick

Devastated, love you daddy, I cried aloud

Your little girl daddy, is all grown up

And all I wish is to make you proud

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About A Dream.

Dream. ©Lala Rukh

There is this beautiful garden fenced in by tall trees. Some flowers along the sides, a bench in the corner facing the setting sun. The kind of bench in tales. Where you dream to sit with the one you love, staring at the peace lingering in the air. Where leaves are somehow greener than usual and where flowers smell better than most expensive scents of this world. Where birds chirp to compose melodies so soothing that you wish time to stop there for a while. Where grass dances with the wind and tickles your feet. And where we, us together, sit and stare at the sun trying to hide away in the clouds, being brighter that ever. Diffusing warmth inside our hearts. And where our hands touch,meet, as if they were made to be in each others embrace forever.

Perfection find it’s meaning here. May be it’s heaven.

May be it’s a dream.

But then. Something, may be reality, yanks you to life. Or may be it was life itself.

You discern. You realize.

This place. This beautiful place. That felt almost enchanted to you, it’s not special. It’s ordinary. Nothing is perfect here.

You realize, perfection lies only in dreams. And you remember, your dreams were always meant to shatter.

The air, that you imagined holding peace, suffocates you. The leaves are not so green either, they turn black, they wither and fall right in front of your eyes. Birds here don’t sing. They mourn. Flowers smell of burning desires, grass doesn’t dance either. It moans with it’s head down.

The beautiful garden, is not beautiful anymore. Not so perfect. It’s ugly.

The sun, it’s burning everything alive. It always burns. You were wrong to expect warmth from it. You were wrong to expect at all. Expectations are meant to be failed.

Your hands, sitting comfortably in each others embrace, shiver, are pulled apart.

And then you realize, you were all alone there. Always alone. Forever alone. The person you love was never meant to be a part of your dreams.

Your dreams, huh, your dreams. Dreams which were shattered once, so hard and so painfully, that your eyes would quiver with fear before thinking of watching them again. Dreams that once injured your heart and your soul so bad, that blisters there would ooze blood every time you took a breath. Dreams, that you promised yourself never to watch again.

How dare you break that promise? How dare you see a beautiful dream again.

It was meant to be shaken up, broken and shattered. It was meant to hurt you once again.

You realize, doing the forbidden never brings Love. Just tears. And tears are words that need to be written, after all.

 

I Find Myself Scattered…

I find myself scattered amid times age-old

In myths beyond expression, In tales untold

In sinful thought of a saint with heart unsure

In glare of kindness that emits from a whore

In pure love between a couple,weirdest of all

Man as tiny as a dwarf, Girl so fat and tall

In the winds that blow away veil of a wise girl

With face painfully ugly, eyes green like pearl

I find myself scattered amid times age-old

In myths beyond expression, In tales untold

In wildest fears of Syrian Refugees in a boat

In eyes of Peshawar child, knife at his throat

In the fire that burn Gaza’s screaming new-born

In bullets fired at her mother with ripped womb

In hopeful eyes of tiny girl fighting with Cancer

In ungratefulness of healthy finding no answer

I find myself scattered amid times age-old

In myths beyond expression, In tales untold

In the Kaaba of my soul, In Prayers unheard

In pleasant sounding sad chirps of a caged bird

In emptiness of Namaz, In pleasures of Love

In finding Him in heart, not in the sky above

I find myself scattered everywhere but in me

Help me gather up myself, Please let me BE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Seeking, knowing and Loving. On understanding Islam in it’s meaning as a whole.

“Love is the water of life and a Lover is the soul of fire. The universe turns differently when fire loves water” Forty Rules Of Love.

 

I need to arrange this mess in my mind. I need to remind myself once again that I should keep walking no matter what.

There was a time when I read Quran with meanings for the first time. I fell in love with the writer. I started relating quranic teachings with events in my everyday life. I’d pray five times and would stay away from everything that Allah forbade me. I started playing according to the rules. Love was the reason.

Then, with time when I encountered life rendering events, when my vision became broader and I inquired about life more closely, I got confused. Literal meanings and rules of Islam and people following them literally filled my mind with contradiction and heart with turmoil.

When I was on the verge of getting out of the circle of Islam (with my own consent), I was pushed back in (again with my own consent) with the help of right knowledge I needed at that time. Love was the reason once again.

By categorizing Muslims into different types, I learnt to blame people for insane acts, not the religion that they follow. If I wouldn’t have categorized them, I certainly would have lost trust and faith in my religion and myself till now.

The Extremists:

They are the most dominant at present and known to be the only type of Muslims by other countries. They include Scholars and heads of Islam (as they call themselves). All the Molvi’s, Mowlaana’s, fatwa giving mufti’s and everyone who follows them blindly fall in this category.

These are the people who take out bits and pieces of ayah’s of Quran, speak out about the ones they like and miss out the one’s they don’t. And then use them as an excuse to do activities they actually want to do. Probably that’s why one half told truth is dangerous than a thousand lies.

