The Punishment

Disclaimer:

No disrespect meant to any people and places. The world is a family.

Banupriya is real. She really calls me Roy. She is a scientist in a laboratory. Her laboratory is not in Lahore.

Also, she is not one to curse people lightly. Especially my sister and me. So if you are Banupriya, please don't curse me for casting you in my story.

I don't live in Beirut. I have no reason to be there.

I miss my sister, who is really at home.

Approximation

I’ve never seen better, I’ve never seen worse
In the splitting of an atom, I’ve seen the universe

But the world has no existence
Outside our point of view
Thus even as I stare at it
It shows up something new

Tired by the fruitlessness, of this most futile task
A whole new kind of persona, I wanted to unmask

All that could be visible
I did not wish to see
The tiny and the transparent
Were not a mystery

Alas the only cursed nook, unreachable by eye
Is the cursed eye itself, which I cannot spy

Thus dejected a nihilist
I was tempted to become
But something about nihilism
Did not seem wholesome

For everything the grace of God, makes possible to see
I owe Him some minimal trust, for what’s hidden from me

The issue I now realize
Is not of faith or doubt
It’s not about how well I see
But how well I figure out

The Ides of March Arrive

The entrails of Prometheus old

Are consumed even as he's alive

My entrails they likewise grow cold

As the ides of March arrive

The path of the old and the path of the new

Will from the very same source derive

Hark ye! These paths decided they will be

As the ides of March arrive

The trade of formal dope is due

To meet deadlines I strive

Alas I face such deadlines three

As the ides of March arrive

I set my house in order true

In an attempt to my spirit drive

Thank God! Some order I can see

As the ides of March arrive

The ides of March they came and went

As they come and go each year

But the ides of March make evident

Our guts in the face of fear

Inscription on the lit lamp

As a child, at the sky above
I often used to stare
But later times when I looked up
The stars just weren’t there
But their memory, it gives me strength
To belong with them I dare
If they welcome me, well and good
If they shun me, I don’t care

Musings of an August day

I take no more pleasure in admiring my handiwork,
Nor in the countenance of my beloved.
I care no more for beauty of sound,
Not even for the cleanliness I loved.

The rhythm of word and note,

Inspires not my feet.

Even the words of my teachers,

Like bitter medicine I treat.

Unmashable storylines

Cry havoc in my brain,

Dissatisfied I turn to excess

Of mirth, games and grain.

Fasting and exercise, such panicked attempts at penitence. But every fibre of me resents these insults to my sentience.