The Borders of Peril

You've not known pain unless you've felt
Involuntarily spasms pass through your back bone,
Shaking you right to the core.

You have not known pain unless you've lost a limb or two,
And ached in fire of sheer loss.

You have not known pain unless you've tossed around night after night,
Not sleeping a wink, wondering 

If a thought about you have passed someone's mind.

You have not known pain unless you have been cornered by men,
Worse than stray dogs, helpless and hopeless in the face of fate.

You have not known pain, unless you've experience something
As beautiful as childbirth,
And not as worse as the catastrophe of losing one.

You have not known pain unless you've basked in the relief of an escape,
Whether it comes from running away, or a stinging blade.

You have not known pain unless you have been forced to see,
Your children going to bed
On an empty stomach, night after night.

Meaningless, your pain is not, however may it come.
Don't let me define your pain for you.

Don't let anyone set the borders for your peril. 

You've known it all as it struck you from behind

Or ripped at you head first, and beaten you raw.

-Momina.

Maybe We Need To Stop Living Among Metaphors.

A single puff of dust swoops up from the ground as if conjured by a magic spell. Between the dust that now settles back onto the dry ground, the droplet that has caused this tiny hazard is long gone; already soaked into the depths of the thirsty earth. Gradually the whole space starts being bombarded with such tiny dust bombs, and the burning plane drinks it up as quick. The heat rises evidently out of the ground as the water droplets pick up speed; it trickles out of the ground, prompted by the cooling rain. In no time the rain spell grows in intensity drenching the parched land, the thirsting flowerbeds, the burnt grass, the dry soil. It subsides even before it can trickle down towards an unknown path. 

The drowning sun sends golden waves that glint off the raindrops that cling to each surface. There is a general relief that drifts through the air, soaking people along with the rain. The air resonates with cries of happiness and prayers being send heaven wards. Between the beautiful chaos, that is the rain and the mayhem caused by everything around, she’s caught in the moment. Despair and satisfaction run through her, somehow together. 

The light from the setting sun filters through the window, being the only source of illumination in the gradually darkening room. As if it’s trying to show her the light but she was too much of a coward to break through her cage. Or maybe it was just the light slowly seeping out of sight. Maybe she just needed to stop living among metaphors. 

Between the profound desolation and satisfaction other emotions fluctuate, creating an incoherent tangled mass of feelings that looks like a twinkling star, fading and glowing, and fading and glowing. The satisfaction she was feeling, encased by time in that moment was an oddly familiar sensation. Although, how it sustained with the growing feeling of melancholy and despair was awe engaging. Maybe she had found bliss in her sadness. Or maybe sorrow had become home, the place where the heart was. 

Amidst all this, there was never an ounce of emptiness. The despair was not hollow, neither the silence nor the loneliness. Each was a part of her own, entwined so strongly with her backbone, knotted with her nerves and melded with her blood. She was them and they were her. She weaved her anguish in patterns and found happiness smiling in the folds of it. Why did people assume she was unhappy? She was not.

The monotonous despair had shown her so many colors of life and it had taught her well, too. Everything was there and she was the one revolving in the middle, touching despair, sparking happiness, dying a little while she lived each day. Being a part of everything, everything a part of her. 

The grateful exclamations start afresh as the rain comes down in full haste. The light has all but left her now darkened room but she doesn’t flips the light switch, she doesn’t moves from her place for she is content while watching the hues that dance within her; as her realizations take shape.

-Momina

Visual Satisfaction

She puts the glass to her lips and leans her head back, letting the last few drops slip inside her mouth. She places the glass back and leans against the sofa back, landing her feet on the table. She hits the remote, and music begins to flow through the stereo at the corner; beautiful wordless music. She taps her foot and nods her head slightly, with her eyes closed as the melody strikes in high and low notes.

It is a fact that the peace of the moments never lasts as long as you want it to, and as the phone rings, it jostles her awake, she hits her foot on the glass at the table, as she gets up. She hears it crash, a reverberating sound, and looks at it in disbelieve. It looks whole from her angle. She forgets about the phone and settles into the sofa, looking at the glass that rolls from side to side on the glass top of the coffee table, slowing down. The glass is broken. Quarter of its length, one third of its width has broken off, and it rests a little further away, whole.

How queer, two things so whole, yet together they are broken. She doesn’t register the phone as it clicks off. She puts the glass upright, leaving the chipped off piece further away. She leans forward, and runs her finger on the smooth edge of the cut glass. Smooth until it cut through her flesh, stinging and drawing blood. She sits still at the alien sight. She watches as the red drops drip, staining the glass and the coffee table. She snatches a couple of tissues and wipes off the blood. Pressing onto the finger until none leaks anymore.

She looks at it curiously, the cut has formed white edges, and red wells up deep inside. It is a sight so rare, so mysterious to her; the one who has always suffered unseen pain, with no visual aid to it, it fascinates her. She draws the broken glass closer, running her fingers over it, letting it prickle and wound, allowing it to coat it all red, finding satisfaction in the graphics of her pain.

-Momina.