shuyaasha

[shuyaasha]

2:00 AM

A few 2:00 am wordsBroken and parsedStunted, slurred, hersCommon enough A 2:00 am girlNo good I am told,Confused but longingfor some place to meetthat someone to be –Common enough And yetwhen I close my eyesAnd look –searching the worldfor her imprint on the facelessI never find –this common oneall that is leftare some 2.00 am wordsbroken, slurredbuthers

[shuyaasha]

On joy

On joy - a poem about finding happiness in the small moments

On joy A cup of freshcoffeea long silent momentin solitudebreathing in thisquietof a rainyafternoon –II findyou. You sit plumplyon my heart,spilling glitter and sequinsall overmy skinand spread,likea stubborn ray of sunlightlights up aroomlongforgottenOh joy –where have you been?I have lookedfor you inso manyplaces,in womenhalf-brokenand menhalf-mad,in houseslocked insideand doorsopen…

[shuyaasha]

The woman

She is pale, her face drawn, the pouches under her eyes slyly revealing her age. Her greying hair barely falls across her shoulders – they are growing wild in areas she has not been able to comb. She reaches up with her brush and tugs at the knots, painful though they might be. It is pouring outside, and no one will call upon her. But then, in sunny weather too, this corner of hers is…

[shuyaasha]

Today, I write

Today I sit down to write. Sleep is heavy,eyes burn and yetI toil on.What I should write about, I think,rubbing my eyes. There is the loneliness that keeps me up in thewee hours of the morning.The wretchedness of being in love, of its cooling and hardeninginto somethinginflexible.This tough thing between us – feelsalien, but I can no longerlive without it.Has love become a habit? There is no…

[shuyaasha]

I dream of God

I dream of God

Feet draggingin the mud, in the rain, in sand dunescaught and hurtingeyes, lips and heartAs I crashand tears –they slither,helpless,I –I dream of HimA tallblack silhouettefrozenunder flashingstarshis lips crinklelaughtercrusting his tongue Standing upin the mud, in the rain, in sand dunesbroken but growingheart, head and visionI –I breathedeep and hard,andimagine Himdissolve.

[shuyaasha]

Closed eyes

Somedays I close my eyes. My old, tired eyes. Who I am and have been sometimes meet in my dreams. We speak of things past and the few days yet to come. We walk together – we are both mature and childish and can entertain each other for hours. “Do you remember…?” we ask. “Can you believe we used to think…?” we marvel. Our stories are endless. We are boring to no one, and there is no one to…

[shuyaasha]

Lost The unlearning of thingsin a dark,undiscovered roomhalf-hidden secretsbright,unseenin the crevices…

[shuyaasha]

Ashes of my youth

Ashes of my youth

Perched at the rump of the hillock a shrunken, slumped man – beaten I look down at my life everything before – ashes of my youth scattered – lost to me now

They flutter so closely – the faces all I have known flurries of moments that shimmer and flash in this wind and who I am is gone in a blink lost to my memory now

So I shuffle and face this bleaching scene The sun fades, and so must I – but not…

[shuyaasha]

On anxiety Yesterday, I slept poorly the sheets bunched below me as I watched a shaft of light caress my foot…

[shuyaasha]

'Cheeni' (Sugar) Parathas

‘Cheeni’ (Sugar) Parathas

The memories surface from when I was eight. Mom bustles around in the kitchen, her sweating face glistening, hands covered with flour. I am placed over a stool in the corner, dirtying my hands in whatever I can find.

Mom shoos us from the kitchen – my sister and I, with the promise of sugar parathas. We dance around the house, fight, leaving destruction in our wake the way young children often…

[shuyaasha]

Used up

Gone are sunlit days their bits and fragments a long trail behind me.

I flump here my skin folds piled up into dough rolls fusing into one another hands clasped I sink into my seat – useless, and waiting.

Have I used up everything inside, or is the world simply done with me?

A sigh breaks through and sleep takes over, seizing my thoughts half-way.

[shuyaasha]

Windchimes

Stop – do you hear

what a world this is moving fast and slow the loud certain rumble of a bus on the tarmac or the flap of wings in startled flight or the shy diffident knock of a grocery boy on his route?

The mind treads through them all passing them by but strain your senses and you will hear the windchimes that dance underneath the noise

The cooing of pigeons in the summer heat the chatter of…

[shuyaasha]

The contract

It begins the moment you enter the cool, dark auditorium. You find your seat, the red fabric stretched taut over the chair, fraying at the edges. Your fellow comrades mill in, swarming and settling in, all flush with the eagerness over what comes next.

You’re restless, a spark in your eye – the wait is a crescendo that builds and builds. Soon enough, there is a lull, a deep hush that falls over…

[shuyaasha]

Voices

The fan burrs, mechanical, bored. The curtain sways gently. And I lie here – floating on something very much like a yearning. Yet, in the soft, smooth film of my thoughts, a crinkle.

Almost like a fly buzzing, dipping slyly in and out of the surface of milk – her busy mouth to my ear speaks lazily, insistently, over and over – “You are not worthy, you are not worthy, you are not worthy…”

I turn…

[shuyaasha]

The lone bird

I saw you, you know.

I saw you – struggling and flapping your wings. You were the last one, left behind – trying your hardest to keep up. You mustn’t blame yourself; this world is hard, and it’s not kind to us sort- the souls that take longer, that linger, savouring the sight of a sunset, or dreaming of home and the days past. We are the dreamers, the good for nothings, and the weak underside of…

[shuyaasha]

I come

I come into your life as I am – flawed, lacking, imperfect. And you take me anyway.

You nurture me with the words of a long time ago – words that are kind, that are sometimes lies and sometimes half-truths, words that I have needed without even knowing it.

Your arms they gather me – all parts of me – broken, withering, dead – and hug me close.

You heal me with your love – given freely,…

[shuyaasha]

Woe

Woe is hers She has waited for it – as it comes, sweeping up their stairs…

Woe – its eyes brimming, its blade glittering, steps in from the shadows, as they lie in bed.

The wounds ooze for years afterwards, and his head still spins.

He will never be able to tell you, what happened to them, ever since the night she first bled.