ayeshasyedaportfolio

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

At home

Here, at home, we bring each other glasses of water. 

Fill it to the rim with words unsaid. 

Hold it carefully with a palm full of seeds. 

Here, at home, we plant kisses on each other's foreheads when the other one's asleep.

Only the nights know of our love and it's okay.

My hand finds theirs under the sheets, we all share a room here. 

Somedays the room gets so full with sacrifices and gentleness that we break. 

So we get up and leave.

Some of us are still trying to leave, 

one foot out the door and the other frozen in time. 

Here, at home, 

We pray. 

Relentlessly. 

For each other. 

About each other.

Sometimes, to each other. 

We are a generation of forgotten prayers meant for ourselves. 

Somedays, I love you takes up so much space that we forget the beating of our hearts. 

Is the hurt yours or is it mine ? 

We don't say I love you, we instead sit in the living room, dim the lights, and play music. 

Lag jaa galee because the ache in my body needs your hug.

Abhi na jao chod kar because I don't know how to be without you. Don't leave. Don't leave. 

Chitti na koi sandesh for the dead.

We mourn in the living room most days. 

You're so far away. I'm still angry at you for dying. 

Somedays I'm just angry. 

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein ye khayaal aata hai, that we are bodies full of hurt. 

Unfinished business. 

Lost lovers. 

Responsibilities. 

Childhoods lost. 

Love is the deadweight etched to our spines. 

But it's okay, right ? 

Kora kagaz tha ye mann mera, it still is, I think. 

Because here, at home, all we know is how to be empty. 

Kajra mohabbat wala because the seeds sprout somedays and look, it's all green now. 

The only way we know how to love is to sing along to songs and break. 

Here, at home, we don't know how to say I love you. 

So we try to say please don't die.

Please don't be reckless with your health. 

And we talk on eid, ask about each other's health, lie about it. 

Pretend the distance hasn't broken and bent us. 

We're out of shape,

Not out of love, I swear. 

We call once a year, maybe. 

Text on whatsapp and say things like The cat loves you. 

We say things like, Here's some money, hide it from mum,

Things like, Did you eat? Are you hungry?

Things like, start eating your veggies at least now, Ayesha.

We don't know how to say,

I hope you're here when I graduate,

I hope you're here to see me fall in love,

I hope you're here. 

Please don't die. 

Here, at home, we don't say I love you

We instead send pictures of the nieces nephews we still haven't met. 

We still dont know how to pronounce their names

But remember them in our prayers. 

(I don't know how to love someone more than this)

Do you think he'll recognise us ? 

We don't know how to say I love you, so we smother the children with hugs. 

We don't know how to say I love you, so we bleed together,

In living rooms,

On phone calls,

Separately. But always together. 

We're broken and bent by time and distance but 

remember, 

we're not out of love. 

Here, we don't say I love you, 

So we try to say Please don't die,

Please don't die. 

But nothing really comes out of our mouths. Ever. 

So we bring each other glasses of water.

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

On Hyderabad

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover 

A girl reeking of damage with her hands around her own neck 

A madwoman behind her own life 

Not wanting to live, not wanting to let go. 

Just yet. 

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover who kisses every boy in the club 

And lights herself on fire on the way back home. 

Reads every book on the shelf 

Makes fun of everything she couldn't become. 

A little bitter

Burnt 

And almost always lost. 

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover who threatens to run away with zero pennies in her pocket 

Rips apart her own heart to feed the dogs 

Goes back to the same cafes and eats the same food because how else do you make a habit sound poetic 

How else do you make this self-sabotage Instagram worthy.

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover who smokes too much 

I swear she's trying to quit 

Falls apart in movie theaters and has cried in most of the autorickshaws now.

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover who had to pursue her father's dreams 

Makes her mother proud by keeping quiet always 

All dreams boxed away under her bed 

All hope she's left behind in her old hostel room.

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover

Coward and selfish

Doesn't know how to love because all she ever got was hand-me-downs

A pat on the back because Meh she tried 

A bonus because she's on a hunt to take her own life and everyone around her can see that.