Suicide bombing, killing innocent people, spreading war, training children’s minds for fighting against non-believers, suppressing and beating women, dreaming inappropriately for virgins in heaven, killing people in the name of Prophet Muhammad and calling every other ‘Muslim’ as a ‘non-believer’ who don’t abide by their rules. That is what they do and believe in.

The moderate:

These Muslims are the ones who were born Muslims and they take it for granted. Their lives are more influenced by the society rather than religion. They learn reading Quran with a good accent in Arabic at the age of 8, learn saying their prayer and many short ayah’s by heart at the age of 10 and complete the definition of ‘true Muslim’ by praying five times a day at mosque and reciting some pages of Quran daily at the age of 12. Every other Muslim who don’t follow this routine is only a ‘Muslim-by-name’ (for them). They pass their lives according to the rules of Quran they learn from their Islamic studies text books in school and college.

These Muslims are the ones who sneeze and say ‘Shaker-Alhamdullilah’ (Thanks to Allah) without knowing why are they thanking Him.

For them, alcohol is strictly prohibited in Islam but at the same time they talk behind people’s back without knowing that Allah dislikes speaking ill of a fellow behind his back much, much more than drinking alcohol.

They admit that their prayers are filled with worldly thoughts and sometimes not for a single second do Allah comes in their mind. But they still follow the routine with a hope. May be if they attend the class, they get to pass even if they don’t pay attention to the lecture. Hope is the reason to live on.

They don’t search. They are intended with what they got. They are like the stagnant pond which don’t want to be a part of ever flowing sea.

The Searchers:

These Muslims are the ones who struggle to search for the hidden. They start their journey in the boat of religious rules but then, they dive into the sea and become a part of it.

They understand Quran with it’s meanings and try to relate everything they read with their life. Then their heart is opened for love by Allah and their struggle goes on. Slowly they start understanding Quran with it’s hidden meanings other than the literal ones.

For them, religious rules are important only if they don’t cover their sight. If they don’t stop them from becoming one with the whole. They spread love, fight against their ego, feel pleasure in pain and ecstasy in serving humanity.

They find Allah within themselves, within their hearts. For Love they live and for love they die…

Since now, I had many fierce questions which I wanted to ask Allah, about the religion He sent and about His rules. At this second, I have all the answers. This journey between unknown and known is mysterious to me.

He made different people with different qualities and natures. This shows how Great He is. Being aware of the thoughts of every single person, He set out different rules to control them. For some He introduced the idea of an afterlife, a heaven and a Hell. He became a grocer who will weigh their good and bad acts. For some greedy ones, He produced every luxury in heaven. For some nasty ones, He produced beautiful virgins. For some, He simply sow a seed of Love in heart and give them control of whether to nourish it or to let it die. Like a mother who knows which kid wishes for which treat and which one fears of which imaginary ghost.

He just likes to be remembered in return. He likes to be searched. He likes to reveal himself to those who seek His Love.

All praise worthy He is.He don’t see the acts, He sees the intentions. He knows how unique has He made every single being and how will He judge one. Why worry about the afterlife, an imaginary world when we can experience heaven and hell in this very moment.

In the journey of seeking truth, I am still a traveler. My mind gets messed up and then cleared. My heart empties and gets filled again. I am still learning to Love and I want to struggle to know more.

Help me in my struggle. Be my mirror. Complete me. Teach me to Love again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once In A Blue Moon

This world’s pain, so intense and vast

My pain seems very little in contrast

I forget my pain as I start to mark

Human’s wounded soul & bleeding heart

Every once in a blue moon, a phase comes in everyone’s life where they have to stop and look back—To compare what they had with what they have and to assume what they will have in future.

This phase comes in my life very often. A crucial time when a sharp beep echoes in my brain and urge it to think day and night without taking any rest. This beep cuts my nerves and bleeds them to death. Leaving me no choice but to cry it out for hours to get rid of it and then my mind goes back to being numb and dumb.

This phase has left me with a question this time, ‘Is Love necessary for a successful relationship?’

I put care, respect and fondness in one plate of the measure pan and Love in the other but nothing seems to be heavier than the other. One of them has to go down….

At this point, Love brings a slight sadness in my heart. Sadness that gives me a feel of warmness and care. A feeling that assures me of being special. An emotion that still awakes every sense in me and digs up every cornered grave in my heart. Love, that is abandoned but still lit up a candle of hope in me…. Hope that never sees whether it is needed or not.

On the other hand care, respect and fondness—as much they appear to be a permanent part of my whole life, seem valueless. As my mind gets lost while wandering between these, my heart drags itself along.

My absurd philosophy makes sense only to me but let me say, Love brings expectations with it and coping up with the expectations is very hard. Without love, you accept whatever life offers you. So for me, Love is not necessary to have a successful relationship, though I would never say a dear and a peaceful one.

