INTRODUCTION
My name is Syeda Zahra Shamil and I am nineteen years old. I am a very practical, persistent and passionate person. I am an ambitious feminist reader and writer. Literature has always interested me. I’m a poet who writes about the skies, forest, rain, autumn and love. The weather as well as colors attract me and compel me to write. Authors like Jane Austen and poets like Jackie Kay inspire me the most. I believe in openness. I believe in women empowerment. Expressing yourself is one of the top things that will bring you peace. I’ve been writing since a very young age and my friends and family have been my greatest supporters in encouraging me to write more and more everyday.
AUTUMN
It’s Autumn again, my dearly beloved.
The forest still haunts me,
the emerging trees and your absence.
Those creepy woods, the virescent leaves,
all existed when you were there with me.
Shivering bodies and scattered orange leaves,
falling the way I did for you.
The purple sky, the beautiful empyrean-
All has returned, yet,
the red has disappeared.
I felt dolor and daunted.
The melancholy stuck inside me,
the bardic me hasn’t forgotten any of the
rendezvous dates we went on.
The ocean spoke out like a scream,
the waves informed me about my sorrow.
Wet face turned pale, water fell down my cheeks.
I blocked your lips with mine,
soft, sweet and warm.
Dull, pale faces and bodies shook,
hearing adieu tore me.
Scattered pieces of my heart,
clarion sorrow, in front of ocean and in the forest.
CALM
The wind was blowing that February afternoon,
when devastation occurred.
Her city was in a rage,
as well as haze.
There existed an absence of ease,
she was trapped in the cycle of love.
They told her to tread upon her fears.
She scratched her itchy wound,
as she could hear the inner sound.
The sky was grey,
her memories turn back to blue.
She visited the old house and the garden,
in the hope of obtaining pardon.
Her feathers and fur, all were cut.
Naked and numb; the pain was too much.
She watched herself bleed,
her calm couldn’t tell-
it was a land, a river or a seaweed.
Dark, dull and dangerous-
under the cloak, she hid herself.
Walked around the gardens and forests,
talked to trees,
never made use of leaves,
to hide her wounds.
She watched her heart bleed.
Yet, she was calm and grieved.
MEMORY
Memory; her death became a memory.
That white building still scares me,
and so do the white coats.
Old brown doors and the omnipresent smell,
the wounded patients and the unpleasant thoughts.
Bleeding hearts and frightful children.
Little did we know, the day of mourning was on its way.
The pathetic guard wouldn’t let my grieving family in,
however, antiseptic was contagious, yet scary,
but we went in.
To see my dearly beloved grandma’s
pink cheeks, grey eyes and soft skin,
every child of her’s felt sorrow as they breathed the scent of their mother.
Crowded around her deathbed,
the white bed and wires connected to her body,
agony was all I could see in her eyes.
Yet, she smiled with tears in her eyes.
There were slow heart beats, tears and melancholy.
The heart rate monitor slowly became a straight line,
breath disappeared before her mouth,
huge sounds of lamenting and sobbing was all around.
She died in October, before the winter would arrive.
The house is empty now.
Left with a white sheet over her face,
deathly pale or pink; none could tell.
RAIN RUINS MY KARACHI
Blues and greys everywhere,
the sky in two colors-
what was coming was horrendous.
The storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
the birds chirping and giving us a hint.
It was afternoon, but didn’t seem like one.
It was the rain, coming through.
It could be the time of being witty,
but all I could think about was that;
Rain ruins my city.
Water pours;
we ask if God is crying.
It seems like a sin we’ve committed.
It felt like the day of judgement.
“Several deaths, several injured,” we hear on the news channels.
After dust and heat, rain pours in the fiery street,
dusk disappears from the dirty road,
rain pouring, from the eye and the sky.
Grief of abandonment and devastation.
Pain held the faces- God is crying and so are his people.
One could only think that,
rain ruins it’s city.
It became an ocean out here in Karachi,
towers falling and thunder lightning,
dreadful and frightful people of Karachi,
helpless and abandoned.
The city became a rage,
traffic signal felt like a cage.
When it rains, it is a devastation, a disaster.
Oh dear God, when it rains,
the flowers bloom, the grass grows,
but none of us could go back home.
Rain ruins my Karachi.
My daddy isn’t home,
my mother is on the janemaaz,
praying for the arrival of the beloved.
The rain comes to make everything stop-
Painful grieving day.
Karachi, feeling abandoned.
Falling apart.
Rain ruins my karachi.
MOTHER
As much of an amorist I am,
I’d still say, may it be so, my dear Mother,
your love is only true.
While others were false.
Your morning ambrosian teas;
breakfast made with love,
sweaters sewed in the color of dove.
You are balmily to my life, to me.
My melodious mother,
held great blithe within herself.
The times when I was crestfallen,
when I uttered long wailing of cries,
when agony was struck into my heart,
and I played with the clart.
None but you, my dulcet mother-
None so spiritual as that of “Mother.”
She fastidiously picked up the pieces of my heart.
The sapidity we shared,
surely, my grief was cured by you.
When I was more like a blue,
I watched the sky turn to black,
the darkness was petrifying.
Yet, you brought the Sun for me.
You are a light to my life, my sunshine-
Mother, you are a delicate diaphanous in my sky.
Mother, you bring peace to my soul.
FATUOUS LOVE
He referred to her as “mi amour.”
When he offered her a calix of coffee, called her audacious and aesthetic.
Love, struck in the heart of two.
Hoping for their loving grace,
to continue and shall never end.
The amorphous love they shared,
his dulcet voice and delightful face,
brown hair and black eyes,
completely ethereal.
The euphonious voice of his lady,
with soft hands and a tanned body.
Dazzling and a zaftig appearance,
pleasant to the eyes of her man.
Love was like a rose with its roots,
red and green, colors mixed,
as so were their ambivalent feelings.
Their disconsolate feelings existed,
until he said, regretfully,
he shall not be the root to her rose, forever.
He shall not stand with her, forever.
He covered her ambrosian lips, felt soft, sweet, warm.
It was a painful goodbye.
She had athirst of his hands over her heart,
her heart belonged to him.
There was a caterwaul of tears and agony,
deluged in front of him,
when he said he shall leave.
She realized, he was a frivolous lover,
it was a fatuous love, a jaunt,
that has come to an end.
AUGUST
The month of August is here,
when we go to the beach and visit farm,
the amorists show their charm.
Nebulous weather; orange, blue, grey.
I feel a nexus with August.
Although, it feels motley out here.
August seems grody to all the other months.
Empyreal blue sky with hopes and joy,
covered with dust and rosy dawn.
I pray for the month of August,
may we not be around any beleaguer,
Kismet takes a turn.
I pray August brings delight and euphoria,
ogle turns into falling in love.
Puissance of love, friendship and joy takes place.
I hope there’s none dejection this month,
only victories told and trophies rewarded.
I pray, August is the time,
when we feel the willow and warmth,
of the sunrise and the sunsets.
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