Shaikh Ashraf's Blog: Shaikh Ashraf Writes, page 5

Darkness — A Short Story

[image error]

The darkest night of Mumbai. I strolled over through the marine drive, the whole city empty and silent. The sound of vehicles came jostling like a breezy wave. This city hasn’t been silent all this time but why today, why now. I walk the empty lanes of the lit marine drive, glance through the water and see far away from the dark sea. It showed nothing but emptiness everywhere. She stands a girl there wearing a yellow frock, and with her brownish ponytail, waving with the winds. her skirt showed her little legs and jostled with the wind. she stood alone in the dark, in the front of the dark sea of the darkest nights. She turned around, I saw her. 

Sonam, the name still haunts me after all these years. The name means, “Beautiful” and she was every inch of it. I walked to her, but hiding i stood near one corner, eyeing her. she looked the same as she used. This is the girl for who I wrote letters and novels and poetries but never shared them, to her, kept it hidden away in my little closet. 

Now she was there, with darkness. She walked to side the water and stood there. 

“Hey” a voice came. 

I turned around, it was her, Sonam, the girl in a ponytail. Ahead and there she was in the water and behind me, at the same time. 

“Hi,” she said. 

“Hello,” I told. 

“Why don’t you forget me?” 

“How could I?” 

“you’re the person who I loved, I wrote for, for whom I lived and died for years, and now, you aren’t here, in my life, your mere existence made me happy, but now you’re gone,” I told. 

“What happened to us?” 

“I don’t know,” I told.

“I fell in love with the wrong person at the wrong time, or with the right person at the wrong time, or vice-versa,” she said. 

“I fell in love, with the most beautiful girl, in my class at the worst of all the times,” I said. 

“you got any girlfriend?” she asked. 

“No”

“why”

“I don’t want to love anymore”

“don’t lose hope, you’ll find someone” 

“I’m sacred” 

“Scared of what”

“What if I love someone the same way I loved you, she’ll with be for a few moments of my life and leave” 

“no, don’t think “

“what if I loved her, wrote for her, made my dreams and reality hers, and she leaves me without saying anything,” I told. 

“you’ve any idea how much it scares me, to love someone now, this heart is delicate to be broken again this mind is weak to be addicted again,” I said. 

“you are gonna fall in love, one day, aren’t you, or live your life loving me and losing all hope in your life?”

“Whenever I see someone, whom I am capable of loving who is capable of loving me, this scary emotion comes, what if I lose her, what if, I give my everything to this person and I get only pain and heartbreak in end”



“what if you love her more than you ever loved me?”

“is it ever gonna happen?”

“yeah”

“Why are you still living inside my brain, wherever I walk, I eat, I sleep, I see you, and end up talking to you”

“you haven’t moved on”

“but why am I so much into you?”

“I’m sorry I never loved you, the way you loved me, I was in love with someone else” 

“no, you aren’t sorry, you aren’t, you are my imagination” 

“so what, this is what you want to hear right?”

“from the real person, not the imaginary one,” I say and run towards the shore to the real one. 

I see nothing, the waves slowing down, the sky clearing up, my feet shivering, “Hey” the voice continues and fades away.

I wake up, I find myself in another land, I am in a room, laying on a bed.

“so, how’re you,” she asks.

“you,?” I ask.

“don’t worry” 

“Why won’t you leave me, come out of my brain, stop torturing me?” I ask.

“you’re the one torturing yourself, accept the fact. We cannot be together, accept, you fell in love with an image, I’m not perfect as you’re or your imagination, I’m me” 

“no, I won’t I can’t forget you now, now everything has happened, I shattered my dreams, my desires, my existence for you and now, I come here, at this point where I can’t quit loving you, I am obsessed, insane, addicted to you, you don’t understand” 

“we’re not gonna happen”

“I don’t care, I will keep loving you” 

“you’re punishing yourself” 

“doesn’t matter, if loving you with all my heart is punishing myself, let me be punished, loving ou is the best thing and the worst I had ever done in my life, and I don’t know anything beyond it”

“fuck you”

“love you”

“Why don’t you accept this” 

“Why don’t you accept this, this is best for me, to yearn for you all my life, go insane, write, perform, you’re my inspiration, you fill me by making me void” 

She disappears, I get out of my bed and take a cup out of the cupboard. I pour whiskey and ice. I drink it smelling the stench, imagining her. 