As I would be busy straightening up my tangled emotions right now, this world would be grieving–over the deaths of loved ones, over living under the line of poverty, over suicides, over corruption, over terrorism, over being divided into sects, over unemployment and low literacy rate and over dying because of hunger.

Is my pain really worth getting written here? I don’t think so.

 

 

Cracked Pink Mirror

Holding a small cracked pink mirror in her right hand she would stare at her bald head for hours. Her lifeless stone eyes would feel focused and concentrated as if they were trying to break the mirror into pieces with their melancholic gaze. Left corner of her bottom lip was swelled with bruises and clogged blood on it. A similar kind of wound could be seen at the center of her neck near the collar bone. Sometimes when she couldn’t stare at the mirror, her hands could be seen scratching her wounds with her sharp nails. It was impossible for her to rest her hands even for a few seconds. That’s what her Mother would say, three years ago, when she would keep herself busy in doing unnecessary chores along with the necessary ones. Three years later, her habits were more or less the same.

Close your eyes and think about the happy moments in your life if you want to end your depression, a voice would echo in her head. She would close her eyes but she could see nothing except the haunting black darkness. You come alone in this world and you have to return back alone. At some point in life, every relation fades away from your life. It is you who are left, hanging alone between the sky and the ground. Just start living for yourself, the voice would continue. She would look around gently and smile. He would smile back. She never was alone.

Thick tear drops would come out of her stone eyes and get absorbed in the pillow when she would yell and cry her throat out. Her feet could be seen rubbing against the hospital bed. Her fists clenched, struggling with immense pain. Eyes, closed so tightly as if they would crack themselves from inside, like her cracked pink mirror. She had to go through the same, everyday for three years. Her cracked pink mirror wasn’t broken yet. He always gives you the amount of pain that you can bear. She sure was made tough enough.

It spread in her blood through her veins, like the same way love spread once. Suffering was the same. The only difference was that love used to kill her everyday while this would kill her once and for all. Waiting for death is awful. Waiting is always awful. Death on the other hand is comforting. It gives life. It completes the cycle.

Love was necessary, so were the departures.

White is life, black is death. Living in the shades of grey is always painful.

She has Him. Who knows He would hold her hand gently and walk her to the black meadows or He would let her rejoin white.

Only in the darkness can you see the stars.

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‘Ishq’

As drops of summer rain plows her barren land of heart

Desire of ‘Wisaal‘ sprouts; years of ‘Separation‘ cut apart

Renunciation of will, ecstatic pain of love’s desire grows

With the light of ‘Irfan‘, ruptured veins of her soul glows

‘Self‘ is abandoned; dew of ‘love‘ turns her dust into mud

From the very bosom of self, arises the scent of beloved

This tightly coiled fire of love is neither requited nor denied

Conventional ‘wisdom‘ reverses, ‘Junoon‘ cries out with pride

Shackles of ‘reason‘ are broken, It’s wise lectures are declined

Wish to become dust of His feet echoes in her oblivious mind

Then crushed soul leaves the body, far away from time and space

It becomes One with beloved while ‘Nafs‘ drowns in His grace

Human unites with God, Divine unites with Man; a bridge is done

Rhythm in the cry of ‘Hu‘ merges with the melody of ultimate One !

Secrets are unveiled, paradoxes solved, mystical assent completes

Levels of ‘Ishq‘ conquered, Mortality and immortality finally meets

Annihilation, ‘Fan’a‘; Death is all left behind, nothing to be afraid

Contentment in non-existence, euphoria from the death of blade.

(Wisaal:Reunite, Irfan:theological philosophy which seeks to describe being, Junoon:Madness, Nafs:Ego,  Hu: Sound that imprint marks on heart, part of Allah’s name, Fan’a: Ultimate destruction)

 

This poem is dedicated to all the lovers of Allah, experiencing Ishq-e-haqiqui. Love is just a primary stage in the journey of Ishq. I have tried to explain all the levels of Ishq in my poem, through which one passes to reach the ultimate level, the level of death. May Allah blesses us with His Ishq.

The Realistic Fiction – A Memoir

One of the other gloomiest nights wears on to a morning. She rolls her fingers over her already half-opened eyes and pulls her husband’s arm softly aside to get out of the bed. After a while, she was fastening the laces of her pink Nike trainers and ready to jog ! She knew, she’d run so hard today that her feet would feel wounded and her legs would hurt like hell. Her breath would feel irregular for hours and her heart would beat in her ears for long. And after all that, she won’t still stop. She’d jog until all the energy inside her body would be drained out. And today wasn’t different from the other days that had been creeping slowly.

Why such torture on her own self ? She had no concrete answer.

With his head filled with confusions, he turned the page. He had started reading this fiction written on a beautiful white leather covered diary but after reading only the first page, he felt some things strangely familiar. As if, he actually knows the heroine of this story…. As if….

May be, to trick her mind into thinking about her tired body rather than her ruptured heart full of fears of the future and guilt of the past. May be, to get rid of those painful anxiety attacks and depression disorders. Or maybe, just to distract herself from her own self. Sometimes, the un-satisfying reasons you give yourself are not important enough.

