crescent-shaped candles
Learning to Fly
I might not go to heaven because the worldly concerns have tinged my life but when the Earth will disband, I’d just hope to get a chance to say hi to you and, I won’t feel good if I didn’t get a chance because, I would absolutely hate it. No explanations. Gandhi said, whatever you do in life – will be insignificant but it’s very important that you do it, ‘cause, no body else will. Just forget the second part. If you could imagine the deeds hidden behind the misty glass of amnesia and people would not have the time to wipe and peek through it. It’d be impossible, like looking for a red dirt grain in a desert. Lost Turkish boxwood filled with memories? So why not stop fixing this jigsaw puzzle and wake up every morning like it’s the first morning of your life and look closely at the world around you and find your place in it? And when the self-deceit becomes difficult and you feel like saying hurtful things, when you’re fed up with practicing nice and fine things; and you neither want to hold on to rites nor try to create something new to follow. It’s all part of transforming into something better, because we’re never finished, we always change, from good to better, from young to old. Every day, you experience new things that affect your thinking process or maybe it’s just me. Setting new digits in my brain as my age, turning from eighteen to nineteen, thinking that I’d be respected, planning to do new things, like…to never spare a kid calling me “Uncle” and not caring about those poor lads I’d called that years ago and especially the ones who still dislike being called one? Life should be more beautiful now that I have turned nineteen, but it’s a shame that I’m still a teenager. Well, life isn’t a cup of hot chocolate. Turning nineteen for the first time and they did not have any lucrative or scholarly birthday gifts to offer me except for one person. But then again, everything is fair like Karma. But I can squeeze the joy out of it. With all the thoughts of love and appreciation that I might never get, I can still make something nice out of it. I will always do what I have always done. Create distance and stick my tongue out to attachments because attachments are the root of all the misery in your life and it’s a liability. Instead I will just smile while watching Ben Ten on TV and playing video games with my siblings, take pleasure in trying to count the spirals of the ceiling fan, in reading newspapers in the hot summers’ noondays while listening to the heavenly melodies of my father’s choice and laughing like hyaenas at the wittiest jokes and crying like babies over smallest of things – with their blown up pinkish chubby cheeks. And remember the old days when we used to watch the shooting stars in twilight with awe. And the dusty yellow pale moon and its shimmering in the pool. And dewdrops on lilies. The musk. And the pleasure while trying to make a goat laugh on Eid-ul-Azha’s day. And the frown of a rose-ringed parakeet. Teenage infatuations and the bittersweet feelings of crimson pain. I will count my blessings and write them down for the time when I will need them. But for now, I need sleep. Lots of it.
Mr. Friendly
Maybe, it’s insomnia that’s making me write on my blog when everyone’s catching some Z's. Even though, Daddy told me not to use computer for a month, I’m here. Sigh. Look at me, how ill-disobedient kid I have become. But what do you expect me to do when you know that I haven’t gotten even a pinch of sweet slumber in two 24-hour intervals? 48 hours straight! Not that, I’ve started to look like a zombie or weird looking unicorn or something, I just like to complain, I guess.
Like you know I’m not Mr. Friendly and all. Something happened yesterday, it was one of those days when I feel like hiding myself in some corner away from people or going to my favorite place, that is my room – right away.
It seemed all he knew was that he was having “some fun” so he humiliated me in front of 25 strangers who could easily guess that I just wanted to go home and I didn’t feel safe. Were I not a gentleman, I would have done something terrible. And maybe, that’s why I don’t get attached to people. And from now on, I don’t give a damn. I don’t want to “hang out” with them anymore. Oh well, Lydia says there’s a difference between being funny and being a-hole just for fun. You rock my friends but I’m going to create a little difference and I’m sorry for that. Rejoice! You guys are too great to be my friends. Goodbye. I have so much to write here, good things and bad things but I’m afraid I’m running out of time. Oh well.