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover 

Her apartment flooding with more people than she can accommodate

No curtains 

Because light rarely ever comes her way 

And too much rock music flooding

Seeping from one room to another 

Echoing of muffled sobs because life hasn't really been fair 

And this city is anything but kind, on most days.

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover 

An absolute bitch

Drunk texts you every damn time 

And ignores you in public 

Will write poetry for you every next day 

But will flinch at the thought of holding your hand. 

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover 

Who you always thought of as a safe bet 

But she's walked all over you 

And by the time you realise,

You're destroyed. 

Hyderabad is a twenty-something lover 

Who has talked you into leaving 

Because she wasn't taught how to stay. 

-ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

Grief

Grief demands to be felt here.

It wakes you up an hour before the alarm goes off,

And tells you of all the things your mother says under her breath every time her heart breaks. On days when its feeling a little generous,

It calls you from miles away, with a voice that resembles your father,

And reminds you to take your meds, stay hydrated and stay out of trouble, it says.

But it also forgets to smile at you at breakfast sometimes,

Leaves to work abruptly and goes days without calling you.

You see, grief forgets it can stay alive only as long as you feel it.

So you push it as far away from memory as possible.

Kiss mouths that don't care about the meaning of your name,

rest your chin on shoulders you will forget the next morning,

Drown yourself in storebrought everything.

It is always cheap and comes with no warranty.

So grief, like your annoying ex, shows up at your doorstep the next day, again.

Reminds you not to forget it in the kindest of words,

Holds your hand while you cross busy streets on busy evenings,

Offers you his jacket when it rains a little,

Complains about how you're never on time.

You see, grief often comes cocooned in everything you think you need.

And then it leaves abruptly,

Ignores calls,

Leaves texts unanswered,

Doesn't ask you about your day anymore.

And when all of it leaves, the grey hurt stays,

So you try to push it as far away as possible.

But, did i tell you? Grief demands to be felt here.

Wakes you up at 3:45 AM with nobody to talk to anymore. -ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

I am

Today I'll call myself the warm summer breeze.

Ill call myself home to all things extraordinary.

All things hopeful.

Today I'll call myself poetry and how I am the sea and the light-house too.

How your laughter sounds like music only because I choose it to.

How your hands can metamorph into the rain because I call them clouds.

How your voice is jazz music only because I choose to fall asleep to it.

And today I'll call myself a warm cup of coffee,

a quiet hug,

a secret glance

And all things delicate.

Today I'll tell you how you put the sun in the sky only because I gave you the sky, to begin with.

You only save the world because I allow you to exist here.

You die at the edge of this poem,

Your lips, they will turn back into the salty sea,

Your eyes will dissolve into the night sky,

Your voice will only be as relevant as the television static,

Right when I end this verse.

And just like that,

you are born again with all the other boys I once wrote about.

So today ill call myself the city lights,

Empty streets with no strangers lurking,

My favourite turn in the city and my favourite telugu song.

Ill call myself the color yellow,

because for once, i am all that the flowers feel like,

Im all that glitters

And i am all that is gold.

Maybe for tonight,

Or at least once in a while, ill believe that

I am,

And that is enough.

ill allow myself to believe that

i never was disposable,

That i do not exist because of you.

You are here because I am,

You are here because I write. -ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

Aftermath

What they don't show you is the aftermath. 

What happens after the last quiver of the earthquake 

After the dust settles in 

After the damage is all done.

What they don't show you is what happens after the sad song

After the girl doesn't get the boy

And after she hums John Mayer on her way back home from the rose tainted catastrophe. 

What they don't show you is that it's just you who's left to pick up the pieces now.

No metaphors or analogies to ease the ache 

No amount of smoke can drown out his face or his hands now. 

What they don't show you is the next morning after you just got your heart broken

It's all the same, nothing has changed 

The news reporter doesn't talk about the damage that has been done to your heart 

Instead he talks about the weather.

Don't worry, you won't be wondering about the weather for months now

Because it's all blue, you see  

Outside and also inside. 

