shams

shams, you and i are ek; i realized after maghrib when i saw you everywhere even in the place of the moon.

‘whenever i write the name of shams i sprinkle my favorite sugar on a paper wrapper’

Shams

A playlist of 67 songs; 9 on the waiting list; 6 hours of holding onto the entire adventure time soundtrack with my tissue paper hands; 2 bareek tectonic plates unleash systematic jolts from the tips of my fingers to the blood in my veins; ami thinks the iron supplements will fix it.  

she gives me dam wala paani and tells me to sleep; but sukoon to me submerges in the deep gaze i share with the calendar’s page for october; that jerk is 5 months away but ‘anytime now’ girl in red and earthquakes will inspire ami's doodles on my physics register; as she cries to nano about the earthquakes she saw in her almost always real dreams; 'anytime now’ keeps me awake till dawn.

ami rises for namaz and complains about my sleep schedule. 

it is dawn now.

 when layli’s (the night) curls are dawned (halka, halka) with the (foolish) wisdom of majnun (the day); when you shams are stark naked; stripped of the glory of immortality that you wished upon yourself as a child. you wanted more of the world's sweet praises showered upon you when you suppressed the fist apricot from the qamar ul din tree under your feet. i know that you know the seed captured your light inside it.

i know that you hide every once you see the moon like i do but do you leave a part of yourself behind when you emerge everyday at dawn like i do? do you find a new hiding spot everyday, or do you use the same old one because the moon never seeks you?

 i tell her, 'he does not like your slow songs, he has told you they put him to sleep’; when my fear of being seen makes me forget adhi ayat al kursi; i let go of the adventure time soundtrack because of you shams.

‘forget it, it is too obvious-

 eradicate it’. 

47 songs

in the afternoon i pretend to be the first person i see; i put myself in baba's shoes (well quite literally); an ant with her head protruding out of the elephant’s skin; a dark blue kurta; an abstract beard drawn on my face with a sharpie; arms crossed over my stomach.

i loom over my desk; i practice 9 times before booming in baba's deep voice ‘bohut parh liya puttar tunay’; this is not a question or a statement; it is a slap on the face. then silence.

the bloated roof is still sagging with the sizzling hemlock oil i tenderize baba’s heart with; from my (w)reckless uncensored beautiful words that escaped from tartarus which he tucked safe and sound safe and sound inside my chest. 

 the drops of hemlock oil (dheeme, dheeme) trickle down my face and make my beard vanish.

dado never let him trudge with his big black boots in the house; the soot and the tar would ruin the carpets; now that i am in his shoes i think the soot and the tar made home for termites; they are biting me.

i sit like a man and complain about the bills, boasting about my ‘liberal’ mindset; ‘do you know i let my wife work outside?’; the termites are biting. i cannot breathe.

shams today i make a plea to you; aaj lahore ki garmi ko mita dena; i am out of his shoes but the fire kiln he made inside me is burning; he throws his ghum and it’s shadow his anger in it; baba promises it will turn into tenderness only if i remain silent.

 lekn kab takk?

shams, do you really know what the moon looks like? have you touched him, are the scars on him nothing but mere illusions? do you think i can make my own moon with the ingredients passed down from baba to me?

‘i do not know what love is-

eradicate it’.

14 songs

i keep count of everything to prove to the world about how much i have traveled; how much i have read; i even tried to measure how much i've loved; but shams you brought me back, back to life by screaming, ‘are you trying to own the moonlight by measuring it in yards?’

 shams you and i are ek. ek is the only number you believe in and i do too. 

the moon stole your light to please me and i almost stole an entire playlist; words of so many others to please the moon; an entire stranger to me; rumi wrote his own verses after he drank wine in the tavern because he loved you; shams i do not even know my name, but i know that the world says with afsoos, ‘she is amongst the particles of the air when filled with the light of the sun they all enter the dance and never complain of the whirling.’

shams, you and i are ek; i realized after maghrib when i saw you everywhere even in the place of the moon.