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Friday, 17 October 2025

SCRIBBLINGS (For Hummaid and Yusra)

A line somewhere on the wall,
an angel monstrous in shape, entangled.
A number here on the window frame 
whose multiplication partner-number
is written somewhere in the other room.
A clunker runs over this almirah
without tyres, on absolute trust.
A pink watch on my arm
with no hands
embracing an infinite time.
I even carried a dwarf giant on my cheek
for many days.

Lines, dots, doodles, smileys
numbers, cars, shapes -
the world is paper for children,
a single sheet folding out into
walls, frames, almirahs
wndows, surfaces, skin.

May they never grow to know
that walls are bricks and cement
meant for heads and hurts,
that windows are wooden 
opening to an indifferent world,
that cars run on oil and exploitation,
that skin is a bruised abyss,
that numbers are monetary,
that the adult world is a world
of razor tongues and rumours,
of pain and separation,
of sharp edges and gunpowder
with thousand ways of communication 
that we have chosen not to.

Sunday, 12 January 2025

LIFE (For Mubashir)

Only the person, says our barber,
who sits in my working chair
is a customer. The rest,
who wait, can leave anytime.

Waiting seems like
an aqueous island between oceans,
an intertestice of infinite possibilities
between two accomplished impossibilities -

one can pace up and down,
one can go or call or chat,
smoke or have tea,
kill someone or kill oneself.

All those who wait
can never be customers,
he's right. In his waiting for people
how closely he
misses Life,
all the while keeping
three chairs
for one customer.