What they don't talk about is how it hurts to heal 

And you don't know how to repair everything that's been shattered.

In the movies and the books and the stories, they all talk about how the girl finds love again

Right after the song ends

What they don't talk about is how the song sometimes 

Lasts a month 

Or a year 

Or a lifetime. -ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

i will love myself

I will love myself loud and clear.

I will love myself short dresses and red lipsticks and disapprovals.

I will love myself songs about losing it on the dance floor and jiggly thighs

and a body big enough to swallow you whole.

I will love myself waterslides and theme parks that are too small for me.

I will love myself all the shame

And none of the guilt

and all the puppies in the world.

I will love myself on the bathroom floor when all my insides want to escape out,

Just to make me feel less full.

I will love myself soft and one day at a time.

I will love myself all the kindness I never received.

I will love myself blue jeans and plaid shirts just the right size.

I will love myself for everyone who thinks too big is too much.

I will love myself songs and poetry

and lightening and tears and pride.

And i will love myself, just enough or too much for the whole fucking world. -ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

We’ll talk about

We'll talk about the pink of the evening sky

The grey of the wind

The yellow I'm trying to be

And the orange stinging hurt I now carry

But never this

Never of all the almosts

And never about all the senseless poetry I so shamelessly try to write

And never this black grieving I am becoming. We'll talk about the traffic

The ambulance sirens

The honking of the rickshaws

And my bilingual road rage

But never about the proximity of my breaking heart

You didn't even have to turn your head to know it's presence

And God, about your carelessness with it

And never about how you were there to witness it in person

Never about how you made a fool of the girl with flowers for hands

Never about how much poetry I've lost because of you. -ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

For Maryam

This feels heavy now.

All the weight of the words I've said,

I've been carrying them around everywhere I go.

Everyone's starting to notice them too.

How do i let you go now, Maryam?

How do i not let the burden of all things I still haven't said sink me?

There isn't enough art to stop this hurt, Maryam

Nobody taught me how to crawl out of emptiness faster than I already know

Nobody taught me how to save myself from a girl who looks half hurricane and half astrology.

I don't believe it but I'll read about it every fucking time.

There are also not enough cuss words left for me to fascinate you with now, Maryam

Maybe you'll leave me again once I run out of words in this language?

Maybe I will learn another one just to keep you around this time

And I keep thinking about a time when I didn't write about you,

when I didn't know that curly hair could kill

and a heavy heart is no less than an amputated arm.

When I didn't know overexaggeration and your infectious smile.

Until then, Maryam,

I'll keep writing things with no beginning or an end

Until I run out of words in this language too,

And for you, again, I'll learn another one.

-ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

I wish you

I wish you a room full of strangers on a holiday you love I wish you rain that seeps through your guitar case and ruins your guitar.

I wish you so many sunsets with horrible company. Nights where you wonder if you'll stay awake forever

And days that stretch so long that it hurts to move.

I wish you junk food cravings and the stomach to not digest it

Scooty rides with someone new and someone reckless

And so many traffic police officers.

I wish you hand-holding, always sweaty palms and dreamy lies and damp conversations.

Gigs where you can't see the artist, at all

Friends who simply forget

And a heart on your sleeve

I really really wish you a heart on your sleeve

And the tendency to attract someone exactly like you.

I wish you my poem

This specific poem out of all of them.

I wish you metal music on very low volume, always.

I wish you so many dogs and cats but never a pet of your own.

A lifetimes supply of horrible WhatsApp video forwards

And not enough memes.

I wish you hugs, lots and lots of them

And all of them side and never a bear hug.

I wish you soo many tinder matches and zero replies.

And nights filled with your jokes gone unnoticed.

I wish you broken phone screens

And wrist watches

And all the time in the world

I wish you so much boredom. And so many Netflix series to binge on

And double the amount of spoilers.

And never the hell that you've put me through.

I wish you jam sessions with only you being off key And I wish you kindness. So much of it

But just never from you. -ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

On mourning

Mourn-verb

1. I take these new boys to the same places now. They tell me different stories, don't think of someone else while their hands are laced with mine, they laugh at my jokes harder and don't bother arguing over the weather. I don't know if i can get used to being right so often now.

