He looks at him, his son-in-law Blinking, not recognizing him It has been over half a year Since this son was last here Half a lifetime in his existence Scrambled by dementia. Aasiya The daughter he’s barely spoken to Given in marriage at 22 He now remembers crystal clear As she sits with him, ministering Talking to him now without fear Ungrudgingly for all the years She was not enough. Arif Her husband with the business The opinions and the maleness Was the apple of her father’s eyes But now all he sees in the clouds of time Is this angel with her beautiful smile As she soothes him, and she feeds him Her gentle touch calming the storms Of confusion and disquietude That rage through him so often now All he sees, all he has eyes for Is his daughter, his beloved Aasiya.
You Are Too different Too controversial Too weird Too quiet Too absent
You Are Too passionate Too frigid Too pushy Too gregarious Too reserved
You Are Too opinionated Too invested Too indifferent, disinterested
You Are Too much but You Are Also not enough
These arrows used to fly East and west Between the bazaars and the mosques Down and up From my beating heart To my silent mouth, forging Right angles containing me In burnished boxes glittering bright But in the moorings Of all these paradoxes writhing out Like strident dirges from treacherous lyres Howling of brimstone and hellfire Now I hear only one thing I only hear that one constant thing
YOU ARE!
In the refrains that ring Thunder and break I hear it sing:
YOU ARE!
In all that cacophony In the clarion calls of propriety Pounding, rounding endlessly From the steeples of society That is all I ever hear now
🌸 YOU ARE! 🌸 YOU ARE! 🌸 YOU ARE! 🌸
Yes I am! I finally am! This is me And that is all I ever need to be.
The cursor blinks expectantly Compellingly, unyieldingly Something stirs my inner calm With tongs charged with electricity I see them bare their tungsten teeth Serrated, set and bite-ready They start to pick at the soft glow That cloaks my core delicately The zen shades come quickly undone One by one efficiently, unerringly Until the luminosity Of the buzzing pliers hits My chakras humming quietly The glow transforms to garish light I’m overtaken, panic strikes My heart leaps up, it’s on the run Blood rushing, pitching oxygen To my eyes and my extremities I blink once, twice and then again As the cursor straight and stark Marks its time ominously I tap-tap-delete-tap feverishly Fingers on the dread-locked keys But there is no hidden gem That flows from this cataclysm On the page in front of me I look up, I take a breath The screen retreats into its depths Some days it really is just best To give the grim cursor a rest.
I had a dream last night You were in it Fuzzy, unclear But the hook was there That had plucked you from somewhere Inside my head or maybe From some deserted place in my heart It wasn’t an act Of which I was aware I had no say In the furtive way You appeared around me again Even if you were phantasmic, chimerical In that time, you were real A swaying, decaying bridge coupling The physical and the figmental
It left a bitter aftertaste In my mouth when I awoke I brushed my teeth With renewed vitality (My dentist would be happy at least) I spent the day going over the locks I had put around certain memories These escapes Even in my dreams Made me restless, agitated me When I was awake Tonight I will have my dose Of vitamins and minerals (They promise all sorts of well-being) So that when I dream The bolted doors inside of me Keep holding their integrity
But even if they lose their might Releasing spectres of the night I know that in my waking hours In dissecting and determining The cryptic whys and wherefores Of night-garish visages Invading, distressing me These dreams, these unbidden images Have already lost their sting They have shed their whipping wings To fly at me when I’m asleep Through all of my monster-proofing And so deep down inside Something tells me that tonight I will dream of other things.
I see the sea, a mottled grey As she holds on,just barely To a hazy vestige Of her tranquil turquoise sheen It was just an hour ago That she wore her majesty Cloaked in all her blues and greens But even she This creature of serenity Has her days when she shifts Off her axis of evenness When she fusses and fumes in choppy tones Sending currents of fear through mortal bones Her discontentment carried in The surf that comes crashing in To where I stand holding my breath In my bare feet, toes inward-crept She sloshes, washes over me Her touch, gritty-soft As she caresses me Tough-lovingly For behind her fearsome gaze And beneath her maddened mien She’s still the nurturer, the queen.
