A Morning Routine

Inspired by a few songs and a painting I chanced upon recently. 
This is an excerpt of a much larger piece. 


She sat at the dressing table, holding a small jewelry box. She opened it - the soft pop was the only sound in the large, airy flat. Nestled in the deep, violet velvet were two creamy pearls. Grazing one with her hand, she set the box down and walked over to the window, pushing it open. The sweet smell of a summer morning wafted in, rustling the curtains and fluttering her robe. The wind exposed her creamy flesh and bare breasts. Not bothering to cover herself up, she silently padded to the kitchen, setting her coffee to brew. She flung open the windows of the living room, taking in the stunning view of their balcony looking over the park. Pouring her coffee, she took a sip, and sighed to herself inwardly.

It was supposed to have been a busy six months. It had started off with longer hours, that slowly became an excuse to live a separate life. That had somehow translated itself into a busy six years. Six years of eating alone, sleeping alone, and waking up alone. Six years of communication through email, fleeting phone calls and hurried weekend morning conversations. If by chance, he was home, his study door always remained shut. Periodically however, she received gorgeous expensive gifts. Gifts that were ordered by his secretary, paid through his credit card and delivered by the butler.

She buttered her toast, recalling the last evening they'd spent together - a Christmas party at a friend's. They'd spent two hours in the same room - a miracle. They'd spoken briefly on the car ride home, and after disappearing into the study for a while, he'd come into the room just as she'd stepped out of the shower. They'd made love that night. Robotic love.

Nancy glanced at the oven clock and got up from the breakfast table. She cleaned her few dishes, shuddering as water droplets jumped on her bare stomach and thighs. Walking back to the bedroom, she paused only to slip off her robe and set it over the chair of her dressing table. She walked into the bathroom, pulling her hair up. Just in front of the bathrobe, on the dressing table, was a note, unmistakably not in his writing. It read:
Gone to Italy for a week.
Love you,
Tom.

The shower turned on, and the oven clock beeped: 7:01 am.

Arpeggio

[Disclaimer: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here]

So.

So you think you can tell.

Blue skies from pain.

Ever laid down on grass and watched the clouds float by?
I have.
Do you point out shapes too?
Oh, good, I'm not the only one.

Two lost souls.

The same old ground.

Do you make up stories about strangers when they pass by?
I do.
Are they romantic and tragic, Shakespearean in nature?
Yeah, mine too.

Have you ever walked down a crowded street and felt real lonely?
I have.
Do you get an achy feeling, that still feels good somehow?
Me too.

What have we found.

Same old fears.

Do you run away from your problems?
I do.
Do you hide under a blanket till they're all gone?
Yep, I do that too.

How I wish.

How I wish you were here.

So you think can tell.

A smile from a veil.

Humo y Cenizas

I rise and fall in a cloud of minty smoke.
Reverberating around me, my thoughts deafen me.
The city closes in-suffocating me,
And silently, I choke.

The cold cuts sharp; I am painfully aware.
My mind traces the pattern of my various thoughts,
Articulate, reasoned or just ugly blots-
I gasp out shaky air.

Ode to McGill

Melting pot.

No, tornado.

Incoherent thought,

Fake, genuine, bravado.


The small comforts of home,

Herded like a cattle into chaos,

Well, when in Rome....

Wait, you're telling me I'M my own boss?


Overwhelmingly exciting,

My little city on a hill,

With nerves I desperately cling,

My new home, my very own McGill.

The Tale of the Deathly Hallows

There was once a wizard well traveled,
Who commanded attention when he spoke.
With recounts of victorious duels that marveled,
His only shame was defeat against another magical bloke.

His brother, too, had his own deep grief,
The girl he had once hoped to marry-untimely dead.
Void of happiness, the man considered Death a thief,
Sorrow drove him mad; if only, if only, was all he said.

Their younger brother still, was a wise chap for his years,
He prized moral over magic and chose friend over foe.
With noble conviction in his heart, he walked with no fear,
He had little quarrels; his sweet temper bore no bruised ego.

These three brothers once chanced upon
A treacherous river, stalked by Death.
With a wave of their magical wands, Death was dealt a con,
A bridge upon which they walked, past Death, within the thinnest of breadth.

Death greeted the three wizards, with fraudulent compliments,
Offering a reward for their skilled sorcery,
'Name it, and you shall have it, O Kings of Valiance,'
He now meant to gain their lives through treachery.

The first, the master of duels immediately desired,
A wand so unmatchable, its owner would be omnipotent.
So Death fashioned the weapon from a tree; the brother by the power he acquired,
Boisterously parted; never thinking it wise to be prudent.