2. I still wake up in the middle of the night, without fail, Think of you through the night and into the morning. Is it her you text now? Do you ask her about her day ? Tell her about yours?

3. Ive been repeating my stories Called my pain, pain so many times that I'm finally able to breathe Called my hurt, hurt so many times that it doesn't break me like it used to I repeat my stories even when they're not about you. 

4. I've put up new lights today. Mourning comes different to me, It is now a show everyone's welcome to Everyone except you. The new lights are prettier and maybe I'll show them to you someday.

5. I'm still trying to figure out how to mourn a loss which wasn't mine, Mourn a habit which I wasn't supposed to inhabit, Mourn letting go, when I didn't even know I wanted you in the first place.

6. It took me 21 odd years to understand that pain really isn't poetic. Tragedy is not theater-worthy. A breaking heart is just a breaking heart, You can't build something out of it. And repeating stories will always have me stuck on the same page. And that will have to for a while now.

7. Mourn- verb. to feel or show sorrow for the death of (someone).

-ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

On home

1.A pomegranate tree. Older than me. Unripe fruits and a dead woman and a home collapsing. Collateral damage- a man with regrets, a boy with hollow eyes, two girls destined for loss, two toddlers who don't know a thing about love and a house full of amputated parts.

2.The flickering light at the far end of the kitchen I still dream of. The white stove last used before everyone left and now the ghosts wonder if meethi-roti still melts in my mouth the same way. ( It doesn't ) Did they weep when they boxed your life away?

3.The glass jar filled with buttons. It had more colors than I could name. I stole it thinking im taking a part of you with me.

4.The honeybees and the beehive. This house is now a home to something new and it was uprooted every summer until it wasn't.

5.The Mango's. The basket full of yellow and green. That is how I knew happy. I'm still looking for it. The basket and the yellow and the Mango's. And you.

6.I can't give you away. Not like this. Not in my repetitive ways. I can't give you away.

7.I can draw the pomegranate tree from memory. It's on the far right of the courtyard. The scroching heat of the sand plants holes in my soles but i run around anyway. We pluck the unripe pomegranates anyway. -ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

Grief

Grief doesn't understand language.

It doesn't know past tense.

Doesn't know that you were here,

That i knew you,

That you were

That you were

And aren't.

All it knows is the hurt that followed,

And all the hurt that has stayed.

Grief doest understand language. 

It hasn't let enough men to haunt her like this to know she's a ghost too.

It hasn't held enough hands to know which ones to not build interjections out of.

Grief doesn't understand language.

But It picks a fight with the cab driver, 

Cusses at the flowerpots in hindi,

Is now learning that BHE****D cannot be translated without losing its fullness,

Falls down the stairs in flats,

Sobs when the house help asks about him,

Rages a war on everyone who's hurt everyone around her,

Screams FUCK YOU through her phone screen with people who keep her afloat,

Sings on voice notes with new boys,

Is learning to kiss kinder girls with coloured hair.

Grief, still refuses to learn what it is to hold someone's hand without flinching.

It doesnt remember love

It knows loss

And now i know you.

Forgive me,

Grief still doesn't know past tense. (I knew you) -ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

These boys

These boys 

Come in with the wind 

Unannounced 

Unwanted. 

They ask me, "who hurt you?" "Who is it that you write about, Ayesha?".

Tell me how my heart is broken,

And my soul is tired,

And how most of me is burnt.

These boys, tell me about me.

Like I'm a book they've all read with a side of whiskey. 

Like they're all men now somehow because beer doesn't do it anymore.

And girls just don't do it anymore. 

They need women now,

To fix

To fill

To flaunt. 

These boys 

Forget about wild things,

Forget about careless things 

Impulsive-reckless-cigarette -smelling-damp-haired things.

When they think women, 

they paint a manic pixie dream girl

Drenched in lace and perfume that makes them horny 

They paint long fingers and short skits 

All cleavage, no tummy 

All until she does come with a side of mania. 

