by Noor Unnahar
where i come from
where i have been
and where i am going
i share a legacy
with the sky
we both know how to carry
some unanswered prayers
and some unshed tears
{the sky & i}
in pieces
yet at peace
i am a building
in a post-war city
{survival}
you’re the moon
and the world is
a lonely wolf; it cries
at the sight of you
for you are glorious
and so out of reach
no i didn’t forgive you
out of love
mercy or sympathy
i forgave because
i knew i would
need to be forgiven
by someone like me
and if i kept my forgiveness
to myself
in the future
that someone like me
would also keep
their forgiveness
and it would
kill me
{forgiveness}
isn’t it absolutely
terrifyingly, shockingly
amazing
how words
those tiny little sounds
in this chemical-filled air
those shapeless weird marks
on stark white paper
can make or break
living breathing people
stab them at heart
without a single weapon
push them off
their strong firm feet
take away the earth
they used to stand on
words; they’re powerlessly powerful
so use yours
well
a piece of cloth on my head
screams an identity
louder than words printed
on any document
even the sky outside knows
where i come from
{hijab}
it’s okay
if you’re burning
with anger
or sadness
or both
it is necessary
for you to collapse
so you can learn
how phoenixes are
reborn
when they burn
and rise again
from the ashes of
their existence
there is a hurricane
inside my ribcage
where a heart
used to be
{change}
my bones carry
calmness and chaos equally
before every war; i sound
like peace
after every fall; i rise
a hurricane-shaped masterpiece
bravery was the lullaby
i was put to sleep with
tangled in my mother’s words
it has been an old friend
i hum it in silence; it screams
in me in crowds
i was supposed to be a city
with busy streets and twinkling lights
but i wanted to be a house
full of warm sunlight
and dried flowers gracing its vases
i’m neither today but
a hollow skeleton of progress
where everyday something
builds and collapses
i am happier in this
{a work in progress}
teach your heart
how to not be like glass
it shatters; delicately
a beautiful tragedy
toughen it with fire
of strength and bravery
so it couldn’t break
that easily
{teaching survival to my heart}
art doesn’t ask
to be perfect
poetic
precise
it asks to exist
to breathe
to be
this is what it has always been about
the most beautiful thing in this world isn’t made
up of particles. it’s the strength of a person who
has seen the collapse of their world, everything
they held dear crashing down in a million pieces.
yet every morning, they wake up and build their
life, all over again. mourning their loss in a
tranquil silence. i haven’t yet seen
anything more astonishingly beautiful.
the price of leaving
is everything
you do not return to a place
but to a memory; soundless
a home becomes another house
a face becomes another name
a city becomes another geographical location
when you leave
my homeland gifted me
a language with soft corners
it feels like sugar in my mouth
and the language i learned to speak
is made up of wax; it often melts
and burns my mouth
leaving my words
soundless
shapeless
helpless
and i cannot help but sound like
someone utterly unknown
{accent}
in my accounting class, we were taught how
to make balance sheets. in those lessons, the
credit part had to be equal to the debit part
for your balance sheet to be complete. it
was beautiful; the balance of everything ever
spent, ever accumulated, ever given. this
concept made me fall in love with balance.
so i learned to balance things in my
life as it would happen in those balance sheets.
if i told a lie, i had to speak a bitter truth
next time. if i spent more than i was supposed
to, i donated some amount to charity
next time. if i said something not-so-nice, i would
find words to say something extra-nice
next time. i learned to pay for things i had
done. i learned to create the balance.
{creating the balance}
last night i whispered
a thank you note to the universe
for it made oceans and stars
equally beautiful and accessible
for all of us; i breathe the same air
as the people i love and the people i lose
the particles of their existence are still
surrounding me and this is how loneliness
doesn’t know how to find me alone
{a thank you note to the universe}
home murmurs
where have you been?
and i can’t help but say
away; looking for you
when everything comes crashing down
i hope you’re wearing
that faint little smile
for an end is near
and a start is nearer
wear your past with grace
present with care
and future with delight
nothing gleams better
when three of them
are carefully combined
you asked me
how i made art
and
i used all
long, shiny, pretentious
words
but the truth
is different
i never made art
i brought the hurricanes
sobs, revenge, stories
&n
bsp; on the stark white sheet
and it looked
something like
art
{it was art}
falling in love with cities is risky.
they’ll welcome you with spectacular sunsets
and stunning skyscrapers and a skyline that
lights up the whole sky. but when they’re angry,
they will burn themselves down to fuel a riot
that’d run loose on their streets. they will
remind you that if you love a city with
its lights on, you will have to love it
even when it is on fire.
