The blue-purple sky today Has spent its moisture-ladenness It is now cloaked in quietness Its sadness it has put away In some clouded corner that Will hold it, hide it tenderly For now it wears a lighter heart Star-smeared, it now gleams Wetly with nostalgia A tender melancholia I look at it as it glimmers Stalwart in its eternalness Its timelessness, its ceaselessness I yearn for that serenity That noiselessness, that peacefulness I take in a ragged breath All my grief sits in my chest Heaving, cleaving achingly Endlessly, relentlessly I look at the resolute sky At its crush of dewy stars Valiantly twinkling at me And I look away Tonight I don’t feel brave enough To let the shimmering cloak of night Take me into its embrace Away, away from my sad place. It moved its glutted grief today The sorrowing, water-laden sky And I have in my wretchedness Made it my own this starry night.
She’s caught in the rush of hurrying feet Snippets of conversations Of laughter, exclamations She’s caught in a tidal wave Of teeming, streaming life She’s caught in the swell Of people of voices, of sights and smells Riding the vital wave Pushing ahead Her silk scarf catches the breeze Of swelling, surging humanity She feels it pull Floating just a little in front of her She quickens her step Her feet instinctively keeping up With the urgency of life She feels something In her gut, the pit of her stomach A ripple, almost a laugh! She inhales deeply, she can’t place This sudden lightness of being It feels out of place This morning, mourning She had felt like lead Now like vapor she rises up Colourless, clean In that moment she’s someone else Propelling her body like a comet Lighter, brighter almost serene
She arrives at her gate 8A The same number, the place Where this very morning She had buried them She had forgotten For a few moments Who she was She was desolation and grief itself Wearing the bruises of loss Mourning only this morning It all came back dawning As she came to herself As her blood remembered And curdled inside A freezing, heaving cauldron of chills She sank into the depths of her seat 9B There was a sequence Monumental, compelling To her agony She had to remember She couldn’t forget Her world had ended When she had buried her dead.
I couldn’t. Everywhere I looked, it was there, looming like a mountain, shivering with the bones and moans of people gone. Rattling its presence constantly. I felt it reach desperate fingers through my veins, slowing my blood to a cold, desolate crawl. Then, roaring through my ears in floods that threatened to rip through the corners of my eyes. My parched eyeballs burned until I couldn’t see.
See me …. Feel me
I couldn’t let myself feel its broken form. Jagged and sharp, it would cut through my flesh everytime I looked at it. No matter how fast I fled, it caught up and gripped me around my chest. So tight, I couldnt breathe. I gasped for air, taking in big choking gulps. And then I ran again. I ran and ran until I couldn’t feel.
Feel me … Hold me
I couldn’t let it engulf my senses, to stir up memories that howled in my head. Its own throbbing soul pitched wretchedly inside its quivering tortured layers. Layers upon layers of purple-grey. Like bruises that just don’t heal. It kept hitting itself bruise upon bruise against the walls of my ribcage until every seam was tattooed with wounding inks. Until it lay prone, ragged and torn. I couldn’t look at it, I couldnt hold it.
Look at me … See me … Feel me … Hold me
Hold me … Feel me … See me … Look at me
I looked at it then, and saw a face there, distorted with pain. So much pain. It was mine. I saw it then, fold up its battered layers and quietly crawl into my heart I felt it then, as it tenderly claimed my body, seeping into every atom of my being I held it at last as it became whole, unbroken, divine. My grief finally belonged to me.
When I look inside of you Into the very depths of you Do you know what I see? Two stormy mushroom clouds Looming wetly in your eyes Grey harbingers of doom They roil and linger in the room I’m afraid; I’m mesmerized Then Boom! Everything is gone In the ferocity Of your atom bomb Atomic, Anatomic, Catatonic The fearsome stillness after the storm Your atoms ravaged out of form
When I look inside of you I see vanquished fields beneath The clouds of smoke and acid rain I see the skeletons of trees The mucid ashes of flowers and bees They were rustling, bustling, hustling Their atoms dancing merrily You plucked each atom from its orbit In the fierceness Of your tragedy Calamity, Catastrophe You heaved your mighty weight upon it Smote your world beneath your feet
When I look inside of you I see the heaving cosmos Suns and planets whirling, swirling In the vast blue-blackness Meteors like fireworks Blazing exultant trails Shimmering tails, Star-burnished sails The firmament a holy grail You crush the heavens in your fist You flick your angry blue-bruised wrist The sky comes crashing down Molten lava on the ground Seismic vapor all around I can taste it in my mouth
But when I look at you from here You sit there statue-still Not an eyelash moves at all You are transparent, mystical Ethereal, Apparitional But within Clandestine, Hidden There are raging storms Carrying sand and ice alike I feel a chill in my bones And all of hell’s feverous might And all the while you look at me Your skin shrouded in serenity While in a loop, relentlessly You break and shatter on the inside.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 