It’s been years since I saw her, ponytail girl I used to say when I didn’t know her name. In my free time, I conjured up her image and talked to her, I went obsessed. After years when i confessed to the real one, she didn’t care. 


No one cares, no matter how much you love them, how you feel for them, no one, but you should care for yourself. the path of love is filled with thorns, tread lightly. What if you love someone to give your fullest to her, and in the end, you end up, obsessed and insane, drinking in darkness, talking with yourself, walking in darkness, and befriending darkness. Do not let dark love enter your life, run from it, as far as you, who knows where that ponytail witch might come to hunt you down and snatch you away from this world and entrap you in their love. 

Rain- A Short Story

[image error]

The clouds burst into droplets. The sky cries its loud moans, and the peacock danced in the forest. Stood this girl, cute, had a beautiful ponytail, walked in elegance, the rain poured on her, and she danced in it, like the peacock dances, laughed, her laugh was the most beautiful. her eyes see me, sitting in one corner looking at her. But she didn’t care. She danced, her cloth dripped from water, and she hips swayed, evoked passion in me, ignited, an embrace. This girl, this beauty, is the only thing I hate and love the most. The moment I saw her, she trapped me into her, she swayed her hips away and swayed my character, with her dangling ponytail and times I died and I became alive whenever she laughed at my jokes. She killed me, keeps killing me every day. 

The day when I first saw her, I have been writing the stories of love. Another rain, burst the clouds another year, in another time, I was again sitting in one corner reading the love letters I wrote to her but never showed, and stood a girl, matured, old, her skin weary, dressed dreary, she stood in the rain and danced again. She danced all her worries away, she cried and danced her pains. Her hips swayed again in rain, her ponytail dangled, her eyes bright had tears washed away by the rain and I saw her smiling her worries through the rain. 

I walked to her and danced, touched each other and glanced. Our eyes met each other after years of solitude, we burst our pains away swaying our hips, and me holding her in my arms. She’s like someone I knew in past, she had the same ponytail one had a year ago, in the same rain she danced and trapped me, and when I came out of the trap, here stands another girl, in the rain. 

“What is your name?” I ask.

“oh you know me?” she tells. 

“What?” I ask again.

“I am the girl in the rain,” she told. 

“A girl in rain, who dances in vain, and takes people’s souls away, trap them into tiny prisons of love and desire and never let them free. I’ve come here to trap you again. Come let’s fall in love with my beauty, danced our worries away, while I teach you how to love someone again, and break you, and trap you forever” she told. 

“No, not now, I know love, it is a poison, I don’t choose to be entering the prison,” I told. 

“You got no option, you’re in love, trapped,” she said. 

“But I choose not to love anymore, cause the pains, you gave me, by cutting my veins, and protruding me into you, I fell astray to your love, it pained me a lot,” I said. 

“let see, I will come in another rain, and take you away,” she told.

She swayed her hips away, with dangling her ponytail, she bright eyes glistened and laughed her beautiful laugh, came a man who hugged her and fell in her love. They kissed each other and they had whatever they had without their clothes on. I stood in extreme jealousy, watching them dance the hateful dance of love, she trapping the little imbecile man in her cast of love and locking his hands. She held him tight and walked in away, swaying her hips and dangling her ponytail away. He walked with her, laughing and smiling, but someday, this happened to me.

Now, I hate rains, it pokes my veins, shakes my head, and cobbles me up. I avoid whenever someone dances in rain, I walk past by hem. She still comes to haunt me in my dreams, her little lips kissing mine, while she makes love to imbecile man in love feeling the divine. Our love was a timeframe which lasted till the timer lasted, ended the way she wanted to end, and it went ghasted. My life has been living by avoiding love. Who knows, one fine day, one fine evening, or night, one fine weather, when the clouds shake and cries, and stands the same girl, with dangling ponytail and swaying hips dancing and taking me all in her. 

I dance with her she kisses me, makes love, but she locks my hands in her handcuffs and takes me in her prison. She keeps me, locked away, alive in love, kills my soul, and kills my passions away. Only when I’m free of loving someone, only when I’m obsessed she releases me, but how can I ever come out of this jail you locked me into. 

Obsessed I sit across my room, wailing, you’ve realized me from your jail called love, but I want to go back again. Take me back again, I want to hold you, make love, kiss you, and dance in rain, take me inside prison again. 