The streets cook in the yeasty sun The concrete melting in little mirages In the corner of my eye, I see The vegetation sizzle on the sidewalks The tops are over-done, burnt The undersides stick to the earth In a grotesque masquerade Of some now forgotten vital bond Roots and soil cling together Like dogged carcasses to the bone The street dogs lie half dead Parched tongues loll out now and then A sluggish scrape against the grit And they escape Back into the desert caverns of their mouths I pick my way along the street Shimmer-sharpened by the heat I feel it reach Hellish fingers through my soles Heat-divining for my soul I hurry on but Hades’ torrid lick Is already on my swollen lips His hoary sizzle has found its mark My tar-seared feet slow to a crawl My essence drips out in burns Upon oil-scorched temples and brows Down my thighs and my neck I cannot move another step I sit on a steaming bench To drench the rest of me In the quenchless, wrenching sun.
I hear the leaves rustle in the breeze The gust picks up slowly, gradually I hear the rattle of a window The one that lies loosely in its frame Like a watchful sentry Announcing the entry Of a wayward breeze That rolls in through its screen To knock upon the door At the end of the corridor
I walk out of my bedroom into the lounge The sentinel window Is now trembling, recoiling Rattling its pane Warning of rain That will soon moisten Its face; gushing Rushing, tearing The dust off old memories Renewing the pain
I see the first flash of lightning and then The thunder breaks The storm has arrived I look at it through the window Now lying quietly in its frame Soon the glisten of its pane Swells into a stream flowing Down silently as I sit quietly With the sweet ache Of old memories again.
I sought you out, you seek I did Your sort I ardently sought out In movies on my Netflix screen Your type I read in pages typed And bound in pale lilac string Lying deep beneath secret things Amid beloved, unpublished things Your form I conjured in my dreams From lovely, daytime fantasies You lived in my gleaming realm Of poignant impossibilities Your mold I formed in my head Gently the mould spread and spread Amid beautiful, decaying things Covered in gossamery what-ifs In golden morns and velvet nights I looked for you, I sought you out
Until yesterday
When I saw you clear as day You looked through me and then away The likes of me you didn’t like You sought a whole new other sort I was no part of your reality But I looked and looked silently Seek you still, I do sometimes I still urge for your bewitching kind But now doubts riddle that enterprise Few are the days when I look for you Fret-free, with stars in my eyes Those days are still the most sublime But sublimity is not for me Its glittering garb is too profound Peace is now what I seek out Still, old habits of the heart Are damnably hard to put down So keen for you my secret love And seek you still, I do sometimes.
(This piece is about limitations, both physical and mental on women. It is about a woman dealing with the biology of her own body in an environment that has disgraced and stigmatized it.
This piece has also been accepted as part of the 2024 Women Scream anthology, a platform that unites voices for violence against women and is celebrated on international women’s day across a number of countries).
Give me something to sleep Just for a while, a few hours maybe
What’s bothering you? This thing, this ungodly thing I’m sullied, impure again
Impure again? My insides are bleeding anew
Why are you whispering? Because it’s this dirty secret bound to me It keeps violating, assaulting me With such ravening regularity I have to beg my sister to visit (She has that freedom, that liberty) So she can come bearing these Brazen packs of sordid things The stigma! the cruel savagery Of having my womb constantly Bleed and weep and shame and sting
I see the look on my husband’s face When I can’t make his meals In Ramzan, or on eid (I can’t even iron his prayerful shalwar kameez*) I still recall - I cringe and I cry at the memory I couldn’t attend my little one’s very first Ameen* I had taught him his Alif Laam Meem* I couldn’t say I couldn’t tell them to move the day How could I! I hid in the shadows while my mother-in-law Did everything Hugging my child Lavishing him all the while With maternal love, where my love should have been Mine I had put away, hidden, unclean Until I was done with this bane But the occasion has gone like so many others When I was stripped of the soul of a mother That precious moment passed me by Even my father-in-law watched from jaundiced eyes His expression… such disappointment - such contempt The embarrassment! The torment! I wanted to die
The first fast is tomorrow and I bleed again I’m wretched, repulsive, tainted But I’m tired of hiding, melting away In the darkest recesses of the house I’m tired of playing cat and mouse With my dignity, my sense of self I’m tired of becoming invisible For a week every month, ceasing to be A mother, a wife, a human being I’m tired of fading, becoming a wraith I’m tired… I’m tired of this unholy plague
Give me something, something to sleep Give me something to fly me away On the quiet wings of eternal release.
Image: April Mansilla
*Shalwar kameez: tunic and pants worn by men and women across the greater Indian subcontinent.
*Ameen: term used to signify the event/ celebration when a child has finished reading the whole Quran.
*Alif, Laam, Meem: Alphabets that occur in the Quran. In this context, teaching the Quran with all its semantics.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 