sunflorall

[sunflorall]

This city, which we think is half yours, half mine, is neither yours nor mine. This city which is your past, my future, has already turned into a dark brown pair of eyes. This city is a love confession i write to you daily. Because yes, I love you too. - sanawar

[sunflorall]

You’ve been loved

I wake up to the sound of laughters and greetings. In the mornings, i open my half sleepy eyes, and first thing i see is the face of love. Maa standing tall in-front of me trying to wake me up as lovingly as she can. As soon as she sees the hint of wakefulness, she gives me a kiss on my forehead, then each cheek one by one, then chin, nose and lips. In the last third of the night when everyone’s asleep, i hear the sound of love. It is durood sharif or some calling going on in our local masjid for namaz e tahajjud. I usually wake up at it without any alarm, tho the sound is really faint. It’s a big deal you know, to be able to hear the azaan complete and clear in your home without making an effort for it. You don’t get it everywhere. A warm cup of chai made entirely out of love. More love than milk in it. Auntie makes the chai usually, brings it in in a dish, picks up the mug and hand it over to me. I give her a smile and a thank you under my breath. A warm cup of chai, it’s not too much but it is enough to melt the ice you’ve surrounded yourself with, enough to soften the already hardened corners of your heart. You’ve been loved this entire time. This is enough reassurance to let go of the things that are heartache under the veil of love. It doesn’t take much though. A warm cup of chai made by a kind face and handed over to you with love.

-Sanawar Fatima Saeed

[sunflorall]

Loving you comes as naturally as an autumn breeze. Your face is the mirror i look at daily. I’ll forget my own name before i forget you. - Sanawar Fatima Saeed

[sunflorall]

I love hand drawn art. I love writing or constructing a new poem on paper. I love the verses getting cut and re-constucted into a new verse. I love hand writing and building a perception of people based on their hand writing. I love associating things and stuff to people based on how they write. I love reading paper books under a tree in autumn while the atmosphere is filled with the scent of yellow leaves and my coconut latte. I love keeping a journal and filing it with mundane details of my life. I love hand written letters, customised mugs, DIY gifts, and random cups of milk tea. I love entering someone's brain as a thought for once and never leaving it again. Same for the hearts. I love making homes out of people. The world is a dark place, i know. You’ll trust people and they’ll betray you. You'll be sincere with someone and they’ll be strategic towards you. You’ll love someone and they'll break your heart. You'll fix someone and they'll cheat on you. But sill, as sunlight falls through the leaves of a distant tree in the beginning of the summer, i can’t resist the occurence of this thought. Despite all the negativities and evil in the would, my heart still longs to love like no other. It still wants to trust. It still wants to make homes out of people. Because even after the darkest, coldest and most cruelest of winters, summers will arrive again. Because sooner or later, the dark grey clouds will dissipate and my heart will see the sunshine again. And once again, on a random spring afternoon, i'll realise HOW MUCH I LOVED LOVING YOU while a pink flower blossoms by the side of my bench. - Sanawar Fatima Saeed

[sunflorall]

And sometimes I believe your relentless analysis of June leaves something out, which is your feeling for her beyond knowledge, or in spite of knowledge. I often see how you sob over what you destroy, how you want to stop and just worship; and you do stop, and then a moment later you are at it again with a knife, like a surgeon.

Anais Nin, Henry and June: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1932

[sunflorall]

Physiology of a distant lover's heart

In our physiology class last semester, i learned the mechanism and functions of the heart. Your memory enters the right atrium of my heart through Vena Cava. Too heavy for it to keep. I open the doors of my heart, but there's no me. The tricuspid valve allows the memory to flow into the right atrium preventing the backflow when the ventricle contracts. I open the doors of my heart, and there's no love. Right ventricle, unable to keep the whole of it (for it is too heavy for a single chamber of the heart to keep), pumps it into the lungs through a pulmonary valve. I open the doors of my heart, and there are no doors. Your memory enters and turns everything red. Your memory enters and leaves no place for me to be. The lungs intensifies your memory. The lungs fill your memory with life. As if it's not just a memory. As if you're present in my life. The memory brought back to life comes to the left atrium and then to left ventricle through mitral valve. I open the doors of my heart, and there's no heart. The memory scatters in the whole of my body through aortic valve. I open the doors of my heart and there's only you. - sanawar fatima saeed

[sunflorall]

on leaving of a friend

At what point of life, does separation become easy? At what point do you see a dear friend leaving and do not have a sinking feeling inside your chest? Why is the hope of dreaming of even the most mundane and ordinary things costs you your happiness? but tell me my dear heart, how do i live without hoping for good things to happen? i cannot kill my heart and deprive it of the pleasure of hoping but why does even the slightest hope brings you pain at the end? as life goes on, you realise more and more that it never were the material things that made life a good place to be instead it were the people you met during your journey. if each bond is meant for separation then which side do i choose? the melancholy and hollowness of never stepping into a bond ever again or the unending grief of getting to see my people part their ways while i stand there helplessly? What i know about this helpless heart of mine is that it has pumped more love than blood, it has seen more pain than happiness, it remembers and remembers and life keeps passing by leaving it in the cruel hands of separation. Nostalgia has no pity on my heart. Memory has no pity on my brain. My heart and brain has no pity on me. - Sanawar Fatima Saeed

[sunflorall]

بے حِسی

Another Eid has passed without you being here, without me being with the people i've cherished since i took the first breath on this planet. Life is passing through me like water falling out of the hands. I cannot hold it however much i try to. I cannot hold you however much i try to. You are both misl-e-aab (مثلِ آب) in this desperate life of mine. I've loved you too much to let you go but how do you hold on to the water in your tight fists? however tight the grip is, i cannot hold onto you. Even the last droplet will fall out of my hands right in front of my helpless eyes. You were never mine to begin with. Is this love? or is this a desperate longing to forget you? to never be forgotten by you? The number of days i had with you were not much, but i can spend a lifetime reminiscing the memory of it.