Again I sit in the corner of the heaviest rain, but no girl comes dancing and swaying her hips again with her dangling ponytail. The rain stops but I sit, yearning to go back and get imprisoned, but, where is the girl in the rain who took away my pain, taught me how to love and forgot me like I was nothing, jailed me, made me obsessed with her and released me, where is she?

Where had she gone? Has she gotten trapped in someone’s love or she’s trapped a permanent lover with her? 

Where is the girl in rain?

Grave

The surge of adrenaline burst open,

Soft-spoken, broke my heart open, 

Shellings of love left me drunken.

Lives lost in love, 

Soaking wet in dreams, 

Drenched in little shillings of passions, 

I learned a whole lot of compassion. 

Things I never thought I would ever say,

I sat in a corner, astray, 

Foray burst the clouds, shelled the rains away,

Then, shattered the whole world. 

The surge of caffeine pops open,

My head thwarts, broken,

There in the tomb of my lover, I lie, soaking,

Soaking the wet mud of her grave.

Poking me aside her little cuteness,

Stroking my heart bit by bit, 

Ate my soul away, 

Bit by bit. 

The world cries its loudest wails,

There it tells its tales, 

Shouting its loudest stories, in pain,

Shaking and taking the whole earth in vain.

Gone are the days where we made love, on those ruffled sheets, 

Burning our bodies in our passions,

Boiling our bodies in melted feelings and emotions, 

Shaking and rocking, ourselves, in ecstasy. 

Gone are the nights, where we stayed alive and in love, 

Danced in desire, for this beloved,

Where passion rose and subdued, 

There it birthed more, love. 

Now, there lies the only insanity, 

Where I slit open my reality,

And burst my ferocity.

Now there lies only vanity and pain,

Making me in every moment insane,

I take pills to make the pain go away,

I can’t help but smoke cigarettes away and throw them in tray. 

I’m drunk, 

High, smoking and snorting,

I’m insane and I cry,

Wailing and laughing in madness.

Gone are you laying in that grave, 

Where I stand, digging you, thinking I’m brave, 

Where I miss you, but the reason you’ve gone is me, 

I’m a loser to put you in pain. 

Take my life, and come alive,

Cut my veins and end me, 

I can’t lose you, now, 

But, I want to die. 

This life is nothing without you, 

Loving and living it is nothing, 

You strayed for a good part, 

But, I ruined it, for dreams of something. 

I hate myself to love you, 

I crawl in anger, 

I cut, drink, and snort my worries away, 

Thinking one day, I’ll leave this world for good. 

I don’t want to be alone, 

I don’t want to be here anymore, 

For you left, leaving me in darkness, 

Now, I seek you, in your grave. 

I dig deep to find you in bones, 

You’re thin and stuck on the casket, 

I touch you but you don’t feel human, 

You feel strange. 

I lift your head and smile,

I cry, 

Holding that face, that head, which I kissed, 

I kiss that bone-headed face again, 

Only to figure out, you aren’t you. 

I’m holding your skeleton in front of me, 

Missing your very existence, 

What happened to you and your body, 

There is a big difference. 

Gone are those big eyes, which I used to love, 

Gone is those nimble toes and fingers, that I adored, 

Gone is your body, whom I made love to, 

You’re nothing but left with bone and bones, 

How, and what can I do without you?

I crawl deep into your grave, 

Sleep beside you, 

I close my eyes and cuddle you,

But you don’t smell like you used to, 

Your hair is gone,

Only bones are left, 

Everything of you is drawn. 

Yet I sleep to find you somewhere in this dark grave, 

Somewhere you’d come, crawling and snapping my sleep off me,

Waking me up, and kissing. 

When I wake up I want to be with you, 

In your wholeness, I want to hold you again, 

In your fullness.

We’ll unite in heaven, 

There I’m meeting you, 

We’ll finish what we started,

Write a story, to tell only ourselves. 

End me, kill me, put my life away, 

It’s time to meet honey,

It’s time to finish our love story anyway. 

I sleep beside your skeleton,

Smelling our eaten body,

I cuddle beside your bone,

Holding your thin jawbone.

I hold in my hand, your hand, and your fingers,

Where you lay and where I stand, there a shadow lingers, 

I look up and there stands a man, shouting his chest out, 

I take my gun out and burst out. 

Darkness prevails, blood thawed, 

Head blew away, and there I lie headless beside your skeleton,

In seconds everything ends, 

A beginning begins,

In time, my body ends, and my bones will come out.

