Schizophrenic Sky

spears of sunshine come
stabbing through wayward
branches. and the wind is cold
in my face, almost erratic.
it shakes massive
jackfruits to the ground. my
walkway is pulp-splashed,
and this lazy drizzle does little
to wash it clean. sprinkling
soundlessly like fine sand -
dusk-colored and oozing
out of this schizophrenic sky;
touching everything, drenching nothing.

my garden is a messy emulsion.
enough earth but too little rain.
enough water but no real mud.
i am not looking forward to a rainbow,
for it will be dark before it breaks.
an electrocuted crow falls to the
pavement; feathers ruffled and claws
turned inwards in death. it’s one
distorted rainy evening, i wonder.
all i am hopeful is about the petrichor.
but the drizzle hangs on grass blades
like evanescent mist, too light on the
gleaming green spine to go down to
earth and break the fragrance free.
is this even real? i frown.

then
i remember your naked body against mine.
damp. just out of shower.
the sensuous odour of your floral bodywash
permeate through sheets
to become my breath.
i had felt ‘us’ on my fingertips
treading down the knobs
of your slender back; on my lips
in salty memories of mouthful kisses.

just so you know,
i sleep alone in that bed now.
becoming increasingly privy to rains
that fall without filling.

- Sobhan

The Wait & The Welcome

last summer
we sowed lemon seeds
in a plastic pot kept on the balcony rails.
it had been empty for a while,
and pigeons idled
on its edges, pecking
at the sun-hardened soil.
twigs of grass broke out
of the soil and perished
on its own. mostly torn away
by pigeons and squirrels to
cushion their modest nests.

for months after, with dots of green
hovering low over moist soil, we kept
it covered with a wicker basket
lest it became nests in no time.
and shooed all birds and squirrels
from the resting shades of our balcony
through four quarters of a day.

it's close to a year now, and the
plant has grown to a couple feet.
it has climbed past the balcony rails,
as a soft green wing hangs out
from our fourth-floor apartment.
its leaves big with prominent veins,
and stems, mud-laced, tad too thick
for pigeons to be beaked home,
to be chewed by squirrels.

now a steady rain continues to fall outside
and i watch the tendril bounce in the torrent.
the leaves washed, look like the delicate green
of its birthing days. a lone pigeon leaps up
from the ledge. its feathers damp, and perches on the pot
to drink from the puddle at the plant’s root.
the squirrel too is back, and is waiting at the rails.
it lifts its dark-buttoned eyes to my
unhurried face and waits. i wait too.
almost holding my breath.
then it slowly scurries over to the pot
and drinks the rain.

- Sobhan

If rains are lies...

my weather is
not in the radiance
of the sky, but in the
colors of my being.
what's daybreak
but my fond recollection
of your laughter, a silver
brook my poems sailed
to become songs;
the mellow nights
- our secret hideout,
where in the shadows
your ravishing spirit
milks my longings into
the tired blue of a crestfallen
sea. and the great rains, the
devouring downpour
is when the old postman
slips your letters under
the doormat when i'm not home.
you write to me asking
if the summer is
bearable at home?
and i look out into
the obscure light of rains,
and tell you that not a single
cloud has stopped overhead
since we hung our boots.

- Sobhan

Living Again

this city is stopped
and started by windows,
sweetheart.
stopped when shut
against the dust
and destitution of lives
sweating at the hearts
for the night to settle upon dew.
and started when pushed open
at dawn to drop breadcrumbs
for pigeons, and water the pallid hibiscus.

i’ve been your beckoning
both as the evening din and
morning's gentleness.
but it’s been a while
you’ve been out of bed.
drifting between shots,
syringes and men every new
hour. that's not the way, trust me.
you can choose not to fuck
and hold my hand. and we
can open doors to a new place
where there’ll be no gravity,
and you’ll feel no weight of
your scars. we’ll float. near
and far. in thoughts.
of forgetting
and loving anew.

there's always a way.
but this is not it.
not all pleasures can
be touched through
writhing naked bodies.
open your eyes. there's
a morning in the way i’ve
been wanting you for long.
and now it’s here at the
end of all your drunk nights.
for you.
to live all over again.

- Sobhan

White Lies of Wronged Nights

i know you didn't
sleep with him. but
neither does it take
a hammer to break a
heart. and i have died
a hundred deaths in the
thousand little things
you did around it.

there were days when
the summer got the better
of me, and i had dozed
off without a good night.
but i did get back to you
late, close to daybreak,
only to know that you'd
been awake - in a candid
conversation with a dear friend,
and i admit, i felt terribly
substituted. i remember
leaving at your place my
favorite novel on your birthday,
and i had called you to check
if the story was in line with
your taste. instead you sent
me a video of your special outing.
shaking a leg with mr. candid
in a lavish one piece; his gift
to you. 'beautiful' i had replied,
watching you gyrate to the music -
your body a spinning flame
reveling under sweeping lights
- choking on a fresh batch of tears
that i regret having cried. on another
day, if you remember, we had
an argument. and we didn't talk
for a week. i was alone, and wrong
enough to hope that you were too.
mr. candid kept you company, you
told me. that you being upset was a
pain he couldn't stand. that in his arms
you divulged about my lovelessness,
and he, like a true friend, offered you
solace with his lips on your mouth.