“I can’t have a child. I am not able enough to bring a new life into this world. For all my life I have done nothing but to hurt my loved ones. I can’t be a parent I am a total mess”

For years, these small sentences were often followed by painful cries while she’d go to sleep at nights, with needles tingling all over her body and rapid breaths getting out of control. Her husband would sit aside holding her hands and pushing her head against his chest. Sometimes, silent presence of a loved one is better that a thousand empty words. He was her doctor, her friend and her faith.

The day when their baby was born, her eyes smiled while staring at his eyes with pride. The pride of winning the battle against anxiety and depression while fighting together, the pride of loving and being loved innocently and purely — and most importantly, the pride of being a Mother !

He couldn’t find himself strong enough to read another hundred or more pages. This fiction was not a fiction, as this diary was not just a diary. 

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I am sitting in my bed today watching Mother’s day programs on Tv. He comes rushing towards me and hides himself  in my embrace, as he used to do when he was a kid.

“I love you, Mama ! I won’t be able to thank you for the priceless love you have given me in all these years, and I want to tell you that you are important to me more than anyone in the whole world. Everyone loved you mama, they just didn’t express their love the way you needed. I don’t want to be like them“

Saying these words, he hands me over a copy of this famous magazine. I open that half folded page in curiosity and there I see, my 25 year old story published in a neater version with my name.

I recalled, I was scared of writing diaries because the thought of getting exposed and judged frightened me. That’s why I started giving my daily anecdotes a color of fiction.

He understood my ‘fiction’ when nobody could. I wonder, how many more strange habits had he taken from his father ?

Inspired by The Daily Post.

I Am That Little Girl Today…..

I am the 8 years old me today. Thinking about the time when I was laying in my dark lonely room and when for the first time I cried, not for some childish wish to get fulfilled but with pain… because of intense pain that I felt in my heart. For the first time when I was 8. When I saw one of my brothers sleeping on one arm of my father and the other brother on the other arm. I stood there beside the door staring at them while he told them stories, of fairies and brave commandos till they fell asleep. I stared at his arms and wished for sleeping there for once, only for once but that wish never got fulfilled. Wishes have been abandoned for me since then. Instead of telling my father what I wished for that night, I came to my room and cried. That was my first real encounter with tears. Tears, that have been my friends since I was 8.

And then I remember the time when I was 15. My uncle gifted me a cell phone and I used to send random jokes to my friends when one day I met a wrong number. That wrong number remained a wrong number for me, besides he would talk to me and I would listen. I never knew his real name or who he was or where he lived. What I knew was that he was the one person in my life who would listen to whatever I had to share with him. Every problem, every change in my life, every reality revealed… I would speak and he would listen. He became my one best friend. Back then, I didn’t know that my society don’t understand or accept this kind of friendship. All I knew was that I have got someone who understands me.

And one day my mom caught me texting with him. She read our texts and all that she understood by reading them, was that I was talking to a boy. That was the first time when I got cursed. At the age of 15. My mind will collapse if I’ll try to think about what happened next but all that I remember now, is a miserable me, sitting next to my mother and staring at her lap with a boiling wish of putting my head in there and crying out loud. But I never was able to gather that much courage to do that. I used to crave sharing my matters with her and cry on her shoulder but never got a chance. I wasn’t strong enough to tell them who I am. I was afraid they would abandon me if they’d know the real me.

Every night is a night in hell for me, since then. These nights taught me how to fake emotions and how to wear a smile in public. They taught me how to collapse in the dark and weep till I gather strength to stand up in the day light. I admit, I am emotionally weak and I craved emotional support since I was 8. Yes, I am selfish because I never got expression of love that I wanted and every illusion of love felt real to me since then. I admit that I am hateful because I forget every other thing when a little ray of love strikes my heart. For all my life I have begged for love and care, I have rubbed my heels on broken stones to get a single second of peace and serenity.

I may have done thousands of sins to get a little satisfaction of being cared, but I am not that bad, am I ? Every time I loved, I ended up empty-handed. I am shedding tears in this very room of mine for 14 whole years and I am tired now. I understand that I am hateful and you have every right to hate me. I too hate myself so much that no one can even imagine. I understand that I screw things up for everyone whether it be my parents or the person I love, or the person that I was meant to love. I am tired. If I get to bear the same pain all over again, I would die. And that pain has started consuming me once again. It would have been better if it wouldn’t have gone at all, in the first place.

I really wish memories could be erased just like that…. with a little push on the button of backspace. And I really wish I could sleep one day without the burden of endless regrets, pain and guilt on my shoulders, In tranquility !

 

 

Hiatus

An elegant beauty with glassy, unblinking eyes and a straight face veiled in abyss.He couldn’t find better words to illustrate her charm at that time, in his mind.He sat next to her on the bench she was sitting, with her hands clenched to the corners.

