fits and spits

walking. the stench of covered up filth. known as perfume. fills my nostrils and i'm nostalgic and caustic at once. water draining from high-storied AC units drips on my head, and the crows mistake my hair for a rhythmically moving beauty of a nest, crashing down with their claws. and i feel, violated. and curious. and i'm touching my head in semi-disbelief and semi-fear-of-what-diseases-crows-claws carry. to my head.

this is saddar. this is downtown karachi. this is where my mamma was born. this is where i can walk and not speak and fit in and if i speak, well, they think i'm from afghanistan. i spend my days in an office reading all day about rapes and murders and burns of little girls and boys and older girls and boys. and i still get pissed at those who admonish me to not go here and there for fear of safety and for fear of you know, "you know how they are." and i think, do i? do you? why do i get pissed? because i'm never locking myself in a prison, however spacious, and i'm never listening to people who speak with such authority about people they've never talked to, and about places they've never been. and yes, that means you uncle-ji.

so i'm still walking. past my destination. mind wandering. engaged in a masturbatory conversation with itself. wondering this and that, useless thoughts accumulating like all the little steps i'm taking to take me nowhere. nowhere but here. i turn and look at the open doorway, leading to an expanse of broken nothingness. and i think, this is where i came from. this is where i'm going.

she walks into the room. you're awake though you close your eyes. find comfort in the shelter of feigned sleep. communication, your enemy. conversation, your foe. eye contact, merely a symbol of a larger connection you can't make.

i was walking through a crowded street. and no one touched me. i was crying just to feel my tears kiss my cheek. i was singing out of tune because that's the way you loved me.

in these spaces, between the fear of sleep and the shelter of your delicate eyelids, the world disappears. the lights screen out. the room narrows and the breath keeps beat. to the sound of love singing out of tune. to the to and fro of our dancing smiles. to the whispering thumps of our bled-out hearts.

above your eyes and below your closed eyelids, where the lights go out and the dimensions squeeze. the world disappears and there's enough space, for you and me.