In other news, I think I’ve lost my sense of humor. Well, I know, this news is too timeworn and all, like I care. So, we shall be attending 4 weddings this summer. It’s going to be so much fun because, they are all my relatives - my ‘that cousin’ and his sister who also happens to be my cousin LOL! And Brown Suger who happens to be my maamoon and his sister who is my Khala. These are 4 separate marriages with different people. *laughs* Well, that’s enough for now, news when I’m hurt, not when I’m not. Ha.
Where am I and how far is it to heaven?
Where am I and how far is it to heaven?
I’m ready to go; I had fastened the Belt
Too long ago!
So letting it go –– and crossing the brink ––
Bonnets may blow –– in the wind!
For I dwell not anymore –– upon Graven Ink
Old –– we grow with Desires that float to sink ––
Eventually though.
But – dare I steal the quill feather ––
of your white-hot hat, ma’am?
So the ink could flow –– to heal the kink.
Where am I and how far is it to heaven?
How odd it sounds!
Like those violet rifts ––
Within the grey clouds in cerulean sky
Exceptions!
Goodbye to the life I used to live
Kiss the Flowers and the Hills for me ––
Bid the Rainbows goodbye!
And look upon the times just once
When I tended the daisies for you ––
‘Twas the smallest hour of all
That felt longer than a century ––
Stepped onto the falls together
And brushed the summers by.
I will send You – this Gem from my ring ––
How dim it sounds –– like the murmur of the Bee –– on a rainy day –
Rustle of the fencing –– in the longest night
I’m ready to go to the town –
Strewn with the Down
Where autumn leaves glow as ruby across the walkways
And there! The poetess of my dreams!
Such a small room she keeps.
Almost contented people. Bliss, Oh Lord!
Where am I and how far is it to heaven?
How fair it sounds!
When I lie down and hear the murmur of Nature ––
And sleep ––
On the heavenly grounds.
- B. Etch.
The Promise
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The noise of the wall-clock and the leaking pipe in the bathroom –– was quite grudgingly harsh to him in that silent twilight.
It wrote,
“I prevail. I prevail –– as a lowly slave.”
“It’s passing, it’s consuming me from inside and outside –– the times –– tabooed times.”
Another second passed, followed by another – the hand moved and went on, and then trembled a minute – and a minute melted into an hour followed by another hour and hours and hours.
The miles and the hours.
Tick tock, drip drop. Tick tock, drip drop. Tick tock, drip drop...
It wrote, “I’ll bend space and gravity, only if...”
The visions – blurred, emotions numbed and a sob unthinkingly was heard.
It slightly shed off the eye and made a way for the others to come; some followed it while others made their own ways. The tears they were, gleaming waterfalls against the room-light from the dark one could see. Trickling twinkles. Tick tock, drip drop. Teardrops embellished the cheeks like stars do to the sky.
Sobs.
The thunders of restlessness rumbled all over the place.
It wrote, “My thirst for you has become vampiric.”
Tick tock, drop, tick, drip, tock, drop, tick, drip, tock…
The night had risen over the world and covered it like a shawl. The night it was.
The dark and the room-light and…
A broken heart, a pain –– seared,
It wrote again, “I’d dive far below the oceans… I’d fly far above the clouds… only if…”
“None is to be blamed, oh my love. I hope you’re fine. I hope.”
Silent in disbelief, with awkward clingy emotions – he was. At square one – he was. He was.
The death each moment – he embraced.
Music played: “With every kiss and every hug you’ve made me fall in love.”
And silence crept again. Tick, drip, tock, drop, tick, drip, tock, drop, tick, drip, tock, drop…
It wrote then, “Only if I could lie within your soul and mind… and in your arms.”
And, “I’d sell it all… all my materialistic treasures.”
Music played: “Tum bin jaa’un kahan, ke dunya mein aa ke – kuch nehi chaha….”
The swollen eyes watered the sear cheeks again. The heart moaned. And then it wiped off them, all of them.
[What does he hide? Behind those scarred humid eyes.]
And it wrote, “You are my strength, and I shall keep the promise, I shall never fall apart, I shall mend my heart, even before it breaks.”
“I shall keep the promise and you will keep it too.”
