The stone-pelter's lullaby

Mou’ji, sing me a lullaby tonight

Too many faces made of white smoke

Smother me when I close my eyes

My dreams are on a leash, and

Olive green monsters stalk my breaths

Mou’ji, sing me a lullaby

Mou’ji, burn my clothes while I sleep

Too many friends have bled on the Shirt,

You brought for me when Eid last came

For when the demons come for me,

Let them never handle threads sanctified by blood

Mou’ji, burn my clothes while I sleep

Mou’ji, take away and bury my school books

My classroom is now a sandbag bunker

My fingers will trace words in the dark now

Every page full of the names of the dead

One by one, till I am one of them

Mou’ji, take away and bury my school books

Mou’ji, don’t cry when they bring me home

For even if there is no heaven, I refuse to be choked

My hands are scarred from the edges of stones

But iron chains are heavier still

Even when gilded with fool’s gold

Mou’ji, don’t cry when they bring me home

* Mou'ji - Kashmiri for mother

Comments

Some Other Time

We will be counting days again, till we say hello again— only for us to say goodbye again. We always knew we’d have to say our goodbyes one day. Then why does it hurt so? Even so, when we know it won’t be long before even goodbyes are a luxury. We cling to hopes— that this isn’t the only life we will live. That one day, we will meet again, in some other life, in some other time, where we won’t have to say G oodbye.

Undelivered Package

There is an uprising coming it was supposed to be here yesterday but I suppose it is lost in the mail who do I write to the website had no address only a small warning goods once sold can not be returned maybe I should have known then not to trust Nigerian princes with unclaimed millions and fully functional revolutions leftover from the days of the next war Maybe it is stuck at customs maybe it would have been better to wait for my cousin to travel in, so he could sneak it in packed neatly between airport toblerone and contraband iphones

In Barely Discernible Darkness

I will trace the Jhelum Across Your back with my fingers In barely discernible darkness It will form a paisley Drawn from the memory of An imagined Kashmir No language spoken by Man or Gods shall be Uttered that night Words will be melded, Sentences molded to form A new language of love The ink, a fine powdered Amethyst, shall dry as We write its grammar The quill tips, fashioned From old bones, shall Burn in its blaze The room will be Full of scorch marks In barely discernible darkness -- Tz

Tasenda

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