Hours

(the hours)
Completed on October 23, 2022

The sweet poison of hot water hitting my tired feet at 3 am
All that was left unsaid as you board a 4 am flight
My heart melancholy, waking up late for fajr again at 5 am
A forgotten smile, a forgotten hug, a forgotten friend; 6 am
7 am always smells like middle school;
boiled eggs, hot milk, arguments
Smog clouds my window, dread clouds my thoughts, 8 am clouds stand out only in holidays
Do I ever realise it could all turn out fine?
Do I ever realise it could all be in my mind?
Do I ever realise they look at sunflowers and still think of me?
Do I ever realise my obsession with them is my misplaced self love?
Why do I look for pieces of me to love in other people?
9 am still feels like quarantine days of august
I have no love left for myself; I gave it all away
Is it selfless and kind to be to self so cruel?
10 am, 10 minutes past
Why do we care so much when nothing ever lasts?
But ghosts of all wrong decisions still creep up on me sometimes
Do I not wish I didn’t care about the purpose of life sometimes?
Memories of a book read without the need for coffee
When did existence become so heavy?
I think it’s lovely when it rains
11 am; perhaps I should have waited for you to say it instead
Jaunty promises that never reached the eyes
I held hope even when I knew it was all a lie
Sleep is beneficent at 12 pm
1 pm, winters, oranges
Existence comes knocking at 2 pm
Sometimes I wish I liked life better at the sidelines
The grass is lighter there; there’s shade
I’m surrounded by green grass but it’s all on fire
3 pm; wonderings begin
What if once again I love too hard?
What if my love is a scaffold; it makes it hard to breathe
Afternoon nap time spent reading instead
I’ve read so many books at 4 pm
I am drained by 5 pm
I am run dry by 5 pm
I am a survivor by 5
At 6, I forget to eat
The changing colours in my cup of coffee enthral me instead
I feel alone, I need a muse
I feel sad, I play some music
I think I’d like to be an artist instead
I have the brains
I use them strictly for overthinking
Every aspect of me
It’s a relief when my brain is hard at work at 7 pm
I played by my own rules
Did that make much of a difference?
Why does everyone tire of me being me at 8 pm?
I like myself at 9 pm
Wounds and scars
Self improvement is a con
It’s my imperfections that make me fall in love with me again
There are days I don’t lie awake tossing and turning in bed at 10 pm
There are days I’m exhausted enough; sleep envelops me instantly at 10 pm
There are days I don’t have to lie alone with my thoughts at 10 pm
But then again
When was the last time I slept at 10?
The weight of existence droops my eyelids
But keeps my heart agitated
I can’t sleep
Tick tock goes the clock
Thunder clouds at 11 pm
Rain at 12 am
Is the view still the same from my teenage bedroom window?
Has the view changed or have I?
What hurts more; unrequited love or love that makes no sense?
Love I confessed at midnight but never looked back on
Solitude at midnight
The playlist that has stayed the same for 10 years
Wistful good nights
Letting go is an art I learnt at midnight
My dadi loved the smell of night blooming jasmine
It would creep in through the window of the bedroom we shared; it haunts me still
My Nani put on a jasmine scented cream every night before bed
On sunny afternoons, my sister would collect jasmines from the garden
They sell jasmine bracelets on the roads now
My sister collected roses too but childhood still smells like jasmine
My bookshelf is a memorial to every person I’ve ever been
Wuthering Heights still smells like the chicken karahi I ate when I read it the first time
I take it out again tonight
It’s 1 am; what a wild night
I don’t have the attention span of my childhood anymore
I put the book back
I take another one out
Over and over again
Will foreign words ever fill the void?
I reach for my phone at 2 am
Too much
Too loud
Too honest
Too late

(the hours again)
Completed on February 25, 2024

My mom calls me for sehri at 4
The sun rises at 5
I don’t overthink every aspect of me ever since your voice in my head’s been erased
My life’s better ever since the narrator’s been replaced
Late nights and early mornings
Conversations from the summer still linger and whisper
6 am
I wonder if it was an excess of motivation or dread
Half fried eggs served half burnt; non stick pans
Black coffee to go
7 am heat of Lahore
I add milk and ice cubes in the coffee
The changing colours enthrall me
The 8 am lecture does not
Day after day
Grateful for the constants
Grateful for the change
Pushed you to the side when I finally took centre stage
Bookshops all quiet
Decorum maintained
9 am, 10 am
All this fuss
What a disgrace
To have loved and lost
To be loved and remembered
But what love and what loss
When nothing to fondly remember
Why did I hope when I knew it was all a lie?
11 am; I never could wait
Sleep escapes me at 12
The piercer in liberty market
Jhumkay in anarkali
And that little biryani place
So much pomp, such little grace
1 pm, stairs and lawns
September spent in wait,
October frolicking;
High heels and dances
Here’s to short lived romances!
2 pm
My love was alive; it had teeth and a sharp embrace
Too stiff; did I make it hard to breathe?
Cry for help, why don’t you
Perhaps then I won’t be the only one afraid
Triangles have three ends, rectangles four and circles none
What’s the circumference and radius when I become undone?
Long cast shadows from November nights chase me down lonely corridors at 3
It all turned out fine, it was all in my mind
You say you heard a song and thought of me
What of the rainstorm you brought on me?
But buds bloomed and sun did shine
August afternoons that were all mine
Muddled 4 pm inspiration
All hail gaslighting and manipulation!
Poems I look back on, novels I cannot reread
Places I abandoned but the memories show up in my dreams
Same lunch, same place, same time?
Chilli flakes, peanuts and a dash of lime
I saw the darkest version of me in the mirror at 5
Blame it on the early sunset or the black hole that took away all my colours?
Blame it on the catastrophe, the confusion; what were we if not estranged lovers?
6, 7, 8, 9
I don’t keep track of time anymore, I let it flow
I simply watch the pile of journal entries grow
I resist sleep at 10 pm
I am not sure why
Looking for answers in desperate places has become my quirk of a kind
But every thread I pull comes ripped in my hand and I’m pushed back by the force of it
Circles upon circles upon circles
The clock says 11 pm; I don’t care
But midnight
Ah what a poetic delight!
The poetry books pile on,
As do the dark circles under my eyes
I treasure sleep so why these sleepless nights?
Peace seems to be mocking me, just out of touch, so close by
1 am; Is there still some method left to try?
The movie they played at 2 am but my intention then was to close my eyes and sleep
Shaken awake again at 3; humour as coping mechanism, you know, the usual irony
To lovers lost out of fear
To books I hold so dear
To friends and missed opportunities always so damn near
Oh to leave this circle and come into the clear!