The Days Before Yesterday

In the dreary cold,

When nothing bore fruit

A single rose,

All by itself grew

'It wouldnt live', they said

'In the dull winters

that were so cold'.

But the little bud grew,

On and on. And

The petals turned

Velvety and strong.

And before they knew it,

It was a full blown rose.

That even on it's own

Had beared the harsh cold.




-Momina.

Drown With Your Anchors

The window opened with a faint screech of metal against metal that slowly died in the whir of the ceiling fan. She looked behind her one last time and then climbed on the window ledge, rather carelessly; a cigarette glowing at one end held between two fingers and a tea cup balanced on the palm of the other hand. She let her legs hang down the ledge, swaying.

From the ground the figure propped on the window sill of the twelfth floor looked like nothing but an irregular play of the shadows under the dark sky. Closer and you could make out the silhouette of a person, the orange glow at one end of the cigarette, nothing more than a tiny flaming speck moving back and forth in midair.

Her hand moves rhythmically between her lips and the saucer underneath the slender tea cup that doubles as an ash tray. Each puff of smoke that escapes gently from between her lips is like a mere illusion in the dark night, conjured up from thin air.

However she is too occupied to pay any heed to either the magic the smoke presents or the faint moonlight that keeps casting interesting shadows around her. Tears swim before her reddened eyes, almost brimming over but not quite yet. Whether they were due to the sting of the cigarette smoke that she has not yet been accustomed to or the great lump blocking her airway, she didn’t knew. But her throat was blocked; the air wheezing in and out rather painfully. She clenched her teeth against an overwhelming sensation of tears threatening to flow.

In an attempt to distract her own self she looks back into the dark room packed with boxes and shuts the window; her ears ringing at the faint screech. Nothing is visible through the dirty window and the voice that she would soon be hearing is now blocked out.

She lets the tears flow, letting her unwelcome sorrows to mingle with the stuffy air. The air presses down, heavy with the depression that leaks from her. It’s like extreme humidity; it makes breathing and moving difficult as if walking through water or something thicker that fills the earth like a swimming pool. It draws out her energy and will, weighing her down and pushing her away, slowly letting her drown with the anchor that held her.
                                                                   

             ***

From the fifth floor of the opposite building a girl has come out for fresh air; the phone pressed to her ear and a smile tickling her lips. She smiles tenderly at what she hears through the phone but midway through it she suddenly looks up at the sound of a half scream. She forgets to smile or to reply, she doesn’t hears a thing as her eyes follow a shadowy figure falling from the sky.

-Momina.

O' Dear, Lover Of Time.

You know who I’m talking about,

Don’t you?

Yes you do,

Because I say she loved you.

And I see,

How your lips,

Slowly curl into a subtle smile.

So sad, yet glad

To have made her acquaintance

All that while,

Ago.

You see her now,

Passing by,

Through the lanes of time,

Once more.

There, I see.

In your eyes,

Tears that glisten for that golden time,

Now lost behind,

All that while,

Ago.

Sigh once again

Dear lover of time.

Because you know,

You miss that

One and only girl

Who hit home.

-Momina.

As Long As Infinity

http://instagram.com/p/dlbcIcHoa8/

The sun has set and the remaining light is slowly receding into the approaching darkness. She stands under the cold shower, shivering and gasping for breath as the icy water hits her. She has been standing under the water spray for so long, all the hot water has run out and she has to make do with the cold water. Her unknotted muscles now contract under the cold water.

She twists the knob to turn of the spray and slips into a towel robe, knotting the sash tightly. Just as she steps out of the bathroom, the lights go out. She clenches her eyes shut and stands there, hugging herself tightly in defense against the demons that might lurk in the dark. They really just reside in the crannies of her grey matter, the demons. Her fear lurks as she stands there motionless. The light returns and she sighs in relief.

This has been happening for quite a few days. It’s probably just some electrical shortage that occurs in the whole area, because the darkness isn’t restricted to her house alone. She has been meaning to get it checked. It started with a few minutes a day and the dark intervals grew rapidly over the days.

