"There is voluminous filth in beauty.

The word beauty stultifies itself

as it tries best to be enslaved by homogeneity.''

Hum mann ke dariya mein doobe. Kaisi nayya, kya manjhdhaar.

I decide to spend some time in her head. It's not easy. I need Ali's voice right now to cloud my mind just as she needs another refill of rum to cloud hers.

I look down and inside. She is contained; deep but impenetrable. A dam. Thoughts begin to pelt on her like the rain and they've all jumped in. The ghosts have. The ghosts have met. She wonders what they have to say to each other about her. She can barely hear them inside her. Crawling out now, drenched, they carry small parts of her to feast on. It's pouring again. She pours more alcohol until her bosom swells with pain and she can't take it anymore. 
Chhad duniya de janjaal, kuchh bhi ni labhna bandeya de naal. Alif tells me. I tell her. Or the dam will break.
We are drowning in our own selves. There are no boats, no storms. Only truth. 

Mumbling #20

It’s not the same here. The expensive shoes I had picked out of their translucent paper this morning are now muddied. I didn't agonize over dirty shoes back home. One could walk bare feet for miles there.  The soft earth was damp most of the time, weeping with pleasure, grateful for your return. It seemed to graze wispy kisses on your feet.  The forest fascinated me. The trees closed in, whispering in your ear, stories of no great concern. Calling to mind passions… of no great concern. I had grown up like a tree.  My mind had been like the trunk, even and robust. But as I grew up I branched out into a million things, splayed-out wildly in every possible direction. I stopped near one and looked up. It was perfect. What does the brain matter anyway, compared with the heart? 

Simple poetry is not reflection of a simple mind.