Letter On Love

Who writes letters

dipped in roses and scent everyday

To whom I wrote everyday

could never write me back

This is the parade of love

why will one stop oneself from drowning in it

The sea will crumble

to ashes

in front of my tears

 گلاب کے پھول اور عطر میں

لپٹے ہوئے خط

لکھے جاتے نہیں روز روز

جس کو لکھتے تھے روز

وہ نہیں میرے پرساان حال

یہ عشق کا جلسہ ہے

خود کو روکے

بھی تو روکے کیوں اِس میں ڈوبنے سے

سمندر خاک ہو جائے گا

ان آنسوؤں کے آگے

ghulaab kay phool aur itar mein

lipte hue khat

likhay jatay nahi roz roz

jis ko likhtay thay roz

woh nahi mere pursaan e haal

yeh ishhq ka jalsa hai

khud ko rokay

bhi to rokay kyun iss mein doobnay se

samandar khaak ho jaye ga

in aansuon ke agay

Pursaan e haal - the person who comforts you / haal puchnay wala

to call god a she

 

for Reshma

 

A letter to Reshma Khala

Meet Reshma (like silk), my mother's sister, my khala. I never got the opportunity to meet her because she passed away at an early age of 19. 

She would often say "ab humaara aur jeenay ka mann nahi karta" i dont desire to live more. 

She was a rebel, a liberal, a muslim girl who didn't want to limit herself to what the patriarchal society expected of her, she was a poet, she wrote too many poems and made too many friends, she would sit alone under a tree or celebrate stories around bonfires with her friends. She was what I would call a hippie, a gypsy, a free bird, a lover. 

Most say that it's uncanny how much I look and behave like her and maybe that's why I often find myself thinking about her stories. 

Whenever I try to make sense of her desire to leave this world soon, I perhaps find myself thinking that she felt misunderstood, she felt like a misfit but for the years she lived, she made sure to make life a celebratory one.

This is my letter to Reshma khala,

you were too good for this world,

world that tries to cage women and their dreams every single day and I'm sorry if you felt misunderstood.

Khala,

the tale of your wild long locks

have made their way 

to many

your poems 

about the moon, women and their desires,

the hookah, the wine, 

your lover that left you far behind

live in the hearts of many,

many can imagine 

your laughter

the sparkle in your rebellious eyes

that often lived in melancholy,

tales of your dreams

and how you wanted to change the world

reached many

Photographed in Allahabad, 1978

She was known for her wild knee length long locks. She lost most of her hair before she passed away. 

Story of a young, free spirited woman, a poet and a lover from Allahabad, Reshma, like silk.

 

pain

What happens to the version of ourselves that paints or writes a poem when in fury 

because more or less our pain is only ours to be fully understood,

our words are snatched from our throats and used against us,

we walk the streets aimlessly 

leaving a city after a city after a city

finding ourselves to be nothing but alone,

emotions crawl on our faces,

our thoughts shamed for being expressed too late

bearing a death sentence for wanting freedom from quiet,

stillness so deafening that I wrote this to the creaking of the fan above me as an ant crawled the length of my body

pain, by Madiha Shams Khan

I am a lover

I will love you in a letter

very late at night

I will love your name

and the musk of your skin,

did i ever tell you 
that your hands

are like those of the ancient gods

I will love

the symphony of your warm long breaths

and your name that is a sweet prayer

I will love you

even when my letters don't reach you

when i am just a hair clip on a dresser,

a patch of yellow paint on a grey wall,

an old postcard pressed in a diary,

just a name rolling out of your mother's tongue 

I am a lover

I will love you even after they bury me

and long after
when I am nothing but the soil under a tree

I am a lover, By Madiha Shams Khan

Remembrance

remembrance has filled my heart
the musk of your skin
lingers in my thoughts of you
I'm drinking from the memories you left me with
it is where I live now
in remembrance,
in remembrance,
I find you

Rang

A color 

woven out of colors

a color making another

a tint

a hue

a heaven 

and in heaven 

these colors

every shade a love story

a heaven

surkh blending with zard

a narangi sunset

firuzah, nila, and all the blues getting deeper

an ocean of colors

a reflection of the setting sky in the dark blue waters

surkh, surati, nila

a sharabi wave

in the gardens of paradise

a bed of flowers 

a gulabi dream

where the sabz and the zard meet

and where the colorless is colorful

safid in siyah, 

a surmayi

a heaven

Oh rangrez

color is within me

I am color

a heaven

A french film

It's summer

we're living in the countryside

where the greens meet the blues

ochre and gold, husk wheat fields
as far as the eyes can see

our home is a log cabin

wooden floors and fences

where I am always wearing white dresses

sheer, frills and laces

holding the laundry basket

on the curve of my waist

pinning wet clothes to the nylon rope.

Our room brimming with cream sheets

walls and floor drenched with paint

you're always puffing cigarettes

always making portraits

on canvasses

my chiseled bones,

soft curls tied in a bun,

balmy lips, soft, smooth

and sunlight a golden heaven on my breasts,

I'm so alive in your portraits

It's raining now

I rush

to pick the laundry

pouring rain washes me

and washes your portraits of me

I am alive in your arms, you say,
art

it's a feeling

our love
is a french film

A French film by Madiha Shams Khan

Somewhere where I am not (Extension)

How my mind takes me to different places and eras
and washes me in several cultures
around different people
people, all with opinions
and 
I'm always the woman
I want to be
I am here
and
I'm somewhere where I'm not.

An extension of somewhere where I'm not, By Madiha Shams Khan

Secret love affairs upon rooftops

On moonlit nights
I walk barefoot
on the raw floor of my rooftop
dust particles stick to my feet
and the sound of my pazaib 
rhymes with my throbbing heart
on my moist skin
your soft touches
the knots of my blouse
tied too tight
your fingers race
to loosen them
and you breathe 
your desires on my neck
in your hurried breaths
you say my name
like a holy prayer
and I ask you
if this worship
will forever
remain a secret.

- Secret love affairs on rooftops By Madiha Shams Khan