Have you ever been asked,
“How do you feel about this?”
Ever been so dumbstruck,
That you not just forget how to speak,
But you forget how to human.
Yes, human.
Species that believe to be the smartest,
And the greatest.
Reaching new heights,
Creating new boundaries.
Species that are potent to create so much.
But take a step and destruction such
Wondrous
Fabulous
Marvelous
Devolution, that’s what we are.
My friend, take a bow.
Take a bow, for the universe is applauding.
With tears in its eyes, begging for forgiveness of such creation.
Have you ever been asked,
“How do you feel about this?”
And you have nothing to say
Why?
Because once upon a time, there was somone there who could feel.
And one day they decided to stand up.
Stand up and say what they felt.
What they felt was wrong.
Blooded hands were wrong,
Tiny feet tired of working was wrong
Worn out roads but big beautiful buildings burning the insides were wrong
Fearful eyes
Troubled mothers
Hunger for bodies
Aging alongside the gutters
Wrong. Wronged. Wrongful.
All ears open.
All heads nodded.
All smelt of guilt.
But then what?
Another day, another story
One person done wrong
Another person’s glory.
So yours faithfully stopped feeling.
Yours faithfully closed all windows
Shut the curtains and sewed them together
They quit the show.
And went with the flow.
For next time would they ever stand up for anything again
Would be to hang themselves
With the fragile rope made with the same dirt that the system is made of.
What we’re made of.
You and me.
Our wrongs.
Our smells.
Have you ever been asked
“How do you feel about this?”
No actually, I haven’t.
Because nobody cares.
And the truth is,
Nobody ever will.
Oh hear oh hear.
Powerful, yes?
Moving? Maybe.
Truth? No.
Do you think we’re crazy?
Yes we are, painting the world black or white.
Refusing the greys in different lights.
Contrasting as this might sound
It’s not the truth.
Somebody is listening.
Somebody knows.
Somebody cares.
Don’t shut the curtains,
Don’t lock the doors.
Feel what you feel
Express what is wrong.
Write it down,
Or scream it out
Cry when you’re hurting
Or dance about.
But don’t let yourself down.
Learn to swim when you’re about to drown.
Because our conscience is what we come with and what we’ll leave here.
Everything in the middle is just a whole big mirage.
Have you ever asked someone
“How do you feel about this?”
No? Then maybe it’s about time you start.
Decayed Matter
Always defined.
Love, contaminated. Confined.
You put it in a box,
You give it a name tag.
There, silence.
Half dead.
Right out of the body bag.
So cold and blue,
So hard and green,
Decaying, slowly.
What had it seen?
Always defined.
Love, contaminated. Confined.
Devastation hits.
Massive revelations.
“Oh, how, why, when”
they ask
Don’t they know it’s because of them?
“You killed it” I want to say
“I’m alright” I say instead
Nothing I said made sense,
Stars, curtains and bread.
Distopian.
Imagination.
That’s where we’re headed though.
Until, salvation.
Pull it up,
The well is too deep.
It’s holding it’s hand out
Awaits. Asleep.
Grab, don’t let go
Save, safe, saved.
Now time to return the favour.
You were brave.
“You’re gifted” it says.
“You can feel me everywhere”
In the mountains and in the seas,
In the eyes of a lover,
In the smile of a child,
In the absence of forever.
In the words of a poet,
In the sadness of a soul,
Around the universe and back,
To the bed and burrial hole.
Wow, I thought to myself
How outstanding is that going to be?
To give love
To take it
To share it
And to be it.
And so I loved.
I loved him,
I loved her
Possibilities unlimited,
No war, thereafter.
Always defined.
Love, contaminated. Confined.
Judgment rolled in some paper,
Hit everyone, smooth and nice.
As the smoke got them high
They pushed me low, covering my foresight.
Blinded and helpless,
I thought where I went wrong.
I loved too much?
Too many or too long?
The smoke chokes.
Where do I go?
How do I save myself?
Or do I go with the flow?
I breathe it in.
White but dark.
Passive did the work
That active couldn’t start.
Defined.
Contaminated.
Confined.
-Fa
The Escaped Princess
-Fa
Small, Little Bells
“One always has a choice, they say. One can always choose what they want to feel. Emotionally. Physically.
How easily they can classify it into just two categories. To feel good and not feel good. Not more, not less. Not asking for more, not asking for less.” She wrote in her diary but stopped because the words started to fade. The ink was over, now she’d have to go out to buy one. Oh, the questions she’d have to answer. She closed the book, tied the tiny rope around it and got up. She picked up her chandelier like ear rings and tried to put them on. Her ears hurt as a result of putting them on and taking them off so often.
She presses her eyes tight and finishes putting them on, she looks in the mirror and freezes for a few seconds. She sits back down, opens up the rope of the diary and picks up the pen which writes faded words.
“I don’t think it’s that simple. You have a choice, but are you bold enough to choose the other one? Are you bold enough to feel good? I think good is a state, where your mind, body and soul are at peace. It’s where you are not craving, you are not desperate, you’re not anyone else, but you.”