The dark lapses are way more frequent today. It such a dark night. She blindly makes her way to the window and pulls away the curtain in search of stars only to see a night so black you couldn't even see the faint shadows hovering. Just pitch black and sometimes a faint spark of light so unreal that it could only be an illusion.

These periods of darkness grow longer, momentarily still and longer and she wasted time flipping the light switches in each room. The world just plunged into darkness for seconds that lasted for an infinity. This certain one was lasting way longer than the rest. She had a weird feeling that this problem was deeper than she perceived. There is an odd feeling gnawing at her mind; a sense of cold seeping into her bones, giving her a warning, maybe.

The bell rings and she hears as the faint thud of footsteps near.

“Whose there?” she calls out.

“It’s me, Ruth!” She sighs in relief, hearing her neighbor’s name.

“Oh, hi! Come over, why are the lights all out? I mean it’s been ages and not even a speck of light is in sight.”

“What? No honey, they lights aren't out. Actually I came to ask you why all your lights are on in the middle of the night. Is everything okay?” She could hear a worry in her neighbor’s voice but her words made the world stand still for her.

“No, Ruth. No. There are no lights. I can’t see a thing. I can’t see a thing.”

The air left her throat and she stood in her dark world, hand flailing in the still air around her. She felt someone clutch her tight, whisper something incoherent, reassuringly but the sound of her own screams were the only thing she could here. It filled the entire house, echoing back at her deafeningly, sounding louder in the darkness of her mind. The darkness that was not just restricted to her house, it had spread to her entire world.

-Momina.

Suspended

She’s melting away in the white room,

Turning to stone while the quiet grooms.

A sole hammock hangs in a white painted room. Stark white and devoid of everything with the exception of the white hammock and a thick white carpet that covers the floor corner to corner. The carpet and the white walls are so perfectly match that at first sight you are unable to decipher as to where the floor ends and the walls start. There are no windows and only a single door. The room is efficiently illuminated by light bulbs such that there is little shadow play to hinder the dream like reality.

A pale hand hangs down the edge of the white hammock that seems to be floating in the air. The frail motionless figure whose weight presses down on the hammock is not asleep, rather absent from reality and dream altogether. She stands at the mutual edge of the both; confused as to where the reality ends and imagination begins much like the story of the carpet and the walls of the white room she lays in. There is no hurry though; she’ll stay until a state pulls her either way.

For now, everything is peaceful. Somehow right even though incomprehensible. Carelessness assaults her mind. She hasn't moved from her place on the white hammock in the white room. She has been there for a long while and she’s there to stay for a little while more. 

It gives her a feel of floating, her state and the hammock. Of drifting without moving, of defying gravity with logic. Or logic with insanity. Time lapses away; seconds, minutes, hours. A crazy energy drives her, fueling her with the strength to stay. To hold on; to her peace, to this incoherent mix of reality and dream that she is enjoying right now. To not be happy or sad but peacefully satisfied. This is her middle ground.

In the depth of her mind wild blooms,

There is red on the floor of the white room.

-Momina.

The Middle Ground

She was senseless; her consciousness was welded deeply into her subliminal mind. She was not asleep yet the slumber had not abandoned her, it hung around her creating a shell that did not let her wander towards either. She was bemused about what was real and what was just a figment of her imagination portrayed as real. It wasn’t such deep a night, she knew that, so then why was her mind playing tricks on her? She knew that the constant drip from the bathroom tap was real, it was there every night, and so was the faint whistling sound. She heard footsteps, and listened hard, staying still as a statue she realized it was her heart beat growing louder by each minute. She saw the shadows playing around and then almost a shadowy figure, which was gone with a blink of an eye. Sometimes the darkness would seem to prevail forever and at other times it drew in light, little fading circles of white and cream. The line between reality and imagination had gone hazy; she awaited the reality desperately as she hung by loose threads at the edge of her dreams. She hummed to herself; a sole sound in the death of the night, as the night became her, and her the night.

-Momina.

Obscured

And I waited till the questions evolved into answers, 

Question marks straightened into exclamations. 

Encrypted were the messages

Lost were the hints,

Scribbled and hidden scraps, paper thin.

