mujhey bury mat karna

by Mariam Hasan

novamber

a friend invites you to a party where you wear certain colors to tell strangers certain things about your love life. laal says i have a jaan, let’s be friends; hara says, hey, lay it on me. naranji says something in between, but you can’t quite figure out what. you end up staying home that night, not looking for love and not looking to be touched.

aglay hafte you find yourself at a pub, and it’s just this side of too cold. your skin turns to gooseflesh, and the cider sliding down your throat is cool and honeyed. this, this buzzing that runs along your skin? you can’t find the words for it in urdu. 

you’re not looking for love, leikin darvaaza band karna bhool gayi; it works its way into the two feet of space between barstools. you find that you have been lying to yourself.

farvari

there’s appeal in seeing yourself as samajhdar. more zaheen, more thehri hui, more sabr waali than you really are. magar asal mein aisi koi baat hi nahi hai. sach boloon?

you lack paranoia. you want to feel everything.

may

you want to feel everything, so you do. ease melts away and leaves behind something tender - tender and tender to the touch. dimaagh har lafz pe atak jata hai. you think of aao, of jaan, of aao, na, and you find a softness that you can’t face without wanting to look away.

agast

time slips by like a saanp, ghaas hilti bhi nahi hai. kya kya kehna cha rahi thi, aur ab kuch nahi kaho gi. call nahi karti, email nahi bhejti, khat nahi likhti. likhti bhi to kya kehti? tumhein khud koi samajh thori hai ke kya hua aur kyun. vohi jhoot phir se. samjhi thi ke tum control mein ho, magar aik din sheesha dekh ke apne aap ko pehchaan nahi paayi. laal aankhein, bhaari dil. 

this summer is colored with the plum-dark insides of your eyelids. familiarity has always brought warmth and tassalli, but this heaving chest, the hands in your hair - bas. bohot ho gaya.

Mariam Hasan was born twenty years ago in Karachi. She can no longer be found there, but she misses home. Home is not what it used to be. Neither is she.

visual by rubaab mohammad.