-sanawar

[sunflorall]

To touch something you once put your hands on is the closest i can get to touching you. Because burning still provides warmth; and violence too is love. And when you see yellow leaves falling of the tree, Are you reminded of me? (Autumn is my favourite season) And now when you're leaving a place, do you still look back to bless it with a warmth of your gaze? to say a final goodbye? (Do not look back) One thing about us that i still regret is the timing we crossed paths with each other. But what i never once regretted is meeting you. (Can i keep you forever?) And all my letters and poems are but a begging for you to come back. Even as a stranger. Even as a dream. Even as a might have been. Let the fate repeat itself. Let my eyes meet yours on a random Tuesday and watch my heart melt like a burning candle again.

-Sanawar

[sunflorall]

I have small eyes and it is a very bright day. I can't help keep my eyes fully open so they're half open.

"You're wearing the lens, right?"

i look up baffled.

Ap ny to kabhi meri ankho'n mein dekha tak nhi hy or me ap ki ankho'n ko ek nazar dekh kr bta skta hu k ye apki ankho'n ka asli rang nhi hy.

Yes, I'm wearing lens. And dark grey isn't the natural colour of my eyes. They are dark brown. Full of spark and light. The day is too bright and i can't look up into your eyes but when do i look into them even during the dull days? You tell me that my eyes are the most beautiful pair of eyes you've ever seen in your life and i think about how lifeless they have became now when you aren't around.

On a random Tuesday, you tell me, apko to meri yad b nhi ati hogi. Acha hi he. Mujy yad mt rkhna. Bhool jana.

How do i tell you?

"tum mujy yad ab nhi aty, tum mujy yad ho gye ho ab"

I used to not look into your eyes. i wish i had continued doing so. But i love picking up the knife at my kitchen table and ripping my belly apart. i love yielding a pain upon myself that no doctor has a cure to.

I only made one mistake in my life. I looked up into those helpless eyes of yours. And ever since, that is the only colour i remember. Everything i look at, the only colour i see is the dark brown of your eyes.

This city, which we think is half yours, half mine, is neither yours nor mine. This city which is your past, my future, has already turned into a dark brown pair of eyes. This city is a love confession i write to you daily. Because yes, I love you too.

[sunflorall]

why does everyday in march feels so sleepy and tiring, and yet there's no time to sleep. it can't be just me.

[sunflorall]

I wake up and order a coffee, which makes it my first meal of the day. I'm in the class and it's only 11 am yet and i still didn't have my breakfast but i go get another coffee. The class's over. It's time for the first meal of the day. I eat but a little too less and get another coffee. We are now in the afternoon class, my swollen eyes focused on the teacher and i have a cup of coffee on my table beside the books. I drink it sip by sip and i still don't seem to consume whatever the teacher's teaching. It's 5:00 pm and we are done with the classes for today and i think very little of anything else but coffee. 6:00 pm; and we are heading out for the dinner. My friend sits with her dinner in front of me and i am ordering a coffee on my phone. For the first time in a while, she tells me that i drink too much coffee and i never seem to get energetic even after drinking it. But the thing is, "You don't know me. You just know that i drink too much coffee, you never ask why i am always tired."

- Sanawar Fatima Saeed

[sunflorall]

In my religion, there's a concept called "DUA" which translates to "prayer" in English. It is said that at specific events or points in time, there are more chances of your Dua to get accepted so naturally, it is empathised to make Dua in those moments. For example, during ramadan, the night of decree, during the last third of night, Friday prayer, etc and all those times are called "Qubuliat ki ghari" or "the hour of acceptance" and in all those moments when people ask for the greatest desire in their heart, I prayed for you. Selfishly. Passionately. Greedily. And wholeheartedly.

-Sanawar Fatima Saeed

[sunflorall]

Oh to be loved in a way you understand

[sunflorall]

Of course i remember. i remember and it's not beautiful. i remember and it breaks my heart. i remember and i'm devastated by it. i remember as an act of self destruction.

-sanawar

[sunflorall]

I love "soulmates" and "destined to meet" and "fate brought us together" type of love but what i love more is "i changed my fate so that you could be here with me" or "even if we were meant to part ways i'll make sure that the paths bring us together once again" or "i will make every single effort to have you in my life" type of love.

[sunflorall]

A hand letting go of another hand/ someone walking away and closing a door behind them/ leaves falling off the trees in autumn/ someone waving a goodbye while seeing a beloved off// love, separation, death.

But at that one moment of separation when our eyes met for one last time, if my lips could part and the voice could've made it's way out of my throat i'd have said it.

Mat jao.

But what does words matter when even your tears are worthless? If you couldn't see it in my eyes, would you have stopped if i asked you to?

Love is not a preserved flower that would stay at it's peak beauty for as long as 35 years if taken care of. It is a naturally bloomed flower in spring and in autumn, you must've to let it go. You've got no choice except to witness the death of something you cherish so dearly.

- Sanawar Fatima Saeed