The Golden Age of the 90s Kids

Everybody has their childhood memories, which cannot be erased by any means or will never disappear but will be stored forever somewhere around in their hard disk. The 90s kids have been blessed in many ways. They are the generation
January 25, 2022

Asterion

There’s one in every family the black sheep the bull there are names for me you won’t find on Wikipedia whispered, rumoured too ugly to share I wanted to tell my story but there are no words only mythologies yes the

This Is What Happens

It’s Sunday afternoon and she’s in the wash house standing in stocking feet on the roof of theold doll’s house, the one Uncle John Murphy made, and she’s rocking backwards andforwards …bored, bored, bored…rebod rebod rebod rebod rebod rebod rebod rebod rebod

Rosewater Women

The Hindi word Dalit can be translated as divided, split, broken, scattered… like a handful of rose petals flung into sugared water to flavour gulab jamun soft, delectable, melt in the mouth dumplings… but there is nothing soft or sweet

Faith

They had had another run-in. No matter how much she tried avoiding it. And it was right when she had to rush out of the house too. She hated the way someone could belittle another person and then hours

The Tears We Cry

I stood against the front door, staring up at her, bags in her hand. As my mother’s voice strengthened, my body weakened. I shrank to the ground, hugging my knees to my chest, wanting to scream: shut the fuck

Hope

It was a humid Saturday afternoon. The mugginess around had caressed most of my friends at God’s Children into an untimely siesta. Sister, in her white habit, too, was busy sleeping. The cleaning lady, Domenica, had taken the day

Chadar

It’s 42 Degrees. In between the hustle and bustle of Gardezi Bazaar, Beggars line up at the kerb of each street. Upper-class auratein walk with conceit, draped in their fancy chadars, clacking their heels. Mard blast angraazi music, car windows

Tea With The Demon

Tea with the Demon In terms of beauty that hackneyed dragon still beating its wings everything can be broken down a little further each howling beast like the rest of us imperfect, uncertain bearing witness I didn’t like the look

Ashes Of Roses

Not a hop, step and jump, but a stumblefrom the gravel road, when a stubbed toeleads the way to a giant leap since the house was on the low side of the streetapproached by descending steps, flanked by rose bushes

Murdered For Love

හෙවත් අනිච්ඡාවත සංකාරා A woman was killed in my neighbourhood in 2011, because of Love! I saw it with my own eyes, as did the many who were around. Millions of women are getting killed everywhere in the world but,

#MeToo

At the age of six, probablyI remember my mother sayingthat there are these sacred parts in my body that I should not let anyone touchAnd to me it seemed pretty absurd, how the ugliest and the dirtiest partsbecome sacred? And I

We Dreamt

                                                                                                            To Ali Osama and mewe dreamtof making Palestine free.From Yarmouk* we used to followthe events in Gaza and imaginewe would dieas martyrson Palestinian soil. We could neverhave imagined that warwould knock on our doors.We could never have imaginedthat Osama would leave this

Moobs

Men always laughedAbout my slightly overgrown breasts: ‘Boys are not supposed to haveThese things!’This made me a bit of a hunchback. Stiff walk, rounded shoulders, hiding ‘things’, beneath my loose shirt, I was scared of becoming a womanAs a preteen. Why

Fairy God Mother

Where are you, oh my fairy godmother!You searched this corner and the other.Swabbing the stains of your own goreWhen his anger shoved you and more. Do you exist or did you become extinct?You moaned in silence but distinct.He might hear me cry

Medusa

First it was gold the untold storyraindrops in the gardenof longing she wrote it down tore it, ate the wordsthey were anything but sweetswallowed hard what gorgonthat was just a bad hair day my ringlets my pearlshow many men were lost

Safe Harbour

I learned to love storms as a young man,Because storms were all I knew.Anger and intensity everywhere;Home daily ripped by lightning flashesOf unexpected violence and unexplained pain. I learned to survive on an open sea Of pain and hostility; Hiding

The Salty Kiss

To not sing about the afternoon Is impossible. The one wandering the desert, his voice wringing with grief, is not the singer— in his path, marble tears of sunlight and patti flowers; The nectar’d voice from the mosque that calls one

All The Doors

Of all the doors, You are the one who beckoned me. I stood there, staring at you Contemplating the silent view. I could hear the voices I could smell the fragrance I could feel the living Was it that I incarnated

Paired

I take off my gloves to pull my suitcase up the high steps onto the Tibet-bound train, then wheel my case down the aisle, hoist it into the overhead rack, help my family find seats, and there— out the window, as

Whispering Moon

Skies of shimmering gold And blue There is a garden among the Trees The dew on leaves of ivy fluttering Silently shading under the sunbeam A bird on a bough Playing the musical note on a flute: “I go where love

Door to Door

There is nothing called a fine morning in a door to door salesperson life. Especially when it comes to saleswomen. She never enjoyed this job. If someone gives her the option to quit this job and start her career all over again,
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Oxygen

“What do you think about the X-rays, Dr Smith?” Dr Zoya Khan asked him, over the phone. “I think we should remove that tooth, especially since she has been complaining about its pain for so long. It just needs to come

Pricing The Smell

You crossed me suddenly Pervading the smell, It tells you are here You are somewhere in the closer vicinity Then, I add my philosophical underpinning of consumption It has many forms: Seeing, smelling, touching, imagine, actualising, experiencing…! It needs one or

