A laugh is not a pretense
I wanted to tell you that, Urooj
And maybe to myself too
Because I know you saw peeps
Of the vacancy
Nestled in my skin
And I too was acquainted
With your queer sorrow
That rises and falls
With a schedule of its own
We saw the jolly winds flirt with greyed trees
And heard many a strange talks
In golden fields of youthful wheat
And mustard flowers alive

But we ran too, didn’t we?
I pointed to the slender tree far, far away
Count as I go, I said
And count you did as I rushed
Rushed clumsily on
My feet twisting in troughs
Eye-lashes fighting dust
Twenty, you shouted, as the tree grew
But I barely heard
my body singing a battlefield

You stumbled through the ploughed soil
Hardened through suns
Crushing the remnants of harvested wheat
beneath the flat soles of your sandals
(who wears those to a field?)
Then more
Through soft, chestnut soils
Trying not to damage the baby onions
And I laughed through my burning lungs
A smoke piled up in me
Yearning to gnaw all away

And we licked the gusts singing gossips
Of sour, raw mangoes
Then relished the cool water that
You forced the earth to puke
(I still don’t get how that hand-pump worked)

And I know you sneaked along a wilted rose
From your sister’s grave
And wept, quietly sniffing
Seeing her in all the birds I pointed out
All the leaves dried to immortality
In my notebook
I too treaded through rows of childish guava trees
And struggled to will my ghosts away
I too got stranded in the insolent rays
of the dusty sun

But we joked still, didn’t we?
And when, on the way home,
I reminded you stories
Of the silly children we once lived
Your laugh glimmered all around
And mine mimicked

And the radio was ****
So we swam in our own private silences
Got lost in the rowing birds
And I know, at some point,
All the dead days
And all the rotten mangoes
Seated themselves in the car
Along with us and our shackled beasts
And the villages and the stalls and empty fields
Ran past in silence

But we had laughed
When the restless winds nearly sent me
Tumbling down the tree
And we had laughed when
The freshly-watered soil tried
To **** us under
And a laugh is not a pretense
Urooj, a laugh is not a pretense.
I wonder if we know.

i love her like group therapy loves refreshments.
but sometimes i hate the way things unravel.
and the way we re-tangle after cutting colored strings.
is this really love if all my bones will break?

she said she feels strange sitting next to me,
as she traced the lines of my wrist tattoos and smiled.
it's hard to know where people are in all this air,
they could be nowhere, or dissolved within my skin.

i love her the way flowers bloom between my fingers.
the way i cry after the game and it's the ending screen.
i can't help pleading when i'm so used to the feeling.
is this really love if i come out covered in scars?

The vibrant dreams
of a young girl
And the elegent drapery
Of frivolous royalty
The colors of rage-
-and sadness
Of power-
-and compromise
Immersed into one
And spit out
Onto lavender fields
And violet sunsets
And all sorts
Of delicate little pretty things
Telling stories of burning love
Mixed with icy lonliness
On the writer's palette
Like the violet buds of affection
Nipped in their juvenile buds
But also the wilting leaves of a lilac
Left to rot past its prime