“I thought you have stopped thinking like you used to do. That deeply.”

“I tried but I couldn’t” She replied with a thousand years tiredness echoing in her voice.

He nodded his head as if he understood what she didn’t say. They told each other their stories, the day to day activities, those pleasant smiles and the tears followed by them, In a silent conversation. Silence was there to speak, words were never enough for them.

He looked around to pause and all of a sudden she disappeared. A tiny regret occupied his heart, he shouldn’t have shook his head. He knew, she has to return to the reality.

He has to return too, but he knew they will keep meeting like this, in the meadows where dreams meet reality.

He was satisfied, she was happy. She was satisfied, she wasn’t there in his life to create troubles.

While watching them vanish into the thick fog of reality, the meadows almost cried. For they knew, once they both wished and insisted Him to be with each other….

Meadows didn’t know, life is a step more than this greenery that brown bench and ‘love’.

He smiled and continued merging reality with eternity.

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Moving on….

“And yes, you moved on… So easily ! It didn’t even take you a while.”

He cries with a voice brimming with pain.

She sighed. That’s what she do when words cut like knives. Words… That are not actually words, but boiling emotions seal packed in some random alphabets.

“You say I moved on…. Yes,maybe I did.”

4 whole years of painful depression were quite enough for me to understand that ‘this’ is not life. Life is something else…. Something better. Four years, i prayed for you….. He listened to and replied to each prayer i made but this one.

“aur insaan shar ko aisay mangta hai jesay khair ko… Aur insaan bara hi jaldbaaz waqay hua hai”

Your ishq led me to His ishq… And i did kufr for four whole years by holding on to mere ishq e majazi along with the ishq of supreme. You taught me the meaning of love…. But you never knew it yourself.

The minute i stopped praying to be with you….He announced his descision….His will….His orders.

And now after just 3 months of my marriage i have learnt…..He is after all the best planner.

The person He gave me loves me….and this love is the sacred one…bounded in the walls of marriage.

Tell me one reason to hold on to you still… It doesn’t matter now who i love…. What matters is that i have to live…happily..for the persons who love me….for myself.

And i am happy…. Expectations hurt and i don’t expect. Life gives me a new surprise daily and i am accepting His will. 

Your love lies inside my heart….like a bare thorn pricking and tingling the walls but it can’t come out…. My heart cries but there is someone now to wipe my tears off. You were not made for me…. Our love was forbidden.

And they say forbidden love teaches you the lessons and secrets which no knowledge can. 

May be that’s why people pass their whole lives searching for Him while He lives so close to them…but they can’t “get” Him… He likes to be searched.

You say i moved on…. 

Should i continue trying to move on or should i hold on and fight with what He wants? 

I’ll do whatever you decide.”

He stares at her with red stone eyes…. 

She spread her hands to pray for him…..

Love never dies but it can stay in the abandoned graves of heart….

She weeps and prays for him…till she return back to her “moved on” happy satisfied life…

Things have always been complicated for them….thet still are. Trying to solve these complications is the key.

She tried…. he’ll too one day.

“…….aur pher hoga wohi jo meri chahat hai”

                     ………………………………

This post is not edited…. just wrote it on my phone and felt like posting it. I’ll reply to all your comments and start regular blogging in a while. Thanks to all of you who still read my useless posts.

 

Why ?

Sacredness makes me strong

Blessed with wings but I creep along

Carving words of silence, I sing a song

In Meadows, Beyond ideas of right and wrong

Lies the soul absorbing light through the pierced wounds

Home of love invite to be the guest unknown

Paths to you are shown by trees long

I Search inside where you belong

Empty-handed, I still Roam.

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I don’t know if this photo prompt relates completely to my words or not but these were the thoughts that came into my mind when I first saw it. As I am feeling down these days too so couldn’t come up with anything creative. I hope you’ll bear me with that.

This poem is written in response to Daily Prompt and Friday Fictioneers. Click on the link to see other awesome entries this week.

Photo Copyright – Björn Rudberg.

 

 

I Don’t Need Chicken Pieces….

Source : This

She is stirring Chicken curry in a black stainless steel pot when I see these thin tiny wrinkles on her hands. She pours some of the Gravy with my favorite chicken piece in a white bowl and hands it to me.

“I’ve made your favorite food today” A confused smile captures her beautiful face.

Her eyes fighting with a fear that her daughter might still be angry over last night’s fight and her heart assuring and reassuring her, No she isn’t.

One warm desperate tear flows out of my eye.

I can see my soul that gets up and hugs her passionately leaving my stone-heart body behind.

I take a bite of chicken piece that cuddles up with the tears stuck in my throat and a soothing peace occupies her face.

She puts a glass of water beside my plate leaves the kitchen.

All these years I kept complaining to myself and she kept cooking my favorite dishes. She never understood that I wanted more than my favorite chicken pieces and I never realized that I’ve to tell her that.

