Author: irfan

I saw her in my dream after so long. I begged to be loved. I fought to be chosen. Knowing full well she preferred another. Inherited minds. Wet earth that hardens as it is squeezed in a palm. Hopes. Aircraft carriers. Genetic memory. Weak bodies capable of nothing but the struggle to exist.

A river tainted with acid. My body dissolving within it. The sound of my bones snapping echoes in my ears. I hope that when I close my eyes, I might finally sleep. Drifting through a dream. Striving to be chosen. Loathing every facet of politics. Only to plunge into an acid-filled river. At the very first moment I am shed of unhappiness.

Machines of metal, built to kill. Dreams obliterated with every blast. The trigger is easy to pull. The moments are hard to forget. Machines trampling over a graveyard. Technological scraps crushed under the word “defense.”

I did not want to wake. I know that my dreams are the only moments I am free. There is no salvation. For the first time, I was this close to them. For the first time, I was rejected. For the first time, I was certain they had let me go. I questioned why I cared so much. Amidst all the people who have passed through my life.

I refused. I left a great regret behind. Life within a nutshell. Dozens of sentences destined to end with an ellipsis… In desperate need of a full stop.

Love. Humanity’s greatest downfall. Harboring possessiveness within, it sinks into the mire of habit. Making no difference at all, it flows down the waterfall of intoxication, creating the proof of existence and inspiring boundless trust.

Happy marriages. An extinguished candle. Selves clinging to an unclaimed life…

Love. The greatest enemy. The smell of spoiled cheese, and the pleasure derived from that stench. Selves shrinking ever smaller… An egg dropping to the floor. Inside, a dead chick that yearned to live. That is all love is. Lived merely for the sake of possession, and denied as if to deceive death itself.

Must one always remain a child? Or simply deceive oneself?

Foolish Romeo and pitiful Juliet. You taught us to perish from our own blindness, to murder the self for the sake of possessing. You taught us to spill the rice in our hands to the ground, grain by grain, the turning of the wheels, and the meaninglessness in the ticking of a clock.

Foolish me and pitiful you. Dragged along inside a circle…

Waiting, waiting, waiting. The erratic meaning of cigarette smoke. Pale lights in the silence of the street. Lost meanings reviving in the mind. The blurred reflection in the glass. A presence casting doubt on identity. That very moment where looking and seeing diverge. The ambiguity between sleep and wakefulness. The human is a stray dagger. In the diary of the dead. Oblivion is the only truth. Watching the unfolding events, alone.

Which dead shall write? The one buried without a shroud. The one having lost the soil meant to be cast upon it. Wandering to find a shovel, only to become lost; semicolon… the helpless symbol of the paper. The most senseless grief of a years-long struggle. Living for nothing, simple as dying for a diary. As much as the meaning of life. As much as a soul. As much as the earth trodden upon at the end of wars fought in blood. As much as the semicolons defining this soil as a homeland;

I saw a mother at the classroom door. Downtrodden, yet just as hopeful. Watching her testament reflected in the glass with timid eyes. Inside is warm and devastating. The confidence within the hunched posture. Trying to crush the bitter burden of life. A face accustomed to denying the destiny it carved for itself. Sad, yet smiling. Reflecting what lies in the eyes, unable to hide it. A life tethered by a first cry after sacrificing one’s own existence for naught. Just a sentiment. The child is still small, unaware of most things.

Sacrifice is often a cliché. The child does not understand. But it will. Time will pass while glancing sideways at the glass. An unstoppable momentum. Moments harboring deep regrets. Those words that never escape the lips. A heavy weight gathering in the heart. Those meaningless words that strike like lightning in an instant, yet are poured into speech only when all is lost. A reckoning that can never be settled, no matter what we do. A very heavy toll. If only some things were understood from the very beginning. If only throats did not have to bear the burden of belated words.

Hours, days, months, and years. A long stride within time. A brief expanse of time occupying space within the fleeting time of the cosmos. The torment of silence. The wandering words of dreams. A multitude of words forgotten upon waking. Harboring the weight of life. The relentless fatigue of the vocal cords. Pregnant with only a mere whisper.