glass

--

girls like glass
are easy to break
but draw blood once they're broken

barefoot in the rain

this is my seven year old cousin, rifa. she is the most important person. if i could, i would never let her leave my eyesight. even in my sleep, i would hold her close. i would shield her, i would never let the world touch her. i would try with all of my might to hold her back, in this age, when there are no battlegrounds to throw her heart into. if i could hold her hand for the rest of my life, her smile would never betray her.

i miss you

Life is much too short. We know that every time we see little boys and girls running around, giggling, as if the clouds had not found their skies yet. In their world, the sun still shines, bright, without interruption. We look back and feel regret. We promise we would take it all back upon a sliver of a chance. We promise that we would laugh harder, that we would know how lucky we are to laugh. We want to hold onto those moments, just as a mother wants to hold onto her child in her death bed. But what for, my love? What reason will you give for stopping time? We came into this world not knowing why, and we will leave not knowing what will come next. Yet we so dearly hold onto something that we never fully grasped.

If you are alive, if you are lucky enough to be here, then realize how lucky you are to laugh. Hug your mother, sing, jump off a plane, but don’t look back and miss. We don’t have time to miss.

the last moments

I’ve always imagined that I would spend the last years of my life somewhere in Punjab. My life would have fallen out of the movie Veer-Zaara. The town would be made, the schools erected, the people happy. Someone would always be singing a song and there would be lassi with every meal. Sometimes I think it would be a beautiful feeling to be old. To watch the sun rise from your balcony, let it hit your arms, your face, not worry about it changing your color or giving you lines. Not worry about whether or not someone will love you if you change. Not worry about changing anything in the world. Not wonder if you are useful or if your body is just an empty vase, taking up space, not giving life to anything. That would all be done, the world would be saved. You could look over the balcony and remember all the times you have laughed, knowing they were the only important times. Everything would be completed, all sins forgiven, no relationships with fraying ends. You would have a complete book of memories, and no fear that there haven’t been enough. For once you would have time to let the sun fall on you, to feel the rain as if it had found you and no one else. And who knows, maybe when you look over your shoulder, from the balcony, you would find someone sleeping on the bed, holding your heart so carefully in his outstretched hand.