“Laaliiii” called a familiar voice from the end of the corridor.
“Kya huaa? Kyu chilla rahi hai? She replied.
“Laali, customer!”
” Abhi 4 nahi baje hai, jao kehdo mai 7 minute ke baad hi aaungi.” Laali asks her to scram away at once.
“Nakhre tho dekho, badi aayi.” She walked away murmuring to herself and as she walked down, each footstep kicked slightly the small, little bells in her leg. Laali listened to it carefully and continued to write again.
“I’m not good. I’m craving. I’m desperate, I’m not myself, I’m you. A reflection of you.
I’m who you want me to be.
I’m the love you miss in your life,
I’m the magic you miss in the absence of light.
You want me, you need me. Your ecstasy, I’ll take you away.
I’ll take you, if you free me from these legs tied in chains.
Cut these legs, I don’t need them. They’re rotting and dying.
I’m rotting. And dying.
The pain. I bleed tears.
I’m not good. I’m craving. I’m desperate. I’m not me, I’m you.”
She looks over her shoulder at the sudden knock on her old, wooden door that creaks open as a man walks in, uninvited.
“7 minute ho chuke hai ho, tho kya mai andar ajau?”
His sly smile speaks paragraphs of lust. She reads it the minute she looks at him. She shuts her book seductively and places it on her shelf, already in character.
“Aao tumhaare jhumke utaar du.” He touches her neck, she merely realizes. Numbness begins to take over her. It’s been months now that it has turned into self-regulating process. She thought to herself again, “One always has a choice, they say. One can always choose what they want to feel.”
It wasn’t true, she confirmed.
“Sab kuch utaar do.” He orders.
“Lekin ye payal, ye payal matt utaarna.
Ache lagte hai tum par”
And the small, little bells kept tingling. Little did anyone know, they had screams buried in them that no one could ever hear.
-Fa
Girl with the Golden Heart- 3
She was the calm, the quiet.
Never said a word
when not necessary.
She was the poet, the artist,
the watcher, indifferent but not weary.
She wanted to say a great deal of things,
she fell short of words.
She stuck to her silence,
and smiled in her world.
Safe in her comfort zone,
she wasn’t that typical introvert.
She knew.
She was aware.
That bitch, you couldn’t hurt.
-Fa
Underground, Under Ruins
Down, down, down below,
deep down, a wind that blows,
blows me away,
sways me to a grave.
Something that I had buried yesterday.
Dig, dig, dig down deep.
Dig down deep and there it sleeps.
Sleeps young, sleeps beautiful,
Now awake, but the bucket is full.
Tick, tick, tick tock tick,
tick tock tick and there goes the kick.
Everything is quiet, everyone black.
Fill the hole you dug,
Time to fill it back.
-Fa
Essence
A collection of photographs of people I met in Udaipur, Jaipur and Jaiselmer.
-Fa
The bitter after-taste
Staring at that old, dusty photo frame in her box full of junk, she suddenly realized that neither was it old nor was it junk. It hadn’t been long since that picture had been framed by her own little feminine hands and preciously been placed by her bed side. By their bedside. She lifted it up, wiped it and exactly on his face, fell the first tear she had shed in almost two years. She thought she was happy. The picture brought back memories she thought she had erased from her memory for good. She thought she was lucky enough to not have that replayed in her head again and again. She thought, running away was going to help.
She saw his distorted face through her tear drop and for a second, felt that her life was a scene of a movie. It all seemed that unreal. Then in a trail of thought she went, remembering tiny details and suddenly her angry kettle sharply cut through her thought process as though it was forbidden to think anymore of him. She took the frame in her hands into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of tea and cleaned the frame with a damp cloth. The brown dust suddenly vanished, bringing a shine onto the frame that probably would never be back in her life again. He was that shine. He was the gloss, of her glass like life. Fragile, sensitive. And he… He shattered it. It wasn’t really his fault. Or hers, as a matter of fact. She sipped her tea and looked at the smiles and radiation and love that the picture held together so tightly. So tightly that she still couldn’t let go. Let go not just of the frame, but her love for him.
“Please come back.” She said.
He opened his eyes, to another morning. He looked next to him on the bed at a beautiful girl. No, it wasn’t the one that was there yesterday morning. It’s not the one he was with day before. Or before that. A new one. Now, an old one.
“Please come back.” He said.
Power
“Lost in a space,
Is this a dream?
I’m scared, I’m afraid
I run and scream.
I can hear echos,
I hear voices ,
I feel more than one.
They seem excited.
They pacify me,
Want me to feel loved.
A part of me,
that’s all they want.
Not lost anymore,
Not a dream.
Not scared, not afraid.
Yet they scream. “
-Fa
FADED MEMORIES- A picture story
Concept, Photography and Editing done by
Faria Abdullah and AJ Aaron
The Hungry Blogger 