“I hear, miracles happen.” Hand trembled, but he continued in imperfections. “For roses can bloom amongst the wrinkled rocks.” “For water can spurt in oasis in midst of deserts” “And if needles and threads could not do it, I shall mend it with love –– that is still alive.”
“Distances are mere a frail thread, our love is the robust string.”
The night was young, but the feelings were feeble.
Tock, drop, tick, drip, tock, drop, tick, drip…
The night kept on growing. Seconds passed. Minutes passed. Hours gone by.
And a dewdrop fell from the heaven on a leaf outside his window; it smiled at him and fell asleep on that very leaf, he saw it sleeping and waited for the sun to rise.
And then the sun fought its way up the horizon. Beams came in from the window and he saw the halos.
It was a new day, but the promise was the same.
The final meeting

S: Ain’t been nothing like that – the things you told, untrue beloved. You hast been bruised, that, I know. And this too, that it sleep’eth not when you goest in it, the organ you hast in your head. You dost close thine eyes, but it doth not. You think too much. Stop the rude; let it take a bath of sugar a little.
H: A little……Little… Little things, put a big mark, I guess the little bit has done to me too.
S: Water from thy eyes will go away; the history of sun says that, it’ll take them too.
H: The wrath of mystery inside me is mightier than even the histories of sun.
S: Chirps you adore are playing the tricks, open thy senses before they are done.
H: I traced it out in waters too, whirls were only I could see.
S: I have read it before it even was traced, on a wafting red dried autumn leaf.
H: It whispered it in the airs too, if only they could care.
S: Whispering winds came to me, ‘cause they wanted it to share.
H: But a great man said once, ‘they have no time to stand and stare.’
S: Sigh. Let it breathe the breaths it is left with, amid bruising life, amid pinching fear.
The ‘pathetic’ factor
When you suck at everything you try to do, but you’re still showered with ample praises.
When you are envious of other people's work, and want to just suck their creativity out of their veins and kill them.
When you wake up really late, that too with the help of alarm and that particular alarm tone echoes in your brain for infinitely long time, say like all the day.
When you are too lazy to even get a haircut, so you start looking like Einstein, then you realize that barber will really hate you and maybe will say no to you that scares you more. And you just don’t get a haircut in five months unless you start scaring people.
…And when people ask you about you hair being so ridiculously ugly, you use the most unique excuse that is, ‘I want to look unique.’
When your dislike-list is subdivided in, favorite dislikes, less-favorite dislikes and not-so-favorite dislikes and plain-simple dislikes.
You use elevators every time and ‘stairs’ is your favorite dislike.
When there is no nature/beauty left in the moon, and you just want to pelt it with stones and shatter it.
When at times unintentionally you say stuff that can be a really good quotation and you feel like Shakespeare.
When even charging your phone’s battery is in your favorite dislikes. And your phone doesn't breathe for weeks and weeks.
You activate strange SMS packages in your cell phone, and send three to five messages daily.
…Phone eats your balance everyday for ‘those’ packages you activated and you really don’t care.
You do hear your parents’ lectures and taunts about your room being a mess, your hair being so ugly and other things usually yet do not listen to them.
When you and some other people wish for death together in different places for different reasons, but after sometime you find them happy while you are numb. So, you feel great. *sarcastically*
You start liking very very strange things, to which no one even pays heed.
Whenever you hear/see birds chirping, you want to shoot them or puke on them.
At times you feel like aliens and bohemians.
When walking alone streets - is not scary, but it’s not fun too.
You don’t do chores, and those who are already doing them in your place disgust you very badly.
You memorize every single episode of Disney shows and they don’t entertain you any more.
You feel pathetic at times, and start being happy for some time, and then you feel like failure and angry on being both at the same time.
You start to forget the difference between the words ‘there’ and ‘their’.
You pay high prices for 'those' favorite books. And decorate them in book shelf and don’t read them.
You prefer rappers like Weezy and Eminem over classics.
When your virtual friends are your best friends.
When all you think in bathroom is to take bath or not to take bath for like 30 minutes.
When you intentionally go on rooftop of your house to count stars like in those ancient romantic stories, but your eyes hurt and being bad at counting makes you give up.