We’re soon to meet in heaven or hell I don’t know, 

But, ending this is, for sure, the last thing I wanted.

—–Ashraf Shaikh

Institutions Prostitutions

These institutions,

Are prostitutions,

These politicians,

Their lies for persecutions.

Their solutions,

Are malicious,

Their promises,

Are delicious.

Their results are obvious,

We just numbers for them, 

Our dreams are grevious,

Their rules and regulations are posthumous.

Big houses, large windows,

Big gates, made of our money, 

While our women cry being widows,

For their lost husbands, 

You stole them away.

The empty stomach cries loud, minister sir, you won’t listen,

Cause yours is filled with our money,

The weightless wallet says a lot sir,

But you won’t know,

Cause yours is already too heavy.

While you fill the pockets of those tycoons,

We die, tying the noose,

Giving our life to the landlord,

Everyday laboriously, dying.

While you live in grandiosity,

Our people have never had of glance of city,

While you sleep well in your cozy bed,

We lay with an empty stomach.

What kind of leader are you,

Who won to enjoy his life,

Snatch away our rights,

See us, in institutional fights.

What kind of person are you,

Drunk in your power,

While we living our life in abuse of poverty,

And you lie about making us empower.

Your institutions,

Are nothing but prostitutions of dreams,

Where our sweat and blood and dreams lay shattered,

While you sleep in your cozy bed,

And we live every day like a battle.

————–Ashraf Shaikh

Common Man

Centuries passed on this soil,

Eternity passed on this land, 

Birthed my dreams on this soil,

Reaped them in all those political turmoils.

The root of hatred rose there,

It withered but sprouted again,

Watered by hate groups,

The root became a tree, and then large troopes.

I lived all my life with full gusto and dare, 

Held my head high and flare,

But I didn’t dare think,

That within blink, these hate groups, will divide my land, 

Turn it into nothing but a bland.

All the memories I had here,

The thousand love letters I wrote,

The endless poets I quote,

I became what I am, and in these lanes, I wrote.

Of this soil I did my farming, 

Of this land, I walked a thousand miles,

Of this place, beauty birthed, 

On this day, I am feeling alienated.

After all these years fighting for this land, 

Dying, crying lived my ancestors, in turmoil they stand,

Of all the sacrifices made for this soil,

Now, I stand in yet another turmoil. 

I‘m made to throw my identity,

Burn this ferocity,

Leave this city, on the basis of my religion,

And go, live in detention. 

What wrong have I done for this country, 

What wrong have I done that they don’t hear my plea, 

Sacrificed my flesh and bones, 

Now, I’m told to leave this country.

Where would you want me to go,

My heart finds its beatings here, 

My memories engraved on the stones,

My soul lives happy here, 

Here is where I fell in love, and got my heart broken.

Where would you throw me to,

My place is here, 

I have fought all my life on this land, 

Here I stand, refusing to leave,

No matter how much you tell me to leave, 

I won’t. 

What right you have, to question me about my nationalism?

Who gave you the right to do that?

Go take care of the farmers dying,

And people living in poverty,

Students comitting suicide,

We have those problems to take care. 

I have all the rights to tell you to do your work,

To give people their rights,

I voted for you, not because you to root me out of my land, 

But because I trusted you, you’ll make my land, beautiful.

But you betrayed my belief in you, 

Who am I to you but a number, 

Who seems minority, 

You cancel me off, to win another time. 

While I stand here on the footloose, in front of your big houses, 

Shouting out of my lungs, you burned our houses, 

Stole our jobs, now you dare to steal this land, 

I stand firm, dare me to move,

I dare you, I have all the right to ask you,

What work in these six years did you do.

Other than dividing people on the basis of caste,

Than slitting people on the basis of religion,

Than lynching people over a cow, 

You make the whole nation, spit at you, in angry awe. 

Other than snatching our money off us, 

Giving money to your rich friends, 

Making our young generations miserable, 

What work in these six years did you do. 

I have the right to pull you out, 

Thrown you into the crowd, 

Let them ask you questions, 

Questions, out of the blue, 

For which you aren’t even prepared to answer. 

Then pull out your bootlickers,

Who in all these years licked your feet for money, 

While they were appointed to represent our voices, 

They flushed them in toilet, and wiped this ass, with our money. 

