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