When going out repels, meeting friends repels, phone repels, reading books repels, facebooking repels, twittering repels, blogging repels, and the only attractive thing you find is to watch TV, and that too repels after sometime.
When insomnia makes you wear scary disguise and go out to scare people miles away from your town.
When after feeling a little dizzy, you think you’ve become spider man, and then you try climbing on buildings, and then falling brings you back to reality.
…But you still feel out of the world.
When your interest box on facebook says, ‘Going out, coming in, dancing on the bed, sleeping on the floor, making friends, forgetting them, thinking too much and thinking again and then giving up’. Or something like that.
When you stick your tongue out malevolently to people from car’s window and think, it teases them, but it doesn’t, but you think it does.
When you leave a post incomplete and without the epilogue like this one.
"Subtracted names in a heart shaped scar"
And scented the scars with my blood
Amid bruising moments, ominous weather
And torn letters’ slices – that –– winds scattered
And winds screamed our secrets in skies
The crows cawed and flew high
Over the parapets –– higher than the skies
Silence crept in the place with moans and sighs
The autumn passed by
With teary glares
Taking it all away
Now
Memory lingers
And love remembers
And I,
Hate you
More than life
-B.H
The Isolation.
I learned
There can be no good reason to fall down. You have to, sometimes, to start it all again perfectly. But falling down isn’t necessary, you can start it all again at any stage/turn/signal.
Increase in your hate-list doesn’t bother anyone, what bothers is being in ignore list.
There are some things in life, that can’t be changed –– undone. Sometimes, you don’t get the second chances.
Being alone/numbed is like a mask, that we put on for sometime and then put it off, then put it on again and so on.
Worrying about future is like ruining the present.
Mistakes are supposed to be made, trying is important; not trying at all is like, wrapping a gift and not giving it.
There are some things, that can’t be foreseen, or sometimes we don’t want to.
Making no friends or forgetting old friends is at times good hobby.
Seeking attention should not be my thing.
Stick to what you want to do, they’ll not be there to see the consequences.
Losing important documents is not a cool thing.
Rain and mornings sometimes are good.
Crushing is a lot easier and magical than falling in love.
Worrying about your abilities can take you at the top of the ladder.
Being isolated and alone is better than being surrounded by people if you want to be something in your life.
Secrets should not exist except for few.
Praying to God is like lightening the load, I should do it.
I should not ruin my poems, no matter how awful they are.
I am not born to be a loser.
It’s better being nice than rude.
Crushing crunchy leaves is the most attractive thing I’ve ever experienced.
So here I am

To thee, I bow, I smirk.
But might I fly over thee
And look for bread and butter
Dare I betray thee?
A million times dare!
So here I am, ended up waiting, waiting on the muse. My sire compelth me to stay
I know my toils’ worth, I do ask not for it. And I want no words to lose.
But what hinders me is the time
Appears a poet in disguise
A boy with cauldron of rhymes
The boy who believes in vat of lies –– fairytales, rainbows, falling stars and butterflies
Hath turned out to be lies
Oh why!
So here I am, O World
Waiting on the sun
Darkness all unfurled
The day’s just begun.
World torn asunder,
Amidst the white-hot flashes
I hear the rolling thunder,
I look down upon the ashes.
So here I am, Heaven!
Waiting on a prayer!
The bread that wouldn’t leaven
The pain I couldn’t bear.
Inside I know the truth
But my sins are not atoned
I, a prisoner of my youth
Thou, the king upon his throne
Here I am. Away, away from clichés like hurt and pain.
Numbed wholly, and they call me insane.
From my pen, to my diary
So silently, that I start hearing the inner me. A sore tear trickles on the fluffy carpet. And visions yet again come before the closed eyes as ever.
I, whose edges of sanity are always tinged with illusions and confusions. From whence – my delusion deposited in me the harshness and the bitterness – how can I get it fixed?
Beckoning are these major stunning lights of fascinating sinful, beautiful city and yet I resist – I strain – to free her grip from my wrist – wiggle and squirm, wrestle and twist…
And still she pulls me in the crowd – and introduces me with her friends – wearing the solid masks - despair. I even hate the first sight of life. I am not born for this – not for that – not for her – not for you but for this which starts from S and ends with E – the solitude.