Nodding my head upside down wasn’t easy that time but her face glowed with an ethereal shine and my heart swam into the pleasure. The pleasure of watching happiness on her face because of me, for the first time. This time, she didn’t even try to hide it, she ACTUALLY hugged me.

She didn’t realize that all my life, I never ate the pieces I didn’t like.

I’m waiting for the surprises life has to offer after 10 more days.

I wonder how beautiful I’d be looking, wearing my bridal dress on a body in which a stone pumps white blood in the ruptured veins and it spills out on the grave of broken dreams caged in shackles of love and respect for my parents.

I hate chicken curry now and she doesn’t know that.

I wish she could know, ever.

Love, Coffee And Lavender Truffles

Credit:: THIS

“I’ve spent years chasing the tail of my darkness; the same darkness that has once again blurred my vision”, Harry thought, as he lay the phone in its cradle. He’d been expecting this news in quite the same way you expect winter to follow autumn. But just as you can never prepare yourself for bone-chilling winds, you can never prepare your heart for the loss. Poor Ron. His voice had been shaking as he gave Harry the news that Hermione was gone.

Harry cupped his mug of coffee in both hands and sunk into the chair trying to distract his thoughts.The warmth of coffee mug seeped into his fingers as he clutched it and gazed at the deep brown liquid. He wished Ginny had made this coffee. She always had a way of choosing just the right amount of ground coffee beans to use. Since Ginny died after thirty years of passing out from Hogwarts, he never had been to that coffee shop they used to visit together. The coffee shop smelled of musk with a hint of cinnamon that was too close to Ginny’s essence.

He squinted out the window and caught a glimpse of the sun.  He felt a vague sense of whiplash witnessing a sunny day knowing that the earth travels at thirty kilometers per second in its daily trek around the sun and spins zero point five kilometers around its own axis. He remembered Ginny teasing him with all those magic spells when he would spout the mathematical trivia.

Shifting in his chair, he tried to focus his eyes on  Paul Cézanne’s painting ‘The Card Players’ that Ginny had hung on the wall of their lounge three years ago.  The painting looked like it was drowning as his tears welled.  His mind kept straying back to Ron’s call.

Hermione. Her presence on the planet had always been enough for him; it didn’t matter that they weren’t together. They spent her birthdays together every year and he had fulfilled her every wish silently in the form of birthday gifts. Six years in Hogwarts and six birthdays, one year for every day it takes the moon to orbit the earth with a speed of 3680 km/hr.

He recalled one of her birthdays when he took her to The Wonderland following the footsteps of Alice. He had allowed himself to swim, just for a few minutes, in the depths of her azure eyes making a straight angle of 180 degrees that day. They wandered there all day meeting the king and queen of hearts, Mother bird, Mary Ann and white rabbit, all her favorite characters and they celebrated her birthday with special lavender truffles that were made of rich dark chocolate infused with lavender and cardamom and some flavors of hot chocolate.

Even though she only glanced over her shoulder when he took her back to Hogwarts, he waited. And hoped, like the forever unknown ‘x’.  But two months later, Hermione and Ron announced their engagement and Harry knew he waited in vain.  He mustered his strength to achieve an escape velocity. With time as he settled into his new trajectory around Ginny, he felt Hermione’s gravitational pull for long.

But now Hermione had succumbed to the cancer that had been wreaking havoc on her for five years. Memories:  that’s all he would have of her now.  Maybe that’s all he ever had.

He pushed his chair away from the table and decided to get ready. He had to meet Miss J. K Rowling to make a quick apology and he was sure that she’d forgive him.

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Note: The characters Harry, Ron and Hermione are JUST characters. I took these names because their background history was already clear to you. You can take them as characters of Harry Potter OR some other people who studied in Hogwarts, choice is your’s but please don’t read this story as a continuity to the Harry Potter stories.

This is my 598 words response to the Speakeasy weekly writing prompt, which is to write a piece in 750 or less words  (1) using “I have spent years chasing the tail of my darkness.” as the first sentence, and (2) make some reference to the art prompt, The Card Players, one of a series of paintings by Paul Cézanne.

The challenge is open to anyone, so if you’re inspired, click the badge below to check out the challenge details!

 

On Her Birthday

“‘Whatever’ was the reaction of your Mom when I first proposed her, but I didn’t stop trying” Speaking in a soft low voice he seemed to be lost in thick layers of mist while travelling down the memory lane.

“My heart will go on……“ The song was playing in the background. She was working as usual, I was looking at her as usual. It was the third time when I planned to propose her, I was serious this time.

It was the same day, the day of her birthday. I asked her to come out, she did. It was raining. Rain drops were shimmering on her glowing skin. I came closer and took out a diamond ring from red velvet box. Her face expressions changed. I sat on my knee, moved up my hand with the diamond ring and said, “Marry Me M’Love“.

She leaned some steps backward. The shine on her face turned pale. I got worried. She never reacted like that. She was nodding her head sideways and she started walking, turning her back on me. She wanted to hide her tears, I noticed them dissolving in the rain drops.

