"Sign for this, please," Seliah asked in a good-natured voice as she held out the clipboard to the woman.
    The woman nodded, her face hard as she balanced a baby on one hip. Seliah instinctively glanced behind her to a toddler picking his nose in the hall.
    "You have only two children, I hope," she said, raising an eyebrow as the little boy smiled behind his mother.
    The woman glanced up at...

A wave was crushed on top of me today,
a harsh, violent, angry wave. 

With freezing water 
and blistering heat 
all at the same time 

I couldn't help the sense of...loneliness 
the 'wave' of loneliness and silence. 

Yet I was filled with people, 
family and friends, 
but, I couldn't help it. 

The wave was too strong 
and the sand was piercing. 

Day 9 was a wave of awarness. 
We'll see what happens tomorrow. 
 

    The clock ticked ominously, and there was no way to stop it. I sat by the bed, watching the monitor blip like the ticking clock, and listening to my son's breaths come unevenly between these rhythms. An hour ago, my husband had begged me to let him stay the night with Dan, but I told him to go and see the kids. My eldest daughter Kathy was nearly nineteen, and the third, Joseph, twelve already, but I knew...

She couldn't tell where she was going; she was spinning
If this was a game, she could tell that she wasn't winning
But she held on to the one thing she could hold above the rest
She could forget to study and freak out and then ace every test
But no one saw why she held on so tightly, her hands torn
Why she climbed the flowering fine, feeling every thorn
She was the oldest and they depended on her...

I am weary on the road I travel.
Wind whips behind me casting me to days-
To come. Trees stare like hollow husks from days 
Gone. Reminders of those things, those people
I have lost. Amidst trees sometimes, somewhere, 
I search for myself where my boyish dreams
Innocent and uncontainable to 
Hold. Flowers grow and wither underneath the
Torrents and the tempests of the river;
Carrying me to the place once called home.
I am weary on the road I...

Water flows from the top of the
Peak. Top to bottom in continuous
Flow, diving into darkness
Beneath the veil.
 
We can’t pick out each drop,
But each tells a past,
Locked within the clear water
Stream that obscures the individual.
 
All clarity follows one 
Direction, never on its own.
Both the same and different,
Always obscuring each other.

I wake up around ten. I feel like it should have consequences, but it doesn't. Man, imagine having to start playing music an hour later in the day. Unholy! I slump out of bed, take a shower. I probably use up too much hot water. I stare at my hair; I want to dye it green as soon as this is all over. That's all we're saying these days, huh? As soon as this is all over. As soon as...

I believe in smart work, not only hard work.

Scene 1:
The exams are approaching. Not just any exam, but the nationalized public exams. Our scores could be used to compare us to any other class in the vast land that is India. Our school had given us two weeks of holidays to prepare and study. Most of us had been studying profusely for the past few months, and were extremely stressed out because of it. However, most of us...

somehow i dream that one day i'll wake up and i'll BE
that maniac pixie dream girl in some movie 
and i'll get my very own stan barber
and everything will be a-okay. 
it might never happen (though i hold out hope)
but sometimes i wake up and realize,
in my dreams, it does.
i had a dream where the boy finally
liked me back and had his problems

and we had our fights
but in the end, some cool...

Art.
The breath our minds take in chaos.
Beauty in the midst of ignorance.
Flesh that covers our mind.
Artist.
One willing to feel.
Unafraid to be weak.
Unafraid to self-reflect.
What is art?
Lack of cowardice.
Strength in vulnerability.
Admiration for the mundane.
Where do I find art?
Everywhere,
within everyone.

For so long I thought art was limited to one definition. Artists were the people that painted on a canvas, wrote melodies, sang poetry, created movement, and so...

does it count at detatchment if there was never
any attatchment to begin with?
i hate when you look at me and you see nothing at all.
if i only had a chance you would see how wonderful i can be, at times. 
if i didnt have to start with small talk, you'd fall for me, i know it.
but i'm just a bug in this giant world and there's a star for every
reason not to pay attention to...

does it count at detatchment if there was never
any attatchment to begin with?
i hate when you look at me and you see nothing at all.
if i only had a chance you would see how wonderful i can be, at times. 
if i didnt have to start with small talk, you'd fall for me, i know it.
but i'm just a bug in this giant world and there's a star for every
reason not to pay attention to...

i had a dream about him last night/ not that it was surprising really/ i do often enough/ it's like i dipped my hands in ink/ and am yet to get them completely clean again/ out darned spot says lady macbeth// it wasn't a sensical dream/ there was a castle, it was christmas/ which is odd, because any time i've known him it was the summer/ and it wasnt the type of dream where you kiss/ we were just friends/...

