Literature - Page 2

Zareena and her childhood friend Sydney sat in a Mexican restaurant at a bar beneath dim lights, waiting for Sydney’s friend Katie to arrive. It would be Zareena’s first time meeting Katie. Sydney had told Zareena that Katie had recently broken up

my world has three bedrooms two bathrooms and one kitchen but I know of things that happen in your world too I know the days when your boss scolds you when he threatens to fire you you come storming inside slamming the

1. The sun on the face the chill of a winter morn a cup of steaming tea a book. Bliss incarnate. 2. I burn like ice I melt like dew In the heat of your touch in the fire of your love.

A couple of weeks ago, my WhatsApp buzzed, announcing a caller who addressed me with the words, “Hello, younger brother Asim.”. He told me he was Nifal and the last time he heard my voice was somewhere in 1974. I couldn’t recognise

Kite running days An ambery summer Lay on harvested crops. Our salad days flapped like Dragonflies. We piled up pebbles under Shade of the giant Albizia. Tween us in loosen plaits And frocks with un-tied knots. Shrieks and squeals about the

A soft whiff of air knocking at my window, table of good thoughts turned over. An effort to sew the wound of past, the mask fell off, eyes betraying heartache. Gloom blocking the view of silence, mind forgot to think

“The longing to touch…I feel gratitude when I touch someone  — as well as affection etc. The person has allowed me proof  that I have a body — and that there are bodies in the world.  — Susan Sontag,  from As

On the way back from the hospital I ask in the rickshaw — Why this life-long marination in nature and language? Why go desperately Sensing the too-named Naming the too-sensed? Where do I go gutfully as seasons blaze through me?

Sister, look at the moon fret with you above Mt. Luna. He knows the fiefdom of dissenting clans is upon you, somewhere in a countryside where poetry never had a chance. The fire in the mountains is a torrid metaphor you have to