I ran after her, grabbed her hand from behind and pulled her towards myself.

“Why? You have to give me a reason today“.

She looked into my eyes for some seconds and her voice quivered as she spoke, “I am at the last stage of cancer”

The world paused. My heart forgot beating. My breaths were stuck in my throat.

She gave a dull smile and said, “I expected the same“.

I stepped forward, pulled out the ring, slipped it into her finger and said, “My Love for you is beyond any expectations“.

She died on her birthday two years after our marriage.

Sometimes she’d say to me, “You are my pride. Your Love gives me strength. I can die peacefully in your Love’s embrace”

His tears fell on the birthday cake in his hands as he blew off the candle.

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This 333 words story is written for Trifecta Challenge. This week’s task was to use the third definition of WHATEVER in a story of words between 33 and 333. Voting here starts on Friday, so if you liked my story don’t forget to vote.

Truth That Consumed Her -A Short Story

Who am I ? Where am I ? Many questions bubbled onto the surface her mind as she opened her eyes. At first she couldn’t see anything, her vision was blurred with a thin white sheet of mist.

She was laying in a small room. A dim yellow light was trying to make her vision clear but it couldn’t. She tried to move her arms and after struggling for a while, they were in a position to let her sit with her back resting along the headboard.

A bouquet of withered old flowers was resting on the side table along with a tray of tablets. A fan was running slowly on the ceiling which could produce no air but only an unpleasant noise. Her bed was white colored, made of steel. Soon she figured out that she was in a hospital. But why ? What happened to her ? She searched for wounds on her body but couldn’t find any. She tried to move her body off the bed but she wasn’t able to move it. She tried to call out, words stuck in her throat.

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“Yes my darling I will take you both to the zoo in the evening” She spoke in her soft voice wrapped in love while driving the car.

“But we want to go now Mama” Both her twin kids who were the world to her were insisting.

“Today is your first day at school my Love, you can’t skip it. Mama promises you that she’ll take you to the zoo”

“Okay pinky promise?” They both forwarded their tiny hands with cute smiles on their faces.

She smiled and touched their fingers with her’s and kissed them both on their foreheads. She had tears in her eyes while watching them enter the school gate….Tears that are precious like white pearls in the ocean….like a mother’s love….like the first rain…..pure !

She turned back and was crossing the road when suddenly she felt herself in the air….the ground beneath her feet was gone and her mind blacked out.

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“How the hell am I supposed to let her live in my home?”

“She is still my wife, why can’t you understand that? Doctors said there are 1% chances of her coming out of the coma and that 1% chance saved her like a miracle.Where the hell is she supposed to go now?”

“I don’t know anything. I have given my 15 years to this home. I have been taking care of her kids for 15 years and now she is here to take control of my home? I can’t let this happen ever”

“She is not in a position of taking control of your house. She is on the wheel chair for God’s sake!! Let her live in a corner of our house. She won’t interfere in your matters, I guarantee that ! I know her……”

She heard a loud sound like someone has thrown a plate on the ground…..And she heard the rest of that too.

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“Ali?“

“Yes my love“

“Can we be more happier and satisfied than we are now? Can life be better than this?” She was staring at the countless stars on the dark black sky, glittering and glowing like her eyes.

“I don’t think so” He kissed her hand while looking at her and smiled.

“But it can be if you make me a cup of coffee right now?” she stared at his face where a naughty smile and pure love was gleaming.

“Okay but this is the last time”

“My darling wife I love you” He cried and She giggled.

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“Why is she here brother I don’t like her. You know mom told me that she was bad and she was never there for us when we needed her. I hate her”

“She was in a coma for 15 years ! She need us now”

She didn’t listen to her brother.

While leaving the room she saw her pulling the wheelchair towards her room holding a plate with two burgers in her hands.

She recalled, they loved burgers when they were kids.

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He is standing on a freshly made grave covered with red roses. He is crying hard with his hands stretched in the air. Why Allah? Why did you do that to my mother? No one needed her but I did. Why did you snatch the only happiness I had after 15 years? Why? Tears were flowing down his cheeks and collecting on his neck as he continued……

Here lies a wife and a mother who was best of both at one time. She returned to the world to have a second chance but cold truth and cruel realities didn’t let her avail it. Here lies a girl consumed by nothing but truth…Truth that can be like roses at one time and like thorns for the other. As they say,”Truth is rarely pure and never simple”.

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Related:

The Daily Prompt: TRUTH.