you’re not only a she
or a her
make your name sound
like something
completely terrifyingly, beautifully
out of this world
{azeez aurton — dear women}
some mornings
my hometown breathes in me
my mind: chaotic like its traffic jams
reminding me how i said
whoever leaves first will be free
but when you leave a city
it doesn’t mean it will leave you in return
its name forever with mine
mine forever with a city i haven’t been to
until it’s the time to go
i will return to ask its moon to die
with me; the lights that saw me first
must also see the last of me
do not worry
about people
they’re wearing the same flesh
breathing the same chemicals
walking on the same solid earth
as you
so why should it matter
when
you are them and they are you
the universe is a brilliant writer
it wrote your name
in my stars
before any of us existed
so when the time comes
they’ll light up your path
and lead you straight to me
{nikah}
you wanted to know about the art i created and
the melancholy behind the words but i couldn’t
tell you how and why those shades and words
found their way on that crisp white graceful
paper because sometimes some things do not
have a story and artists spill their tears and
blood and sweat on a canvas just so we
could keep art alive even when we don’t have
a story telling you why because if art were to be
explained you would know how empty
everything is; from creations to the hearts that
created.
{the artists and their art}
broken homes produce
walking, talking wars
their residents
either become their own cities
or their own ruins
distance becomes
a name; a living thing; a breathing tragedy
when two people are apart
not by cities or countries or continents
but by the lack of words
and abundance of silence
someday
something
will go
terribly, utterly, horribly
wrong
one day
everything
will be fine
our lives
swing between
that one day
and someday
so why do you worry
about it
everyday
when you’ve heard the
heartbreak coming
do not close the door
invite it in
make it a big warm mug
of your favorite tea
ask why it came
and ask how would it like
to leave
let your heartbreak know
that it has arrived
at the very wrong door
that the dweller here isn’t
afraid of the things
that have been broken before
{heartbreak}
no you don’t
have to be all this nice
all this time
scream, break, and shatter
till your lungs have pumped out
all the words you had to swallow
all the pain that froze your blood
all the worries that tainted your skin
and when you’re done
freeing yourself
please go and be nice
{before being nice}
sadness
it’s in the air of the city i loved and left
to never return. it’s the smell of leaving.
it’s a shapeshifter. it looks like a face i do not
want to remember. then suddenly it is a face i
cannot forget. a dishonest performer.
when you’ve lost everything and everyone,
meet defeat with open arms. shake hands with
it; warmly, firmly, happily. it has taught you all
the things you shouldn’t do if you want victory
next time—embrace it. your defeats are not a
sign of your weaknesses; they never were and
they will never be. they are the medals you need
to decorate in your living room for the world to
see so they can know where you are coming
from, because in the end the victor and the
defeated are kind of the same; one has won the
battle and the other one knows how exactly
it is won.
{welcoming defeat}
next time i’m asked
about my confidence that glimmers
and whether it’s there in me because
the men of my family were too liberal
i will tell them one thing
the men weren’t there when i was growing up
but women
they walk with grace and fire dances
with their cooking pans
their words are loud and eyes even louder;
woven with intelligence and history
the women in my family are shaped with
glass and love wrapped in silk
they teach their kids to speak with
kindness and firmness
so when they speak
they do so without hesitation
{women of my family}
when ache arrives
put it on paper
it is here to hurt your heart
use it to save your art
how dare you call
an arrangement of bricks my home
home is the comfort
built with my mother’s words
home is the art piece
my sister hung on the wall
and
home is all the people
who make my heart feel at ease
you had a face
that looked like serenity
and words
that did not smell
of contempt
and your existence
reminded me
of sunsets and ocean waves
yet
you still wonder
what it took
for me to fall
for someone like
you
i fled
forgave and forgot
people
for this hurricane in me
could either ruin
all of them
or save
all of me
and i
chose me
>
you have been away
from home for so long
in my dreams you look like
a lonely building in a curfew-imposed city
{absence}
strong
is not only a word; it’s a compliment
for all the women of my generation
who couldn’t be anything
but strong
at a point that
saved their lives
i am fighting
my losses
trauma
and everything bringing ache
because i don’t want
to look in the mirror
and see a tragedy staring back
no fire
could collapse the pillars
you have built yourself on
with tremendous artistry
with startling bravery
the sunset looked way too pigmented—as if
the color palette of sorrow had been thrown on
it. yes, if sorrow had colors, they would be lilac
mixed with pinks and some sneaky whites like
the clouds at twilight. i thought it was a
masterpiece; a way for nature to share that at the
end of the day, each sobbed whisper goes
directly to the skies. but before that, it leaves
its color on the canvas of earth one last time.
{the color of whispers}
i am putting together
a future for me
that gleams with the lights