I have the right to abuse you,

For your abuse of power, 

For making us feel inferior,

Dividing us on the basis of religion.

This land is a gifted one, 

Here birthed the great mahatma,

The lesson he taught you might have forgotten,

Let me remind you, now, that this democracy and this constitution is its ashwathama. 

What makes you touch me and my nationalism,

While I can pull yours off, 

What makes you wail in utter nonsense,

While I can, make you, make some sense.

I am this land,

Here I stand,

Waving a placard,

To say, I am not a coward. 

I am here all my life, 

I have the right to stay,

You can’t push me astray,

But, with the power of people, I can, bring your government down. 

I am the common man, 

On this communal land, 

Here I stand, singing the song, 

Shout loud into you ear, 

So that your ears pop out your heart, 

“Jai Hind” 

You can’t pull me of this land, 

You have no right to question my nationality,

I voted you trusting you, 

Now, you’re making me feel alienated. 

Memory Sweeper

I put together my thoughts one by one,

I hate to accept now that you’re gone,

I love how our story has begun,

How our hearts opened and flanged.

I put together image by image,

Of the buildings of heritage,

In those, we lived, our age,

Now, there is nothing but a mirage.

I’m filled with rage,

I’m going to my cage,

Where I lie in my tomb, and worship you, like a sage,

And there we become one.

I put together every moment,

Seeing you, far away,

I put aside every excuse,

I want you to be my muse.

Used, me like trash,

Threw me off somewhere, that was harsh,

Put me aside in the cage of your forgotten memories,

Where I’m prisoner for singing melodies,

Melodies of love.

Didn’t think, our love will fade away this easy,

Didn’t think the one who promised to stay forever, will be one to go,

Didn’t think any of it,

Now I’m here, in the street looking like a homeless, with my whole body greasy.

I laugh at the promises you didn’t keep,

I crawl, hungry for you, I weep,

Every night I sweep,

Sweep away, the memories that lay like a stain on the walls of my soul.

Like a stain, it stuck,

Like a bug, it bites me every time I take a walk,

Like a poison, it hits me, and puts me off,

Like a loser, I sweep, the deep,

Stains of memories.

I rub off the rotten memories, with phenyl,

Where I thrash joints and joints of the holy grass,

I abuse myself with shards and shards of white powder,

And, for a moment I clean your very existence.

But, one day, life comes around,

Surrendered I stay, when your memories surround,

Impounded lies my soul,

I just want to scowl.

I howl, I weep,

I try to sweep,

Deep ridden memories,

But, it has gotten ingrained,

It won’t sweep.

I have to burn the palace of memories down,

Standing on the cliff I frown,

Looking deep down,

I jump.

I meet the winds,

It gave me hints,

Hints of this day might come,

Where I’d lose my inhibitions,

And fly in the air,

And hit the ground.

——-Ashraf Shaikh

Suicide Attempt

Something burns through this heart,

A silent void to fill,

Wherever I go, I come across,

A red cross,

I feel gross,

Inundated, pissed off,

Sucked into my soul,

Real pains of loving someone,

Something boils and ruptures my soul,

The game played with me of love was foul,

It made me lose her and there I lied scowl,

I made myself a fool, to believe in love.

Life is meant to be with someone you love,

I was there in the deepest of the cove,

While I slew myself for you, above,

Beneath, you were just someone I didn’t know.

This heart has this empty void,

It goes on to search you on a thousand lonely nights,

Doesn’t sleep, on the cot of loneliness,

But stays awake in the lies the world tells about us.

This heart lives through your memories,

Once that was buried I don’t know why they keep rising,

Surprising me again and again,

Despising myself into surmising this little feeling into killing myself.

I stand in front of my mirror,

I don’t recognize me,

The razor I held for an hour,

Touches my wrist, but doesn’t cut myself,

The slitting of it draws out the blood,

When I cut,

Not blood, but something came out of it, ‘

I withered and swirled,

My eyes blurred,

I shook,

Got hooked,

Thwarted on the basin,

Snorted the powdered love from resins,

Poisoned I am in your love,

Dead I am now,

With blood spilling out of my hands,

And, head bursting with the euphoria of cocaine,

Cocaine, that was you,

When you entered my life, I snorted you and went insane,

Lived in disdain, found neurotoxicity.

