BIRHADA- A GHAZAL

Derrida preaches the structurality of structures, while this 4x4 cubicle eats my insides.

Ants and maggots and all, they parade the debris of my home;

I am a refugee now, memory cheats my insides.

I pretend I have no appetite for love and dream of a lover separating sand from the sea.

A hungry woman sits in my stomach, she lays in bed next to me,

and sin greets my insides.

I pray for a gaping madness to swallow me whole but God has abandoned all his bad religions.

He churns away into boredom and I laugh in His face.

Kafir- He says, and devotion defeats my insides.

The same boredom blurs my vision, I see two of most things now. Two hands that hold, Two legs that flee, a trunk of nothing and a shabby degree.

Madness waits at my door like a dog with a bird in his mouth; wet and bloody, and then,

mercy deceits my insides.

Language fails me most times, I complain,

but my professor tells me I might be a good writer.

The sky has opened up and devoured my words, I am sorry I know nothing of beauty now,

exhaustion beats my insides.

They say ‘Punint’ the world knows of better things and worse things, greater pains and smaller happiness-es.

But hear this, listener.

This ghazal has taken the life out of me. No applause awaits me; only my body, an auditorium, and its empty seats- my insides.