Dipped in symbols,

To form, incoherent answers.

Master of such creations

Losing while deciphering.

-Momina.

As The White Broke Through

Chris Carter Abstract

She was sprawled on the slightly damp grass in the wee hours of the morning; the time between dawn and sunrise, when the sky is a dull blue with white peeking from behind. Everything was silent, there was no chirping of the birds, no rush of vehicles or any sound of life. Sometimes in the back ground there was faint groan of an air conditioner or an occasional hum of a generator.



She lay there staring at the few stars that still twinkled in the sky. Her bare feet resting on the tingling grass, her knees bent. One of her hands ran through her hair that spread out like a coal black fire with blades of grass poking through it. The other hand stretched out to the grass, plucking out wisps of it. The world was just a blur of color through her partially closed eyes, like a water-color painting with one color merging into the other without a specified border.

The red of her dress contrasted sharply with the fresh green of the grass in the dull light. The red geraniums bordering the garden made a beautiful border of swaying red flowers. There was a serenity that flowed through the atmosphere. For once no fire burnt in the core of her being, nothing froze her bones till she was a fragile skeleton of ice. Rather, it was the first time she felt humane. There was no tug of war of love and hate but just an aura of joy and contentment that whipped up genuine happiness on its own. Somehow it was touching the light that was the ultimate solace that she had been fighting for.

There was a looming darkness that rang warning bells of doom and despair for her numb senses. And there was the dark past trying to suck her in, intent on creating a vacuum in her present. But then there was this; this happiness, satisfaction, bliss.

This was her final fight. Her mind urged her to stress upon these thoughts, to draw strategies and sense to secure her but the aura of her surrounding (or was it the light within?) It drew her into a slumber of its own. And she floated like a flail bird, resting, drooping lower and lower into an estranged stupor. For one there was no concern of all the deaths suffered already, there was no wake of fear for the future.

She slept in solace as the white broke through the blue, the east swelled with pink and peach hues and the golden shined upon her as people rushed about where she lay in peace.

-Momina.

Drown.

I am not going to hold you back,
I am letting you go.
I know, that when
You want to drown in sadness
It doesn’t help
To stay afloat on hollow hopes.

So drown
Because it’s okay to do so.
To sit among you disappointments
Until you are at peace with them.

And it’s okay
To come up, gasping for air.
For those are
Treasured moments
Of sheer realizations.

So drown,
Because the next time you wither
You’ll know how to bloom,
Again.

You can’t live a life of no sadness
You can’t omit pieces of a puzzle
Because then
There will be no picture.

Drown
And when you look up
At the hazy image
Of what’s beyond that despair
You’ll know that there are people
Standing there,
Waiting for you to come out.
And the people
Who never came.

But that’s okay,
Because you’ll know them all,
Then. Truly.

So drown and call out
When it’s okay
When it’s time.
And I’ll be there
To pull you out.

-Momina.

Her.

She gets up at seven in the morning. She doesn’t have a clock, but her mental clock wakes her up at seven, daily. She still gazes at the empty side table the first thing after she wakes up, where her mother’s watch always rested, but it has long been broken; smashed into tiny pieces that never made their way back to the table or her. She silently walks into the kitchen and helps herself to a drink of water. The water direct from the tap is already too hot. It must be scorching hot already.

She dresses herself carefully and then binds her hair into a braid. There is a broken mirror behind the door but she doesn’t wish to look at herself any more. There is nothing that holds any attraction at all. What would she see anyway? Eyes that speak of hurt? A broken past and a non-existent future? Pain and sadness? There was no innocence left in her weak body, the innocence portrayed on her face was nothing but a lie, it had long been extricated from her in a series of events; every time life had thrown a pebble at her, she shed her innocence and cast a thick layer of stubbornness over herself. In her adolescent years she had barely anytime to think about playgrounds where she ought to be playing or the rain that called to her while she slaved.