Buddha’s Brain

Birds are happy They are flying, some of them singing sweetly Animals are happy They are walking, some of them running Butterflies are happy They are with vibrant colours Trees are happy They are green and most of them  flowers and
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Amma Budu Wewa

Wish blesséd nirvana upon me one day for my nine-month pains, for Turning my blood to milk as the poets and scholars have often droned… perhaps also wish enlightenment one day, my son! I am after all, no real blessing to

Sita

Sita – when you followed your blue-skinned lover along tangled forest paths Did he marvel at your fearless laughter filling the darkness with hope? Did his heart lift at the sight of you, his sure-footed wife marching melodically into the wilderness

Second Language

When you have to leave home the word belonging loses the be and just the longing is left. When your language isn’t spoken by anyone, when you have no one to talk to in it but you your memories stop trying

Unseen Galaxy

Amid the hurriedness and haste there lazes stillness, motionless and chaste In an unseen galaxy of a trifling territory It is but a forgotten keyhole of a lost realm As you step within spreads out a Universe trimming your dream bundle

Trash Can

The trash can filled with all invaluable items Items, those I preserved On and on for years together Started to open the day I understood Understood What is what Who is who? Where is who? Why is what? My charismatic articles

Portrait Of The Poet

Her hair Freshly harvested dreadlocks Unedited gospel of love Off limits to combs. Tresses like streams Of eternal fire- From the arsenal of her body. Poems conceived in a celestial tongue When stars align with cesarean precision. It is our own

Blending

by that river I bend down to note down in my notebook for I hear the water flow but see not the bottom of the bed, not even knee deep I breathe the fresh air but creeps that doubt I think

A Little Bit Of Heart

His budget-conscious ma-ma used to make him fill-up on a steamed pork or chicken bun before going to an extended family yum cha luncheon So he never really developed an honest appreciation for the more gourmet seafood dumpling. And though he

Death Before Dishonour

In this case There’s no honour in being violent No honour in unleashing feelings that refuse to stay silent There’s nothing worse than Leaving your daughter more than frightened But still Some would go beyond those limits To protect the family name

My Salad

is made with a poetic love, like breaking lines in my poem I chop into pieces the Roma tomatoes and the English cucumber with the yellow onions, all raw adding also some boiled dried Indian chickpeas with un-fried sunflower seed, sprinkling generously

The Baton

Verbal, verb-less, jabs of manifold colour crimson, gleaming gold and darkling from sisters of the cross of the familial kingdom arches of the eyebrows, with pits and crests on the turbulent waters of marital seas bobbing sisters, aunts, nephews, and nieces, and,

Bus Trip

A Monologue About A Ghost & Groundhog Day I never got around to getting a driving license, having my own car. (Pauses, as if sorry). My parents were a little too high strung to teach me. My boyfriend at the time, who always

Confluence

Waters when they evaporate, meet… at a global conference, to speak of fish dropouts, obscura of clouds, near-deaths, hydrological dynamics, monocultures, and metals: nickel, lead, chromium, at their beds. The bend is notional: water for coffee, cane, banana, paddy, mills, distilleries, fertilizer

Sound Of The Soul

I hear the sound coming from the weeping soul You reflect it-the pain and broken heart With the spreading wing of mercy and love Solacing the weeping heart…..! Yes, the wing of the heart is broken The dancing leg is in the

The Unspeakable Act

A Short Story Something is finally happening in my life. And I don’t mean like baba noticing the drawings and sketches I’ve been leaving around the house for him to see. No, baba is much too busy to pay attention to something

#DONTPRAY

“I miss those simple times” but maybe We lived through a mere interim False hope Prayed for healing rains on our dreamy heads not ashfalls among the dead. Oh “I miss those simple times” but don’t you remember? Our foundations, our hopes

A Distant Rumble

Last night it rained. I lived that storm in my senses. Felt in my bones that inevitable hush… The calm before the storm. Listened to the distant rumbling of thunder and watched distant flashes of lightning illuminate the night sky. I stepped

The Journey

In the time between Blooming and withering of a flower…. In the time between One gunshot and another…. In the time between Two explosions you hear… Children set off on perilous journeys, From darkness to darkness… The sun and the moon Armed

Borderlands

I live in borderlands where cobwebs spin my fingers together and sun burns the mark of earth on my tongue. My home is two places and none. Born here and there, speaking the languages of both, my greatest fluency is silence.

Lost in Red

01. Sat in the spiritual place on a Friday After checking your availability You are busy at home I entered the place. You too joined me in the line of Prayers shoulder by shoulder with others I smiled at me Not sure

Deconstruct

Hair traitorous grey shameful need to pretend anti aging. Plucking, dilapidating; dyeing, dying. Betrayal of knees, hands, feet, neck (knees!) circled & magnified, almost expired  — quick sale! The male body needing no such revision. His landscape a shameless prairie

#Melanin

This word that keeps poppin’ on my Instagram feed Means so little, so it seems To crafty marketers and vacuous beauties Hash-tagging like tomorrow Will never come Kindled to autoignition point, Melanin shot golden stars out of their hiding places

Soul

You see, You are much too old. Your river seeks canyons to carve. Your melodies are not music. Not yet. Your language is yet to be born. You are of the Sea, the Earth, the Breeze. You are Freedom. You are