Four months have gone by since I last saw you.

Every night I wake up almost four times.

Half-awake, carrying sleep in my eyes,

I think of the doom that darkened the skies.

The day you died

and I entered your house,

the first thing I saw was your white shroud.

I closed my eyes.

grief had grown too loud.

There was such a crowd,

and I have always been timid in line,

waiting in long queues all my life.

But I wanted to see you one last time,

so I put aside all my manners

and pushed through mourners,

just to stand by your side.

I saw you in a way I never had imagined

the lifeless figure, silent and still.

Oh, my ink should have run dry,

but it is my shattered heart I feel.

You left the world.

You gave up the fight.

And here I am alive,

still writing each night.

We met only on occasions,

never deeply tied in sight,

yet I, a distant relative, still wonder

if you stayed a little longer,

because I miss you every night.

Sometimes I close my eyes

and cherish someone alive

who may leave far too soon.

Last time I inhaled the evening air,

I did not know your fragrance

would vanish with the moon.

Now I look at my own pictures and think:

you were alive when I recorded that trip.

You were breathing when that certain song played,

before death loosened your grip.

It was your death

I could never foresee,

but harsh reality

has now unsettled me.

How can I forget what time it was,

I vaguely remember it was six past nine.

Now that you are gone,

I have no courage to check on your sister,

Or ask your mother if she is doing fine.

I simply cannot believe,

how such a lovely smile could fade

without leaving a single trace.

You were kneaded with kindness and grace.

My poetry is fragmented,

my thoughts scattered away

like restless leaves

on a storm-ridden day.

I long for one last goodbye.

Your beautiful voice still remains in my phone.

I miss you at dawn, in daylight, at noon

and in hours when I am alone.

Every night, I wake up four times

to fill the feeding bottle for my son,

and four times, in the silence of night,

I miss you when the day is done.

Not once but every single time I rise from bed,

your memory returns

through the quiet in my head.

Perhaps grief has strange timings.

It waits after midnight,

in dim kitchen lights,

in exhaustion and time.

And there, through all that persists,

I miss your precious existence.

Who am I?

The question made my thoughts run fast,

like running water down a stream.

I recalled my belief, my creed, my caste,

I told them my name, they said it’s not enough.

Who am I?

The thought kept me awake in bed.

I looked for my crown, wore it, and said,

A girl with dignity, and some demands, I huffed.

Demands? What demands?

They said, You are acting tough.

I protested that I am a lover of Sylvia Plath.

Desire for freedom runs in my breath.

Just stop right there, they said with rage.

I pushed them back, threatened to break the cage.

Their smirk made me strain my brain.

I kept thinking, who am I?

Not just once, but again and again.

Who am I?

I asked myself this time with pain.

I am the wise, I am the finest of fine.

My voice was staggering when I spoke,

You are not Victor, I am not your Frankenstein.

Did it work? Did I provoke?

They asked, who am I to blame?

I felt like my voice was coming from a well.

I kept writing against them, gave them names.

What names? you ask me,

hegemonic designs, a heaven turned hell, an evil patriarch.

My poetry, my essays failed,

as the difference between writing and reality is stark.

They asked me, who am I?

Let me tell you what happened then, my dear:

my brain stopped functioning.

I felt my defeat was too near.

I kept running, but finally I fell.

I thought I would rise like Maya Angelou’s warrior.

Things changed hastily, and I became a carrier.

What loneliness is, I am aware.

I was determined to bury my fear.

A carrier of love, peace, and joy

there came into my life a little boy.

The time came for me to bow.

A boy who saw me as a precious pearl

I no longer recognize that rebellious girl

who I was years ago.

They asked again, for one last time.

Now I know who am I.

I am the whole world to Fasih, I know.

Also in a hush between each drop

I opened the main gate and gleefully ran inside

as if the world had softened on my side

I wanted you to see the rain and to smell it

and lose ourselves, just for a bit, in it

While you were playing with the smallest of small cars

Living the moment, forgetting hardest of the hard bars

I wanted the two of us to be locked in the droplets,

You would certainly love rain, that I bet

I came running, called your name, and you turned to see

Your eyes waiting to know what happened to mommy

I held your hand, you dropped the toy

I said, look at the rain, oh my little boy

You too loved the rain, or so I hope

Will you remember me when the rain won’t stop

All lined up to run, with a single thought in mind: they have to win.

Regardless of the reason, regardless of their own will,

It is never a question whether they want to run or not.

Horses never pondered the worth of the final destination.

They knew that running was the ultimate desire of their master.

Humans.

They, too, have masters and these ruthless figures are their own relations.

They are merely human foals.

It begins with hesitant baby steps, and then the masters arrive with comparisons.

Human horses start running faster,

for applause, for compliments, for rewards.

The foals grow into fully formed human horses.

A future is painted before them as a shining victory,

but when that future becomes the present, it is blank.

Human horses no longer know where to go.

They turn into hamsters, endlessly running in a tiny spinning world.

Again and again, they are reminded:

you are a horse, you must outrun every other horse in sight.

And the horse longs to be a horse,

never realizing it has already become a hamster.

Was it ever a horse or only a hamster?

Anything but human.

For humans, they say, are meant to pause,

and to notice the world around them.