Relentlessly pulling – my hand towards the people, she has the epic love for me, that can make my death so peaceful and heavenly, but I am silly or genius. And I try to flee, I can’t break away – the tension – Igniting as – now I want to stay and now as – I break through to sanities side – my eyes leak obtusely – as I realize, the place I’ve come back to… Is chock full of lies…
But I don’t want to stay, leave me, I love thee and I hate it. I am overwhelmed with anger on being piteous and yet feel piteous on being raging and then this monster – hatred comes – as I sprinkle it on both feelings, and I still have this monster – I’m opening the cage… But don’t go! I want you to hate you; I love you to hate you. I am the darkness lost in night, find me.
My Cell Phone’s draft box – The things that I think
25-June-10 2:59 pm
She is stupid, dumb yet respected
He is misunderstood genius thus dejected
25-June-10 2:07 pm
I love you, and that girl in pink.
23-june-10 9:01 pm
I felt like a girl, not functionally but habitually…
22-June-10 12:13 am
When I read her blog I hear the peaceful serenades
When I read my own diary I hear the electric guitars
21-June-10 11:34 pm
I like to lick the white muse in an Oreo.
21-June-10 5:38 pm
I wish I were a bird, or at least that smoke from the chimney…
21-June-10 5:15 am
I dreamt that I was fighting for wrong and comparably weak side. Morning dream! Sigh. I guess I’m born to be a loser.
20-June-10 4:10 pm
There’s nothing I feel in heart but the ache and beat, every thing is in head, even you my love.
13-June-10 10:55 pm
I look uncomforted, she looks suspicious, we are on date, we talk in whispers, I hold her hand, she smiles and whisper, just a whisper and some whispers. Yes, we are on a roller coaster
11-June-10 12:05 am
Bad day… good day!
Thou – a curse – I wish not thy sun to rise
And tonight when thou goest in sleep
I shall burn thee on a pyre
I do not adore the eclipse
I do not wish the toil
Bad day… good day!
I hope thou dost not rise again
10-June-10 11:48 pm
I just wanted to get hit by a bus, but I was unlucky enough to make it to home.
07-June-10 8:39 pm
Moon is pale, what’s its ail?
Why is it sad? What is the tale?
Had its lover drowned? ‘cause he could not sail?
Or did he do wrong and sent to jail?
07-June-10 10:02 am
In the days of dark knights
Why did you not come?
Why did you not save me?
Even when they…
Sliced me into two…
05-June-10 1:02 am
I caressed its wings; it frowned and bit me on my finger.
05-June-10 1:00 am
Doomsday: - As the examiner stepped towards me, I gripped the arms of my chair fiercely and mumbled all the mystical prayer I knew, and then I faced the music.
05-June-10 12:47 am
She… in the black and she in the white are both sisters, but that boy in the red and the other in yellow are not brothers…
05-June-10 12:46 am
I stood in the rain, soaked from head to toe, and then I thought in dismay, I should open the umbrella.
05-June-10 12:44 am
I thought I am mad for her but not made for her…
05-June-10 12:41 am
When I gained consciousness, the witch was still chanting the incantation.
03-June-10 05:01 pm
Three awesome things in a row
Way to go way to go
That rhymes a bit, no?
02-June-10 1:59 am
7 Impossible things: (pathetically secret draft)
01-June-10 02:21 pm
Every shoulder’s vanishing and I’m crying on walls. Sigh.
31-May-10 5:25 pm
I wrote what they taught
But never came in handy…
Sigh!
I should have learned it by heart,
Now it’s not like eating candy…
31-May-10 5:11 pm
(Wrote ‘poison’ in design)
30-May-10 12:57 pm
Rais Bano’s book in the market.
New Day – poetry book.
29-May-10 2:06 pm
(Wrote a long ode to Emily Dickinson, which I’ll share sometime)
28-May-10 08:08 am
I am expecting thee O little bird – thou my lucky charm
Thou hast not come –
My eyes hath wilted
Why hast thee not come?