She wraps her dupatta sensibly around her head spreading it diligently across her upper body, again without the aid of a mirror, before rushing out, but silently. She has already wasted too much of her time thinking. There is no time to clean the tiny apartment. She’ll have to deal with the consequences later. She was rather used to it. She walks swiftly with her tattered book under one arm. Her books were as tattered as her life, she wondered. What with a drunken and abusing unemployed father and two little siblings to support. There was no mother. There was but she managed to get away from here and gave up her children to a world of abuse and slavery for that. Were they supposed to be like that, the mothers? Maybe her mother was different.

She kept looking for some hope in the absence of her mother. Maybe she would come back and take them away. Maybe she went away to get help. Or for their security, maybe. All consolations were hollow of course but they were solaces at least.

The doorman opens the gate and barely gets to a side. He smirks at her. She holds her dupatta firmly under her chin and quickly passes through the gate, rushing to the kitchen door. She puts her plastic slippers in a corner and enters the kitchen bare foot. She proceeds to wash her hands and then takes a quick peek at clock. Too late. She draws out the bowl of kneaded dough and starts making chapatis: greased in fat. Her tiny hands work fast under the scrutiny of the mistress’s dark eyes. She keeps being bombarded with instructions and comments on her tardiness.

She cleans out the kitchen and then dusts down the rest of the huge house, sweeping out the rooms. If she gets all her work done before time the mistress might teach her the next lesson. She’s worked really hard on the first, as hard as she could in the time she has. There is a still a lot to do though. But if she learns all this she can even tutor the kids around her home. And she might grow up to be a teacher. She would teach lots of kids for free too. But she’d earn too and that will help them getaway, too.

Jewelry glints all around the room, where she sweeps, carelessly thrown around. Her mother stole some gold bangles when she vanished. She knew because she saw them shining under the hem of her dupatta which covered her wrist the day she went away. And her mother had never owned any gold. The wife of a drunken abusing man doesn’t get any gold. And if she has any it goes away and there is no use making futile attempts at fighting for it because they only get you more bruises and a sore body.

A slap on her jaw brings her back to the present. It’s the mistress. The tears sting but don’t leak. She is lecturing her about her daydreaming. And she pulls in her sluggishness in the lecture. She says she might cut her pay short. She stands silently with a clenched jaw, her head drooped.

Her father hit her today when she got home. She hadn’t washed out the only two glasses in the house that he uses for his drinking. He pulled her hair hard and had clumps of it when he let them go. She stood silently with a clenched jaw and head drooped low.

Everyone and everything is silent. Except the fan that whirs above. It makes more noise than it swirls air. The air is suffocating. It doesn’t matter where she goes, she always feels smothered. As if the air molecules around her have vowed to drown and choke her in her own sadness. It’s becoming too much to bear, everything. She is not responsible for her mother running away, of her father being an alcoholic, of the mistress’s house, of the penetrating gazes of the male bodies, of her doomed past.

She huddles inside her blanket and takes off her dupatta and opens the knotted corner. Inside are two rings. They are the mistress’s. Yes she stole them. They glint in the faint light. They are too pretty and intimidating. She’ll run away, she decides. Freedom clouds her vision.

She didn’t sleep. She held the rings in her clenched fists and waited for dawn. Once the light started to break through the sky, she got up silently. She goes through her usual routine of getting ready but it’s three hours early. Once she’s done with wrapping her scarf about her, she looks around the room. Her eyes meet the innocent sleepy ones of her younger sister. Innocence still prevails there. She whimpers and comes to hug her. Don’t go, she says, don’t leave us like mother. Don’t be her.

Don’t be her.
Is she not responsible for her siblings, she thinks, about her deeds, about the purity of her soul, about becoming like her mother? And how could she be something that wasn’t her. She wasn’t their mother. She wasn’t a hollow hope. Did she have to make her life more morbid and dark than it already was?

She thought while she sang her sister back to sleep. She went to the mistress’s house at seven. She silently put the glinting rings back. They seemed dull, now. All there sheen lost. She burned under the doorman’s gaze. She was degraded by the mistress. She violated her body by doing twice the amount of work. But when she proceeded for home, she felt more hopeful and fresh than she had in days. It wasn’t everyone’s imagination. The girl who had a solemn expression on her face for the past two years was indeed smiling today when she walked home with a jump in her step.

-Momina.