Most of the things I have thought today

by Urooj Mirza

Most of the things I have thought today

I.

I wish he’d take more initiative because this is getting awkward and my parents are going to be home soon and I’m really just so over this already. My father has no life insurance, no life savings, just a lot of faith in God. That’s nice, wish I knew what that felt like, to be so okay with not knowing. I always need to know. I worry about everything. Someone has to, I guess. I’m looking at the moon and its so big and round and I feel like that one time when I was at the beach standing in the water just letting the waves softly lap up against my feet and an old friend, a lost friend turned to me and said yaar hum kitnay chotay hein. Aur kasam se hum kaafi chotay hein, mein to hoon hi. 

II.

It’s 2am and I really, really want to do something self-destructive, so I bake a cake instead. Lemon curd pound cake with a limoncello frosting. That’s what the recipe said. Sounds fancy but it’s just cake, honestly. Sometimes I look down at my hands and I can’t recognize who they belong to. My Abba tells me that change is the only constant in life, so I dye my hair pink but that washes out to a disappointing half-assed orange, so I dye it blue but it fades to green and then blonde. How’s that for change? Change in my pocket, fistfuls of coins, maybe a lost lighter or two. I don’t know what I was looking for but I certainly won't find it here. Every time I have to go back home – wait, I meant LUMS, that was a typo-- or was it a Freudian slip? Khair, wo bhi ghar, ye bhi ghar. How can my heart be in two places at once? I don’t really know what heartbreak feels like but I think that’s what I’m going through right now. Sorry thori senti hojati hoon aaj kal, leaving leaves you like that, kind of empty but also so full of longing at the same time. I don’t know really, all I know is that sometimes I’ll be looking at the way a particularly Karachi sunset drowns everything around it in an orangey blaze, and my eyes will randomly start filling up with tears. I know this is a cliché, everyone writes about Karachi skies and the sunsets and the sea but it’s all we have. Somehow, sometimes that’s enough.

III.

I am back. When I utter the word living it sounds kind of like leaving. This morning I spent 15 minutes in bed, in my head convincing myself to go to class. I didn’t end up going but I lied to my mother and said I did, kya karoon? Kabhi kabhar jhoot thora bolna parta he. I’ve been watching too many reality TV shows these days, they all revolve around dating, around falling in love. My brain is slowly turning to mush. I needed an escape so I slept for 14 hours. I needed an escape so I left the city for a weekend. call it homesickness. call it adjusting to being back after the winter break. call it the sophomore slump. call me sometime. miss you. wish you were here. bus aaj kal ghar tumharay baghair khaali sa lagta he. jee, main bhi. my problem is that things sometimes feel like they’re too out of my reach. i’m constantly writing odes to homes that have long since crumbled, that have been demolished, that have been inhabited by new families. The thing about Lahore is that the sun doesn’t feel the same here which is weird because it’s the same sun, right? right? i read a poem the other day. something about not arriving and just passing through. i’ve been feeling like that a lot aaj kal, neither here nor there. 

Lekin ghar to ghar hota he. 

IV.

I’ve been seeing a lot of dead birds around lately, I don’t know if that’s supposed to mean something. I flit my gaze, do not let it linger. I dreamt about him last night but I forgot most of it. What I do remember are those shawarmas he used to order for us every time we went over for dinner, from that one shawarma place we used to visit on the weekends when we lived in the Muhammad Ali house, wohi green gate wala. I never quite had the heart to tell him we’d outgrown the shawarmas a long time ago, so he kept ordering them and we kept eating them. I keep forgetting that he’s not around anymore and nothing feels the same, my world feels a little duller, I'm telling myself it's adjusting to being back but it isn’t really, it's about being alive for every day that he isn’t. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat a single shawarma again. I think I’ve said shawarma too many times now so here’s another one. Shawarma. 

V.

how can you love this city, how can you not. how can you live somewhere else, how can you love somewhere else.