crescent-shaped candles

Wednesday, December 28, 2011 by B.H.

By evening, (it’s when I wake up) it’s violet…all over. And BANG! The light goes out, which (ironically) makes things more beautiful. As December wears on, the weather in Islamabad is getting (un)pleasantly dry in a horribly cold way. Winters’ keen tooth bit me too, among others’. And I have been sniffing and coughing ever since. I wake up…and brush my teeth and just feel this insane urge to slap my cheeks with the aftershave. I look in the mirror and then I look away and look in the mirror again, then I look away again, feeling worse. (Did you know that the objects in mirror are always farther than they appear?) I get dressed and comb my hair. And then look in the mirror again. ‘Why don’t I look devastatingly handsome anymore?’. ‘But still something, eh!’, ‘Or maybe, too sharp?’. And so I rid my head of my anxieties and insecurities for a while. As I shake it.
Nom. Nom. Nom. Munch. Munch. Munch. Pancakes. Just one large bite on each slice does it. As though chewing the wood with iron teeth (if that’s even legit). Reaching at work. Occupying the station. Few games of Table Tennis. Two cups of my imperfect tea. Few strangers ogling as if I have come from the Mars (They can’t possibly know that, can they?). I go through the day (or should I say…night?) just like that. But last night, being a rebel that I am, I bought an icecream but just after just a few licks, few drops of drizzle ruined it but I still licked the leftover crummy slush of sweet cream and water shamelessly. I hang with usual people with unusual accents. That crack newer jokes. Talk loud. And put on big smiles. All this while, I keep on thinking if I cross someone’s mind…somewhere out there? Or just a passing thought? Something about me? Never knowing what’s happening or should I even fix this? I don’t even know what’s absent? What need to be fixed? Anything? Nothing? Or maybe everything? 
Saturday, December 24, 2011 by B.H.
A pair of sottish eyes, watching over an outline of delicate drapes swaying tardily in silence so deep that I could hear the moonlight striking on the window. Every wrinkle of that ceaseless frown casting an insufferable fragrant desire. Too frail to even go near. Distant, like fireworks. Serene. Exploding emotions, awing the world. Shrieking words on the papers that hold no meaning now. Let him be free. For once. 

Alone

Thursday, December 22, 2011 by B.H.


In the sky, the sun and the horizon reach a truce and a kind of transformation takes place that engulfs every care as soon as the call for the evening prayers is heard. And the kids who had been playing – get called in one by one…just like the birds…how they vanish into thin air just as the twilight glow of my morning engulfs everything completely. Like those kids who were made to discontinue their play, I’ve started to resent the nights too. But we need not. As lively as the day looks, as much as you enjoy a conversation with a lovely friend, it has to end at some point. Everything is notoriously variable.

Because today, I learnt that nothing bad ever happens when you are made to adjust in some seemingly boring place. And I'm left with my insecurities and anxiety that evilly stick their tongues out at me in the end…nothing ever happens if you are forced to live in another world with things you detest. Things just start looking interesting, in a slow motion though…like those autumn leaves falling through the air…like soot wiggling in the winds.

It’s not as hard as it looks to leave your favorite place and head for the difficult ones. It’s good to keep moving instead of staying there and spending your whole life going in one direction. It’s good to keep moving. And sometimes, standing there. Alone.