Their feathers rustle
As the parade begins
Fall into line
Puff out your chest
And relinquish your battle cry
Stand tall and proud
But not too tall
So as to become a target
And with their 
GOBBLING
A constant soundtrack in my mind
The pitter-patter of their feet on the roof
I am home

Remember a million yesterdays
Feel the sting of a memory
Searching for truth in the reverie
The sunshine looks down on you
And the sky stops beating

Stay up late at night
Crying to the dark
Never forgive them
For breaking your heart 

When all’s said and done
When the moon outruns the sun

You’re the one you never forgave 

 

    Though most of the news is currently about the coronavirus outbreak, this does not dismiss other topics from importance. The lack of education in poorer areas may not seem important to us now, but surely it affects those experiencing it. They are very real and so is their problem. The least we can do is try to have a good attitude about our own learning. If we, as students, take our education seriously, we could help others with...

i am born from the land of salt marches and saffron, and learn to spin periwinkle studded fantasies in a country slick with sweat and oil. my eyes are accustomed to only two names on the atlas resting on my desk, afflicted by bathtub fingerprints and the harsh caresses of sunlight. 

a fondness for unscathed tourist shrines settles under my skin. so i turn to the inescapable lull of cinema, the reels and the blacks and whites and eyes that...

it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the dark floor of my dorm stained with a mystery that was it's previous inhabitants.
i've dreamed of you to the point where you are more fiction than fact, more a heaven than an actual place on earth.
i could visit you, but i fear if i do i will be too underwhelmed to find my own sort of nihilistic joy in the lostness.

day unto day uttereth prayers and map coordinates,...

Chapter 4

“Hey Annie. Just wanted to inform you about the location of the key if you come home early. It’s inside the mailbox. Sorry for the misconvenience babe. I have to run to give my dear ex boyfriend a piece of my mind. I think he’s worth it-don’t you? Well, good bye babe. I’m coming in a minute, I promise. –Cam”

I gaped hard at the cold smartphone screen.What the hell was she thinking of herself to be? She...

You could call it a coincidence, but I'd say that it was luck. It was luck that led me to you. 

I've never been one to strike up conversations with strangers, but when you started talking to me that day sitting next to me in the bus, I realised how much I really needed that—laughter and cheer.

I found you at a time when I was lost in a cacophony of despair; you were a sliver of sunlight in my...

Allah,
Help us
I prayed.
Hold my small brother
Safe and tight
 
I don’t want to see him cry
Please send him his red car
Which
He left behind
Back at our broken house
back in beautiful Syria
where
one day,
a very loud sound came
and broke our house.
The day
Ommah cried and cried
and said to herself that we should not worry
About Baba.
And that Baba
 went on a long vacation
so
We might not...

i ache for the days we use to play with chalk where the things we only wish to draw were the pretty things that flew across our dreams
then mama would call for us saying "hurry, while supper stills hot" and hitting us as we run inside while hushing "grow up"
but ten years go by and our fingertips are stained for reds and blues, leftover truths from what we've painted on the bricks on our streets
then mama hollers...

The only thing I want is for it to be over
For everything / I'm feeling / to stop being resurrected

I should be getting ready for bed,
But I'm falling / onto it / because I
Can't stop trembling / crying

This cycle keeps repeating / and biting / it's
Out of control / I'm out of control

You are lovely / not my / love
We're not biodegradable
We're made of / flimsy / plastic

indulgence blooms at the base of my throat, competing with
the sound of clashing swords; intermingling & overlapping
till it’s hard to understand if my voice is really my own or
a hollow echo of other more seasoned ones.
 
this beginning was never meant to end
this thought makes me choke on its essence—
shall i spit it out? how—
 
timeless, rudimentary woes etched in scarlet ink;
plain decadence drips from my eyes,
but these knotted anomalies screech...

I believe we can commit mistakes without being one.
Why should people pay attention to this?
We live in a society where people get constantly judge by their actions and even more, they receive labels from others. The fact that someone committed a mistake doesn't make that person an error or a bad human being. We all have made mistakes and we don't become one, because there's more of us beyond that action. That's what society nowadays should understand because...