The second wished to humiliate Death further,
Asked to be able to return his dead to life.
'This will return to you who was taken by the Grim Reaper.'
Death assured the brother, with love he'd reunite, he'd have his loving wife.

The third brother had quietly watched all this transpire. 

He knew too well what tricks Death was up to. 

'Invisibility is the asset I wish to acquire,'

Death grudgingly parted with his own Cloak and bid him adieu. 

Seeking out and destroying his foe, the first brother, 

In a drunken stupor, made the secret of his weapon known.

As he slept, a thief stole his wand and slit his throat for good measure, 

And so, Death took the first brother for his own. 

The second brother turned his pebble three times over, 

And there appeared his lady love, not mortal nor was she ghostly,

Time passed and the girl's shadow grew dimmer and dimmer, 

She did not belong; and the brother took his life so as to join her truly. 

Having taken the second for his own, Death endlessly sought,
The third brother who lived quite peacefully; to Death he remained invisible,
Passing the Cloak to his son, the brother joined Death as he ought,
Greeted Death in old age, parting with him in this life, as an equal.

With the wand, the first brother's life ended in strife,
With the stone, the second brother drowned in his own sorrows,
With the cloak, the third brother lived a long and fruitful life,
With these three, becomes the tale of what we call the Deathly Hallows.

Roses and Obstacles

My life is packed in boxes,
The send-off is nearly here.
Bobby pins, boots, hugs and kisses.
Tightly packed, comforts I hold most dear.

There are boxes of roses,
Packed with pretty, youthful things,
I can smell wondrous adventures with my nose;
Promising me delights a new life will bring.

There are boxes of obstacles too,
Crammed with failures, fights and tears.
A reminder that in life, certainties are few,
Daring me to shed my mask and let go of my fears.

A solemn buoyancy dances inside of me,
A roller-coaster of emotions takes its own journey within.
Inhibitions in an uninhibited future set me free,
Knowing my life will change into something it has never been.

Little Lady

There are certain memories which can be triggered in our daily lives. They take us back to different times in our life, and for a moment we are completely caught up in the flashback. Often, they are memories which have defined us in a way.

For me, there are a few things I strongly associate with my childhood: marzipan, my mother's banana bread and the smell of my father's cologne. The scent of his cologne stands out to me more poignantly than any other memory. My father put on his musky cologne only on two occasions. The first was when he took my mother out to dinner, and the second was when he took me to see the ballet. Whenever he took me, I wore the pretty dresses and shawls my mother had made for me. She'd brush my hair back with a matching silk ribbon and I'd slip on my best shoes. Running downstairs I'd find my father waiting for me at the steps, with a flower to match my dress. He called a carriage, and away we went, just he and I.

The ballets were splendid, to say the least. My father always got us box seats and I'd ooh and aah over the music and costumes, and my father would explain the story to me between acts. After each show, my father would take me to meet the dancers. He would introduce me as Margaret, his little lady and I'd shyly curtsey. They would give an affected laugh and peck my cheeks, calling me Peggy in their strange accents. They were so beautiful; they seemed like fairies even off stage! The one thing I didn't like, however, was the strong perfumes they used. So I'd skirt behind father's tailcoat, trying to inhale his cologne instead.

Afterwards on the carriage ride home, I'd fall asleep in his arms, with my flower still clutched tightly in my small fist. I dreamt of nothing but the beautiful dancers and divine music, all enveloped in my father's cologne. I spent the following days dancing out the ballet for my mum, and subsequently, awaiting the next time my father would take me again. He'd started this tradition with me since I was three, and I never failed to love each and every glorious evening we spent together.

The year I turned eleven, La Esmeralda was weeks away from its grand premiere at Her Majesty's Theatre. I was excited, and expecting to go with my father, hopefully on the very first night. It seemed, however, my fate did not have La Esmeralda written in it. March 7th, two days before the show opened, my father died. Simply collapsed. He came home in the evening, and I accompanied my parents in the dining room while they supped. And that's when it happened. His fork clattered, twice on his plate, and fell, splattering cheesecake all over the carpeted floor. I remember I didn't take my eyes off the fork until my mother gave a terrifying scream. I sat frozen, staring at my father on the floor. The butler and my mother were both bent over him, but I don't remember what they were saying. It was when my mother glanced back at me, when I knew I had lost him. I will never forget the look in her eyes. I quietly went to my room and pulled the red ribbon from my hair.

