Why I Hate Spicy Food?

I pretend

To be allergic to spicy food

Because what if

You would want to kiss me

After dinner

You always say

Your lips are my strawberries

Your tongue my dessert 

To Naani (my beloved warrior of love)

Mothers would have claimed divinity
If there weren't grandmothers

If you would have told me
You knew Adam and Eve
I would have believed you
You were as ancient as faith to me

If you would have told me
You used to live on Mars
I would have loved Mars
Like I love moon
Even today

If you would have told me
You are going to live forever
I would have trusted you
And believed that
Time will never touch you

But you never told me so
And left like a migratory bird
Ready for the new mystical land

I'm left with broken memories
Of my childhood now
Whose kindest witness were only you

I Must Wait Quietly

You have to look at me from far

Only then I’ll look good to you

I’m ugly up close

My good parts are lonelier

Than my bad parts

Goodness is always lonely I guess

Don’t all kind people stand alone in their kindness?

The rituals are always crowded and common

To speak to you is like conjuring up a spell

Which doesn’t work most times

But when they do

You reply back like a smoke

Rising up from a bonfire from afar

I don’t know if there are answers to my questions

I know though there are questions

They are like clues to some murder mystery

Only turned upside down

All fallen leaves point to the presence of a tree

Life is like a river no one can walk over

Like water finds us all too heavy to hold

I drown in your arms every time

I must stop talking and wait quietly

You make love to me only in silence

Unconsummated Night

How did the rainbow appear

When it didn’t rain?

The flowers in the painting

Over the bed

Smelt nothing like flowers

The huge mirror on the wall

Reflected only our enrapturing laughs

Not eager moans

Yes, you took your jewelry off

But not your clothes

Yes, I closed the door

But not to our fears

Those rosy pillows

You wanted to turn into saari

Didn’t fall off the bed

The wood witnessed our madness quietly

Without creaking with carnal frenzy

All night

We twisted and turned

Over each other in passion

But we didn’t create fire

We didn’t invent the wheel again

All we did

Was to find a small balcony

To watch over each other forever

The Girl Who Dances No More

She used to be mad about dancing

Her feet used to tap forever

To some unheard melody in her head

“One day

I want to make you

And the whole world dance, Muzammil”

She told me once

While making beautiful shapes

With her fingers

But now

She goes to work everyday responsibly

Rushing from one red-light to another

Without noticing the girl

Dancing madly on many roadsides

Eid Mubarak, Meri Jaan!

That morning

When you wake me up

And whisper

Eid Mubarak, jaan!

And I reply with a kiss

Khair Mubarak, meri jaan!

This is what you’re going to miss

If you won’t come tonight

There is no Eid without you…

Black Hole

Of all the countless dresses in your wardrobe

That finely fashioned black dress

Is a black hole to my galaxy

All my swarming thoughts

All my restive words

All my orbiting emotions

Nothing escapes

When you come wearing it

And ask me

“I am going to leave soon

You want to tell me something?”