'but you love me, right?' i retaliated, furious.
'yes, baby. with my soul. and so i
didn't reciprocate to his smooch.'

if going down is the benchmark
of adultery, i have been cheating
since day one. for on my knees
i have prayed to heavens - thanking
for this life that has you in it.
it's to close this chapter, i realize
i committed a sin. having held your
profanity in the sacred rooms of love.

- Sobhan

Shadows, Sorrows, Sorries

the dusk upon my office street
has no color. this strip of road
down the deserted lake, cutting
through closely-huddled buildings,
and a looming cliff has the sun
slowly departing behind it, leaving
hollow clouds in its trail.

and all we have here are shadows.
lengthening every minute to become
the night. the flowering trees, windblown.
their blossoms one with dirt. the clinking
of glassware from the milkshake kiosk.
and employees on smoke breaks: fatigued,
frustrated flanking the pavements like
boats grounded in low tide - waiting for
night to fall, for the water to rise,
and take them away.

i look into their hollowed eyes. wide open,
but barely seeing, let alone realize.
smoking over a call, the mechanized laughter
and practiced pauses drives the client home.
there’s new task at hand now. time to head
back to the desk. the cigarette stub is tossed
into the gutter, and i almost hear its burning
tip extinguish in sewer.

close to 8PM, the offices start to empty.
motorbikes screech out of the cellar and
melt away in the dark. all i see is life slipping
away between shifts, in the quest of
making a living. are they aware? i doubt.

the dusk on my office street
has no color. and i walk away.
trampling the yellow flowers under my boots.

- Sobhan

Unkind Dawn

oh what an unkind
glory you’re, sunrise.
perversely you walk-in
on people possessed in
intimate dreams with hot
burst of light, and fondle
them to lurid consciousness.
you seep past curtains
into dim, sweaty bedrooms
of lovers naked and snuggled
under sheets and have
them break away from
night long embraces
to get on with life. you
break a drunk man’s reverie,
pouring like molten lead
into his blurry, double vision.
and raid the unfaithfuls escapade
in a shady hotel room, as their
betrayed counterparts dry their
wounds in your glare.

i have this thing about nights,
i tell you. who isn't’ as boastful of
its serendipity. one who’s calm,
grounded and liberal, and is okay
sharing the moon’s sheen with
the jaded stars of distant sky. it’s
the night that gets the poets drunk
on touches of lost people and time,
and have their scars bent into
literature. it’s the nights that embellishes
the warfare of subatomic particles
into the ever radiant northern lights at the artic.
it’s the nights that tames the mighty oceans,
nights that brings the birds home,
and lulls the wearied into dreams.

do you see how they fade out
without slightest resistance? at the
brink of dawn it dissipates into day.
the dewy grey falling away,
like the melting tip of an icicle
held over the flame. most importantly,
nights aren’t egoists - for they let you put on
lights if you're afraid and feel like day,
and even strike fires to keep zombies away.
nights, you see, can be emulated -
anytime, anywhere – in the cave of your palms,
and behind your closed eyes.
they live with you, inside you,
never abandoning, bringing out the intellectual quiet,
in a strong peg of darkness and destruction.

it’s on one beautiful night that
i am sharing this tale with you,
and i already feel edges of your
promises scrape my insides.
is it true that you loved me with
your night time fantasies, and
ditched me for the ambitions of day?

- Sobhan

Damn, your PDA!

a jovial you pranced
about the kitchen counter
in your instagram story. there’s
this annoying clanking
of pans in the backdrop
that wants me to close it.
but i stick around. like always.
looking at your dimly-lit face,
and your delicate lips tinted
by beads of moisture, while you
pour a thick stream of lavish
chocolate into an egg-mold.

it’s bewildering to watch
your Easter preparations.
last year i remember your asking
me what’s good friday
all about. i will be honest,
i had no clue. but i read up.
about the Catholic faith and
Christ's sacrifice to absolve
the world of its sins. easter is
christ’s resurrection, i would
have told you, had you not left.
but how could tales of return interest
a mind that was quietly hatching a goodbye?

so yeah, this looks made up to me,
and chances are that you still
don’t know what’s easter.
in fact, you don’t need to know.
for this is just about your love
for chocolate-making and nothing more.
this doesn’t work with me: your shitty
show of merrymaking. for i see you
through filters and fast-forwards,
from a place deep within, that at some point
of time had known you for who you were,
before you started to fake: feelings first, festivities now.

how do i know it? oh! c’mon.
wasn’t our courtship just another
enactment of yours? trying love
to substitute the monotony of your life.
you vouched for love, for us,
not knowing the basics of loyalty.
you attempted it like any other
instagram story of yours, only that i
played real in there. what erased
off your timeline in a day,
stayed in my life like a scar for me.
to continue seeing you scar,
many alike me.