It has been fifty-three years since the night my father died. They told me later that it was heart failure which took his life. They also found two tickets to the opening show of La Esmeralda in his breast pocket. I haven't been to the ballet in all these years, but I always buy two box seat tickets to a show each year. Life eventually went on as it does, so I didn't reminisce about him too often. Today however, I found a small bottle of his cologne in a small shop just off Leicester Square. I smiled to myself, paid the clerk and exited the shop. Her Majesty's Theatre re-opened a few weeks ago. There is a show tonight, and I have tickets. I've decided to go. I'll wear my best gown and flower in my breast. I'll scent my handkerchief with his cologne. Life goes on after death, and we don't stop living. I may be sixty-four, but I will always be my father's little lady.

The Shadow Without A Man

I waited tables in Barcelona for 3 years after finishing my BA in English Lit. I was backpacking through Spain and fell in love with the vivacity of the place. I secured a job as a waitress and rented myself a small flat. I was a waitress seven days a week, and took evenings to explore the city, and by that I mean, the men.

I had life all figured out, and I was totally content. Well, almost. There was this man I waited on every day. He was a bit elderly, with soft features and well dressed.  Without fail, for the past 3 years, he'd come to the café each morning, sit at the same rickety corner table: the one half shaded by the roof and half exposed to the sun. He ordered the same café y bollo, in his accented but perfect Spanish. He never asked for a newspaper, never had a book or any company to share his morning coffee with. Him, I didn't have figured out. 

I don't know why he puzzled me. Maybe because he was always alone, or because he left a generous tip. I didn't like to romanticize about him, though. He didn't seem like a romeo waiting for his long lost Juliet, nor the old rich man who had a dark, muddled past. He was..unreadable. And this is what drove me crazy. I never could figure him out. I loved to observe and de-mystify people. Somehow, I could never unravel this man. In fact, he made me rather uncomfortable. Maybe he was trying to read me too. Maybe not. 

Then one day, he stopped coming. Just like that. That made me even more uncomfortable. I wondered if something happened to him. Or, had he moved away? Or had he simply just had enough of the café y bollo? He didn't come the next day either. Or the day after. Or the day after. In fact, he didn't come for the next 14 days straight. I don't know how many days he stayed away after that. I quit at the end of my shift on that 14th day of his absence. I went to my flat, and packed up my life in Barcelona. I moved back home a week later. 

I shifted back into my parents' house while I looked for a job elsewhere. I lived a terribly dull life for 8 months. I never got the man out of my head. I tried not to romanticize about him, but I couldn't help it. As much as I tried to solve the mystery of the man, I never could. I came up with all sorts of ridiculous scenarios in my head as to what could have happened with him, but they never sufficed. As much as I tried to forget the man, something would remind me of Barcelona, and I'd start once more. 

I live in Naples now, teaching English lit a private school. Life's great, I suppose. Husband, dog, baby. But sometimes, I can't sleep at night. I'll dream of a café, and that wakes me up in a cold sweat. I don't observe people anymore. I get uncomfortable when I see someone sitting alone. I choose the sunniest spots in gardens. And I am always armed with a good book. But I never read mystery novels. 

The man in shadow has left a bitter taste in my mouth. A shadow is a projection of something real. But I've never been able to figure out the tangible truth about the man. His identity to me is only a shadow. It's always haunted me. I hate that. 

I purposely live like an open book now. I tell my friends and colleagues all about my life. I tell my students stories about myself. I don't lie to my husband, either. I don't want any mystery about who I am. I dislike shadows. One shadow has mystified me ever since I left Barcelona, and I don't want any more. Not even my own. 

Mona Lisa smile.

The world I live in, it's quite like an orderly chaos. It unravels in a pattern each day, and I go through a journey each day while I am pieced back together. Let me try and explain it to you. I can be perfectly divided into 2 things:
Music and language.
Music notes, they transcend time.
My words, they bleed out my heart.
Both whisper to me ancient chasms of the earth, unknown and mystical; relevant and yet so foreign.

Systematically, throughout my day, my world falls apart. Loud, unwanted noise, the laments of a not-so-terrible life and the self pity of having a part time job weigh down like disgusting weights upon the mind. I am sickened of the world I live in, focusing on the fragment of the dirt, air and water I foolishly call my world. Then, slowly, it is pieced back together. Listening to music, the beats, the rhythms, connecting with it as it connects me to my world. It connects me to the cold winter wind and even the look in his eyes. It connects me to the minute task I occupy myself with, and sometimes it even connects me to the nothingness I so often find myself lost in. And more often than not, something out of nowhere clicks. Life..isn't half bad. This is maybe half the journey to re-piecing myself.

