Bellum. When the war came for us, we locked the remnants of our dreams inside our gap tooth & sprinted for fear that it would swallow us like it did our homes. When the war walked into our city during the sky’s siesta, we thrashed a mother’s lips with these cracked feets, in search of
homeless: greenway note: the black sheep brothers sleep on the biking greenway, the path from here to eternity or bella vista, missouri anyway. sisters too, splayed, displayed on the asphalt, passed out, eyes shut, cans and bottles, mouths open, ragtag shirts, skirts, shoes, toiletries heaped on the rage of wet grass. and this: four thousand
THE MANSION [ EXCERPT ] ______________________ June 2006: It felt good to be in the old neighbourhood– Travelling to a vegan potluck at a house On Sutter Street on foot gave me A chance to see my first home in the city again. In between a Solid brick Black Protestant church & Expensive luxury condominiums
The old house, built in 1895, was the best of weathered antiques having hugged North Rogers Street from days of horses to days of horse-powered engines, and now to electric cars. As the story goes, Grandad purchased the old house shortly after returning from WWI by merely signing his name on a blank piece of
“Never trust a man, Hina. They’re all scum.” I was nine years old when my mother first said this to me. She had failed yet again to secure a divorce from my father in Pakistan—her second attempt at doing so. The first time she tried, I was five and remember the day we came back
The sea gives back all it takes, you had told me once, as we stood on a large boulder, looking out into the twilight sea. It was our favourite spot, our boulder – a slate grey, oval piece of the ancient rocks, smoothed to perfection by centuries of weathering. I was sixteen and naïve. As
Alone I stand in a dark graveyard Bodies lay still but there are no souls I walk alone without my heart Can’t fill these empty wormholes How can anyone say she didn’t matter She was everything to me Selling their soul is what they’d rather Married into a portal to hell on earth I’m born
At seven a.m. the trees at this park make a green horizon like a fence whose slats are neither warped or out of place. It is the only green part of the day. Lawns are brown, their grass as dead as brooms. It’s October and the trees still have leaves. We are in need of
It’s a short drive to the park. Winter has made a whimsical return as if to poke fun at Spring. Snow powdered trees appear to float in rainwater lagoons. I throw my daydreams into placid pools and wish for sunlight. In the foreground, flakes fall, melting instantly on a glass stage. In the distance, they
With a fleeting first glance, I walked past you standing along the path, instead giving more attention to my footing and my morning conversation. But something about your weathered features struck me. I knew I needed to see more of you. So, I turned around. Retraced my steps. Approached you, reverently. Raised my camera ready.