- Sobhan

ABSAR

(i)
absar cannot tell
red from orange.
with a clumsily held crayon
between her fingers, she
continues to paint
the rose orange
in her drawing book.

(ii)
the last words of the
aazaan had barely
trailed off the loudspeaker
that a massive stone
comes flying down the sky
towards the army cordon.
it was enough to set off Downtown.

(iii)
‘red, jaan! roses are red.
like our blood.’ says najma,
her mother, rolling her
prayer rug off the floor. the falling sun
tremendous on her smiling face.

(iv)
stones rain on the streets, as
clamoring chains of people pour
out of narrow bylanes. the army
immediately on the backfoot. slogans
and stones rise up the sky.
tehreek, they say, is kashmir’s soul.

(v)
i will be used any moment. i am
banned. but still i will. that’s how
they keep peace. by breaching
laws, by barbarism.
at the end of the street, the 'peacekeepers'
lose their shit. the water cannons
and batons are already biting flesh.
now it’s my turn – i hate this, i swear.
can we not do this, please?
oh! they already have me out.
the sky’s now dark with smoke.
my trigger is pulled.
now i don’t know where i am.

(vi)
absar covers her face
with her palms. the crayons
rolling about lonely between pages.
najma swallows tears
and screams for help.
‘ammi, red?’ asks absar,
with blood pouring out
of her pierced eyes.

- Sobhan

Conquer

i know places you reminisce

your melancholy in, and no wonder

you never evolved.

the park bench you

burn frigid nights on,

dew upon your eyes and

menthol cigarette to your

lips, with your ashen spirit

winding skywards in smoke,

is where the aging gathers

every morning to whine about

their arthritic knees, or quietly

count upon their rosary.

the coffee shop you

invariably frequent,

taking to the farthest corner

that looks out to a bustling

road, the chair’s foam there

irreversibly sunk, and tabletop

warm with sun-tamed shadows of

vehicles crawling down its limbs; it’s

where the high school doers escape

with their infatuations: hold hands under

the table, and clandestinely pass

phone numbers on folded napkins.

grow up, boy!

for a change, wander the

old city fortress on a bright sunny day.

wait under high echoing domes and

watch the bats sleep-swing

from invisible alcoves, the air

redolent with bat shit. wrap

your palms on the heavy bars

of airless captive chambers,

and peek into the dark: you’d

see emptiness repenting the

death of inmates died hundreds

of years ago. war slaves Aurangzeb

had pronounced banishment from life on,

in cells of his fort - with ankle locks, torture

and starvation. walk out into the porch and

watch the garden ablaze in bougainvillea,

the walkways green with sheets of moss,

and the sound of water trundling to roots

along channels dug centuries ago.

reach out, drag your fingers on laterite walls

and feel the hot prick of friction ushered by them

from countless craters and broken edges

gaping at you. know that they are wounds

caused by mortar shell, enemy bullets and

earthquakes that couldn't manage more than

a crack. spend a day in the dust of history.

roam the citadel's darkest of alleys,

and read its brave stories of sustenance.

or maybe you should just be there.

just be there with those walls that

defied bombs and calamities; the spring

that never left the garden; the rains

that still pour in its honour; the prisons still

bearing the haunting cries of men who'd

kneeled on its cold floors and begged for death,

and the sun continuing to rise over corpses

of derelict times, shining like a jewel atop its minarets.

it’s amid blood, battles, banishment,

and the ultimate triumph of braving it all,

that you'd know why they’re called monuments.

now go back to reminiscing if you will,

to whimpering of your betrayed heart.

would you still say love damaged you

beyond repair?

.

.

- Sobhan

On Being a Writer

grieve if you must,
but know where to
draw the line.

any further than that,
and you'll be trapped
for life - in this quiet
squirming of words on
your skin. like the gentle
hands of a woman roving
down your chest, and you
cannot resist being taken.

it's alluring, but it'd
twist your soul and
clinch your breath.
make you see the world
in absolute inverse where
you'd cut your vein to laugh
at the throbbing blood,
and weep hard at being loved.
where you'd shun laughter
and friendship to close yourself
in burning silence and let it kill you;
slowly.

know where to draw
the line, oh! bereaved lover.
before thy heart transcends
all human realms
to be a writer.

- Sobhan