Thou – O bird…
25-May-10 11:25 pm
I had no flair to wait,
Until I met you…
And left me
Boundaries of pain
Stars unseen –
Flowers unsmell’d
I had no talent to dwell
Until I met you…
25-May-10 6:12 pm
I love my life for it made me meet you: Trying to be happy,
I hate my life for it made me meet you: Wake up and smell the coffee
24-May-10 11:52 pm
Alone – Lonely – loner
In the togetherness of thee
In the mystique of inspirations
Images are mystical – but ability is ailed
O writer’s block! Shoo! Go away!
24-May-10 10:38 pm
All but death – can be adjusted (Emily Dickinson)
23-May-10 11:43 pm
Haikus
Harsh loneliness
A cruel mask of despair
Let me put it off
* * *
I see no change
And I have grown up
Why don’t they?
18-May-10 7:57 pm
I don’t make poetry; it makes me – my immortality.
14-May-10 7:09 pm
Ancestry dot com (some website I saw on Geo TV but never opened)
08-May-10 4:54 pm
I love thee, thou lovest me
I turn in thee, thou in me…
My three score and ten (Scathingly)
Horizon is about to swallow the sun. It is spilling the beautiful orange shades upon the clouds alongside the sun. And moon with its glow – is to take control in the sky and the falling water is shimmering and reflecting the pale and full moon and the flashing stars on the pearly shawl of the earth. This day has faded and night has grown after twilight like every day. And with this night - this feeling is growing inside me, it happens often, maybe depression. It is slowly starting to bite, a kind of restlessness, I don’t know what? Some flashbacks, some voices, are haunting my mind, wait a minute! What are those eyes doing here? I know them, those eyes full of love, even bluer than the skies above of one fine evening. Looking at me at dagger point, what eyes? pointed like sword in a seductive way. But I thought no more is that those eyes’ gaze was seductive for me. Things – apparently, have changed! I thought I’d moved on, but it seems that I was and still not completely over, still stuck somewhere in her memories, I have got to take control of my life. Where are my giggles? The glimpses of my hurting past are still within my every vision.

So I sliced myself into two, to escape from all the painful frigid gloom, and gave a piece to this cruel and ruthful moments and other to my happiness - ‘so called’ and imaginary. I have never been happy with life and if I have been, it was for sometime. They say rise and fall is the part of life but I say if the fall is often and more than the rise then it becomes a crutchy life, a life in fog and in uncertainty all the time. You often happen to think you are alone even amid the bustles. If you make blunders you care less about them because nobody taught you how to care, nobody cared about you before. The bright side takes a lot of happiness but the happiness looks a mere grain of sand when compared to the ample deserted beach of the gloomy side. I never wanted to die and still I don’t want to but I am not keen of living either. Life is not ample but the events are. I just want to feel the real love by them, the real happiness, the real sun’s happy beams and I want to live in the real smiles, in the real beauties of life and nature and with the feeling of there-is-no-burden and I’m-free-from-cares. So, I shall apply law of equi-marginal utility but it has drawbacks like every hope I have ever hoped. Utility cannot be measured but life can be. Similarly, nature – my love cannot be measured but my life can be.

I just want to say, life is not enough, so gain most using least. Life is once and very beautiful, live every part of it, the gloom the light. Every style of it, the poor, the rich. Every taste of it, the conservative, the moderate. You have no time; just complete all your answers before the examiner comes and asks to return the answer sheet. As Emily Dickinson would put in:
I had no time to hate-
Because
The grave would hinder me-
And life was not so ample
So I could finish - enmity-
Nor had I time to love –
But since
Some industry must be –
The little Toil of love –
I thought
Be large enough for me-
Doors – locked
I must have seen someone in pain
You possessed my soul in magical mirror
I went in jungle to find my dark heart
I must have lost this darkness in night
While you hide your love in open doors
I bolt it silently to spread the partial gloom
I must have known that it was a foggy noon
I must have spent it – as last – with my spouse
But I happen to reside behind the locked doors
~ B.H