An Excruciating Spasm Of Guilt

Lies inside her silvered heart

A golden memory wrapped in layers of mist

And a guilt torn apart

Tiny finger wrapped in warmth

Of embrace of her graceful Mother’s hands

As she teaches her to walk forth

Having lunch on the first day

At school, feeling touch of her mother’s hand on bread

Smiles the shine in her eyes grey

While kids play with toys, she pour

Her innocent wishes to her Mother’s mind -laying in her lap

As her Mother teaches her to endure

Having a single meal that day

She Glances at her Mother sleeping peacefully- and recall

She had nothing but water today

As grains of sand slip through hand

Time flew by, fading her childhood in mystic wraps

Now she was a girl strong enough to stand

Cherished was the ethereal time

Befallen under shadows of her Mother’s Love Divine

Problems dimmed by the wind chimes

With a flash her world shattered

Broken was her Mother’s heart, by her words angry and harsh

-She left with tears flooded

And came back on a stretcher

Wounded-Lifeless her Mother’s lies on blood filled white sheet

With a brand new shawl there

Woman who walked with her mother;told

She bought this shawl for her beloved daughter

To make her anger cold

Mind paralyzed and confused

She looked at her Mother’s feet- and Remembered she had

No money to buy shoes.

A post written in response to The Daily Prompt.

An Open Letter To ‘Him’

Hey, Love !

Today is the day. Yes it is the day to finally tell you how I feel about you. Isn’t sharing our feelings with each other a rare thing for us now ?

Three whole years have passed by. Many years have yet to come. And you were there with me, like a shadow protecting a small nourishing plant with light green leaves and maiden buds, lying under the blue sky without any shelter but your shadow. You were there, right beside me by the dusk and dawn of my life… Through the most crucial times and the ecstatic ones. In my life’s dilemmas  whenever I have looked towards you with question marks in eyes, your words “I am here” have always proved out to be the best answers.

I reminisce the time when you told me that you love me , right after a week or so of seeing me. I was mad at you. Back then I didn’t believe in love  or most precisely ‘love at first sight‘ . I thought you may be like the other hundreds and thousands. I never knew you were ‘The One‘ . I broke your heart but I felt the pain myself. And when I realized that I love you too, it was too late. ‘Things‘ have not been at our side lately, Love. They never will be. Nature may not accept us as one but our hearts will keep this feeling sealed inside firmly.

“Your cheeks are so soft like a baby’s” , I said. And you smiled. If I was a painter, I would be painting by pouring out colors of you on the canvas. You are beautiful. Your dark brown eyes still haunt me at nights leaving me stunned by their charm. Your broad forehead where I used to write my name with my finger and your hands so firm yet delicately holding mine…. Your hair… I can still feel their smoothness on my fingers. Your fragrant breath perfuming mine. That sense of protection I have felt as you en-wrap me in your arms has no comparison. Your warm embrace always melts my frozen body. I can give away everything I have to get it back. I feel so weak and vulnerable without you. The way you used to hold my hands while driving and the way we used to eat together so comfortably is unforgettable.Your decency impressed me at first and your confident personality made me fall for you. You are beautiful, Love is beautiful.

I cherish every single time when I had your shoulder while crying away my miseries. I know staying with me emotionally is never been easy on you. No one could stay with a highly depressed bipolar patient but you did. I don’t see your face for months but your voice always has a magical effect on me. You have been my best friend. You know my every secret, every little detail about me. Things I have never shared to anyone. I revealed myself to you.And you have never let me down for this. You hide your problems just not to make me worry. The fact that you care for me and  I am important to you means everything to me. You once said , “I am nothing, with you I am everything” and I engraved those words on my heart. I trust you and I believe in you, Love.

I have always been complaining to you about how you are not giving me enough of your time to talk and you were not there when I needed you. I apologize to you for all those complaints today. I got you and I thought I have got a magical prince who will understand me without me sharing anything and who will stay with me all the time. I was living with you in a fantasy world. All my dreams and wishes are tied to you. Every time they break, I break. My life has never been anything more than pain and heart aches. You are my only medicine. I look up to you for everything Love. Let me live in the fantasy world. Coming in the reality scares me. Reality is bitter. Life is bitter.

They ask me to tell why do I cherish you. I cherish you because you are mine. I cherish our seraphic relationship. I cherish you because we stood up together against the nature who exerted its full effort to make us apart. We may not be together like people use to be in this world but we will be together in our own way, forever. Hot tears trickle through my eyes and slip through my cheeks as I write this. People say Love is pain. I say abandoned Love is pain.

Let us live in our own fantasy world. Let us make a home there by a river under green trees. Let us listen to the birds chirp and fresh breeze’s music together. Let us walk hand in hand in the moon light leaving foot prints on the sand. Let us get absorbed in the symphony of rain drops.Let us enjoy snow fall in December nights.Let us build our dreams again.Let us fall into silence as words have always been useless between us. Let us sing the songs of peace and compose our own tunes. Let us dive into the valley of Love and search for the exquisite pearls of happiness and contentment. Let us solve the paradox of life together. Let us breathe without our artificial masks in the fresh air. Let us forget the realities for a moment.Let us be ourselves. Let us live, Love and laugh together as we are one. We are made for each other. I love you and I will love you forever.

                                                                                                                                                           With Love,

Your one and only Love.

This post is written in response to Daily Prompt: My Number One.