Confessions of a Drunk Sunday by Saheen Rahman
i am torn between wanting to love my life
and wanting to hate it.
an obese monkey in thailand is called uncle fat.
i saw a man crying in the rain today
and i wanted to tell him that
she’ll come back.
every restaurant doesn’t serve
good ketchup.
a friend i’ve known for seventeen years
turned out to be a bully.
cheap whiskey tastes better with good company.
my lover makes cinnamon toasts
which tastes almost, almost as good as garlic mushroom.
a lesbian i met today had eyes of a guilty pleasure.
japanese people used to think earthquakes were caused by namazu, a catfish.
backstreet boys sound better when i am high.
i bailed on my therapist.
being around people is excruciatingly painful, but on second thoughts, my nose piercing hurts more.
life seems different when you lose your capability to love.
marina chapman claims that monkeys raised her.
i want someone to hold my hand.
the last time i saw my best friend was five months ago.
giving up control feels horrible.
i attended a condolence meet and didn’t grieve about the dead man.
at night, my dreams take up half of the space in my bed.
the sun is out.
i should open my eyes.
Where Do I Get My Dreams From by Nameera Anjum Khan
From my mother's bloody gaps
I kicked out a foot and decided that I wanted to live.
She held me through the pain,
Swimming in pickle jars and eating the glass-
Looking at her reflection and laughing when the tears fell,
Maybe that's why even I laugh when I'm supposed to cry. Because we are not allowed to cry at the natural course of life. It is life. What more do you expect?
From my lover's hands inside my blue underwear,
His incoherent moans pocketed inside my skin. He bites my earlobes, his fingers running wild;
The back of the car is our own little secret,
Leather poems stacked under the seat.
From the apple on a tree, that refuses to pin a hole in the ground,
The science of metaphors; a flea against the windshield of the universe,
I don't know who's driving this car, God, maybe?
From God, yes
My mother taught me about him. She said he was beyond the sky,
Beyond the Heavens and the clouds. While I would try looking at the tip of my nose,
Anything stretched beyond that was too frail for a child's imagination. God, too big.
We get our dreams from the backseats of unsolicited strangers / lover boys,
From the minaret of a masjid promising the heaven,
From the bells of a mandir singing of swarg-
From the metro's in Delhi speeding away,
A common girl's common dream; of walking alone in the streets of karaul bagh,
Comes from a common girl's tendency to nurture poetry from forbidden french kisses, hurried prayers and a mother's pregnancy.
That is where I get my dreams from.