My second half happens here; right here on this keyboard. Music is pouring into my eardrums at this very moment, and it is pouring out in the words I type. To attempt and explain the chasms of the earth is enough for now. Perhaps one day I will be able to type coherence strings of thoughts, sharing the secrets Gaea tells me, as a friend a mother a sister. She giggles, whispers, caressing my heart and mind with her words. Sometimes she weeps and when that happens, I unravel even more, until my two halves piece me back together again.

I am never destroyed, but simply lost amidst this tiny fragment of the universe. My two halves ground me and at the same time, I ascend from the ashes of my world to be re-born, each day anew. You see, I want to very much share the secrets she tells me. She laughs each time, because I am not bound by any vow not to speak of this, but my very two pillars of life fail me. They fail to convey what I cannot keep inside of me. But it is not such a bad feeling, to be honest. I rather enjoy hearing ancient wisdom, coming up from the earth, filling me inside. I smile, a secretive smile, because I know, I know things that one day we will both come to know, but for now, only I know. I smile, that Mona Lisa smile.

Fleeting

nol.

A part of you latches on to every person you talk to, connect with.
You may think back and say, Dear God I am not that person, I just got carried away.
You'll feel shame and feel terrible to be even associated with or reminded of that person, be it friend or something more.
But you cannot deny that a part of you latches on to everyone.
There are fragments of the human soul embedded in everyone, whomever you have touched.

86.

It's not necessarily a bad thing; you gain experience. But that's looking at it realistically. Just for tonight, look at it from a dream like view. Imagine each soul is a different hue, and that each person is now made up of a different hue. So each time a person touches you, even if for the briefest moment, you give them a piece of your hue. The ability to evoke real emotion in a person is the most intimate act anyone can do, and once they have done that, they forever own a piece of you.

sqn.

But is it such a bad thing? I look at it as perhaps a good thing, or at least, something that just is. Leaving traces of your soul everywhere perhaps makes you more complete, doesn't it? In this roar of life, the soul is too often a quiet, fleeting thing, but perhaps the most powerful. Touching you in that instant, more powerfully than life ever could. I don't regret latching myself onto you, individual, I don't.

Sometimes.

Sometimes I'd like to fall over the edge,
Just to see what would happen,
Just to see who would miss me.
And I know this is wrong,
I shouldn't care who would miss me and who wouldn’t
But I'm only human,
I cant help but wonder.

Sometimes I'd like to change myself completely,
Just to see what would happen,
Just to see who would still stand by me.
And I know this is wrong,
I shouldn’t test limits this much,
But I'm only human,
I cant help but wonder.

Sometimes I'd like to be just me,
Just to see what would happen,
Just to see who would accept me,
And I know this is wrong,
I shouldn’t fear acceptance,
But I'm only human,
I cant help but wonder.

I cant help but wonder,
If I'm the only one who doubts,
If I'm the only one who’s weak,
And the only one who's reckless..
I'm only human.

I'm falling over the edge,
I'm changing completely,
And I'm finally being me.
Will you miss me?
And stand by me?
And will you accept me,
For who I am?

You see,
I’m only human,
I can’t help but wonder.

Terrorist.

Because even though I'm not a Muslim, I feel so strongly about this issue. I am a human, and discrimination affects us all. 

I shortened Osama to Sam, because people called me Osama-bin-Laden. 

I stopped wearing my hijab, because people stared like I'd committed a sin.  

I shortened Mohammed to Moe, because people called me a terrorist. 

I was shunned and scorned, they called me jihadi, an Islamic extremist. 

I get called Terrorist, like it's a nationality. 

Because stereotypes, well, they're people's mentality. 

Pakistan, Saudi, Iran, Afghanistan,

They all became "Terrosistan." 

If they hear me speaking in Arabic or Urdu, 

That automatically translates to, "You must be a terrorist, too."

To the world, the word Muslim means terrorist and Islam means jihad, 

We're all terrorists if we come from places like Baghdad or Islamabad. 

Muslims are always linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and associated with Al-Qaeda, 

The world forgets the peaceful Islam, of Allah, and holy Mecca and Madina. 

You say the Qu'ran tells us to kill all Americans and wage wars on His behalf, 

But our Qu'an teaches us how to prosper and thrive, to live, love and laugh. 

The world is infected with a disease called prejudice, they all have Islamophobia,

We are the victims of unjust, no, she is not hiding a bomb in her abayah. 

You see Muslims aren't terrorists and terrorists aren't Muslim, 

But no one believes that so I changed my name from Tariq to Tim. 

I change my name, take off my belief and hope no one will see, 

Because I'm a just a Muslim, not a terrorist, but they don't believe me.