And a tragedy bestowed upon her from her mother, who got that from her mother, who got that from her mother.

These boys want women,

But cut down the weed outside their windows.

Forget that we,

Grow outside their windows.

We were too much that we weren't welcomed home. 

Sweet Clementine is only sweet when fucked at night 

Not when she's overdoing the joke and making everybody uncomfortable at the dinner table.

These boys 

Come in with the wind 

With their saviour complexes

With their unsolicited advices 

And SAVE ME written all over them 

But it is me they ask, "who hurt you, ayesha. Who hurt you?"

-ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

i am

I am. In all my greatness and fury. Even when you can't/wont see me. I am.

-ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

i call you jaan

I call you jaan

With a poison laced tongue,

sugar painted lips 

And a honeycomb jaw. 

I beg with a heavy heart and a body full of salt water

Will your callous heart listen ?

Will it stay because I asked 

Will it not let go, just this once?

Jaan, just like everything godly,

We succumb to doubt.

We fall from the sky

And crash onto different horizons. 

I see you're doing everything you can to forget the glitter of my nails and the black of my hair. 

I see that you like color now. 

I bite back my pleas

Morph this story on your terms

In this version, I am more involved. 

Just like you intended. 

In this version, I introduce you to all my friends 

Tell you stories about my grandmother. 

And in every version, I come out a rainy afternoon. 

And you, intact. 

Like none of me ever happened to any part of you. 

And I look away when you kiss me back with a mouth full of moonless skies 

It stings where you held me once. 

And still,

I call you jaan. 

-ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

Will it matter?

Will all the things i profusely talk about, still weigh the same if i dont talk about them?

Will my poetry still mean something if i dont let anyone hear it rhyme?

Will music still be music if I stop singing along in front of the world? 

Will my fight still be mine once i lay down my armour.

Fight them in silence.

Not tell anyone how much the bruises need band-aids.

Will the friendships still matter if i dont come here and type it out and let them know that i think about them. 

That a meme is not just a meme, it means i thought about them and im hoping a giggle will creep up their mouths too. 

I wonder, if the things I talk about the boy, still mean something after he stops reading about them.

Will it stop being relevant because he claimed it didn't ? 

Will my insecurities still be shaped the same way if nobody is around to watch me flinch?

Will my demons still come in every morning if i keep waking up at noon? 

Will the nightmares catch up to me if i dont fall asleep until the sun rolls in and my mother screams at me for staying up this late.

They certainly didn't stop because he has stopped asking me about them.

And ive spent a lot of days thinking, nothing is deemed real until I tell him about it.

And the equal number of days thinking, if any of us was ever real, at all. 

And I wonder, will the love i have still be love if there's no one around to hear me declare it.

Will any of me matter if none of you are there to witness it ?

But I'm finally willing to find out whatever the hell happens when there is no proof of my love, of my friendship, of my rage, my words and my kindness.

-Ayesha

[ayeshasyedaportfolio]

On hurt

I tell you it hurts

You point to the sky 

I tell you i cannot see colors anymore

You tell me it'll rain soon

I tell you i cannot swim 

You tell me a man named Aleix Segura held his breath underwater for 24 minutes and 3 seconds 

I tell you i cannot breathe when you're not around 

you tells me an average human loses his consciousness in about 40 seconds when asphyxiated  

I show you where it hurts

You tell me a hummingbird's heart beats approximately one thousand two hundred and sixty times per minute

I ask you if i'll survive this fall

You tell me approximately 1500 people have jumped off of the statue of liberty and only 26 have survived.

I ask you who do i tell about my day after you leave

You tell me, in Norway, its always sunny for about 76 days a year

And the day never ends there.

I tell me Please make this hurt stop

You tell me Algea, the goesses of grief, sorrow and distress

was a child of Gaia, the mother of Gods, Titans and Monsters.

I tell you Please make this hurt stop

You point towards the sky

I ask you to at least show me how to make this hurt stop

You point towards me.

-ayesha