It was only when I saw you again that I understood how broken I’d been
I hadn’t seen you since the last full moon, every phone call we had turned violent with frustration
So in the unwanted absence of you I’d gone into survival mode
When he told her he was coming to the city but not to see her, she was angry
Not because she’d miss the way he would have smiled when he spotted her from a mile away
Heartbreak like this make me yearn for comforts I never even had
The urge to bask in my motherland’s South Asian sunshine and feel warm rainwater splashing down my back
Elders calling me their child in Urdu, sending me to sleep with head massages laced with coconut oil
Bare feet, long braids, eating food on the floor with my hands
Heartbreak that makes me want to start again in my mother’s footsteps because starting afresh in my own shoes won’t be enough to make me forget
Heartbreak that makes me wish I wasn’t here
So I start to daydream about not being here
Not being dead
But being reborn in the country that flows through my veins
Then I’d never have met you
And I can imagine I wouldn’t ever have to know what it feels like
To be heartbroken like this
It was the dead of the night, and Maria was dead to the world. Her legs sunk into the mattress, the weight lifted away, her mind finally tranquil when the first pebble hit her bedroom window. The cul-de-sac she lived on was quiet; a safe space away from the city, the throng of trees a shelter from the concrete jungle that her days played out in.
The first time I fell in love, I thought it would be forever. We had kids names planned and I had our futures mapped out in my mind. He was the first man to meet my parents – in all my twenties so far, I haven’t met another man worthy of the honour. But it became unhealthy – or maybe it always was, and I just never saw it – we loved each other obsessively, aggressively and more dangerously with every day that passed.
I wish I wasn’t an anxiety ridden introvert – I’d host a monthly salon, where all my favourite creative voices from the internet and beyond could have a meeting of minds. We’d change the world if we shed the doubt that mundane, relentless adulthood has a way of beating into us. The benefit of expanding your emotional and creative intelligence has become so underrated in a world of capitalism and rushing to work and scrolling through an endless sea of digital nonsense and never having time for anything because we’re all oh-so-busy competing to be the most productive – but what are we doing it all for?
A perception of South Asian women has lingered
That they are inherently submissive, naive, hidden from the world behind dupattas and burkas
But I look to the women of my bloodline who arrived before me
Audacious, uncompromising, unbearable to the men who don’t want to hear them
Bold looks, big dreams, words armed with wit
It’s dangerous
Some will try and bring you down to earth where they want you to belong
But you are flying, dazzling, undefeated
Your mother brought you and my mother to a cold strange land for a better life
And as your necklace rests on my chest I remember
To never compromise, to never bow my head in submission, to be free
As we laid you to rest, the birds were flying above
And I just knew
You were flying with them
You say you notice everything about me
You laugh and say I walk like I’m ice skating
Feet bounding ahead in a circular motion
As if that makes it easier to keep moving forward