Cocaine you were, or that razor that just cut my hand,

Here I lay bland,

Recalling moments we’ve lived together,

Yeah, I understand,

You, I have lost,

But, here I lay, blood spared, mind smeared,

Life running on second gear.

Blood thwarts off outside,

Minds shut off, I see you in the eyes of my mind,

Laughing, smiling, having me with you,

Then all I see is darkness.

I don’t see anything, I hear heartbeats,

Timid little ones, beats of our beloved artist Keats,

Now there is nothing, but a fading heartbeat and welcoming darkness.

When I open my eyes, I hope I find you sitting beside me,

Holding my hand, speaking to me,

Kissing me, and making up for what was lost,

I hope, maybe something could happen.

But as we say, darkness took a toll,

I became its troll,

I lost control,

And I lost myself.

The world forgets me here,

Tomorrow will be a new morning, dear,

You’ll be learning how I smeared and smashed my life cut open,

Popped up my veins and brains,

And there I will be living, in wind, shaking up your curtains.

But here I am, shaking my body,

Waking up in a hospital in front of a strange girl,

My neighbour, holding my hand,

Smiling at me.

Why, why can’t I kill myself?

A Long Walk

In the ruins of solitude, I took a stroll,

I shouldn’t,

In the nights of love where desires crept from my veins and poured through my heart,

I had nothing but only my pen to write and a book to read,

In the days of winter where the cruel weather yearn to find someone to fall for,

I had my solitude.

In the labyrinths of my dreams and passions, I spent my days,

Living in exile, working day and night out to make it come true,

Little do I know that I am losing myself?

Little do I know what I am going through?

The tiredness in my eyes speaking through the hungry body,

The yearning for someone’s touch and that thirst for someone’s love,

That touch of a stranger and that kiss and that intimate feeling, I’ve never known,

Maybe I won’t ever, maybe the time has gone.

Maybe every night I will take a stroll in the labyrinths of solitude just to meet myself.

Gone are the days where I found the one,

Gave her my everything,

Wrote for her, ate for her, slept for her,

But she crept thought my body and mind and took control,

And made me nothing a troll.

Four years of love did nothing,

Four years of loving through all my heart and mind,

Did nothing, all I ever been through was in love with a wrong person at a wrong time,

I took it far, very far than anyone could ever imagine.

Burned my identity,

Lived, loved and now, I see myself with pity,

When you look so pretty,

You still haunt and make me gritty.

I am scared to give this precious heart to anyone now,

I’m scared to droll over someone and say, wow,

I’m scared to pour over my feelings for her on a piece of paper,

Only to come at a point, where she won’t love me anymore and that paper will be left with a scrapper.

I know, you’ve forgotten me,

When people take two minutes to remind you of my existence,

Where I have taken four years trying to forget you,

But, I couldn’t, maybe you’re that bug that stuck, and fucked me, brains over my heart.

Four years have gone by,

Stuck in a one-sided relationship,

But nothing comes out of it,

I live through it every day.

I get reminded of you in the lonely winter nights,

The harsh cold weather,

I never know what holding someone in arms feels like,

Maybe I never will.

I may never fall in love again,

Because of the pain, it put me through,

But this heart, what to say,

It yearns someone,

Someone to be close with, someone with whom I can share what I have inside me,

Who’ll accept me?

But, I take a stroll in a place called solitude,

Where there lies a graveyard of my past,

Where past people remind me that you exist,

Also, remind me that you’ve forgotten my whole existence.

And there I got, rot deeper and deeper, into the hell of solitude,

Trapping myself with work, office, novels, poetries, writings,

Whatever I can to stay off you,

Some days I don’t even think about you,

But some days, as I say, life hits you in your face.

I have been fallen many times.

Hit many times by life,

Also decided to never give up,

But this has to stop.

Maybe you weren’t the problem may be, it was me all over,

I have loved, and now I am scared to fall in love,

Get my heartbroken,

So, it takes a lot of time to fix.

Maybe I love myself too much to get it broken,

So that it doesn’t need any fixing,

Maybe, that might be,

That is why, I stroll in the lanes of solitude.

I know life is hard, without you,

But with your presence, life was painful,

The without is much better and acceptable,

But sometimes, I get palpable.

This is the longest I have walked,

This is the longest I have written,

This is the longest I have talked,

This is the longest I have been silent.

Maybe you’ve knowingly or unknowingly changed me,

Maybe as I take my stroll in the lanes of solitude,

I have learned my lessons of love my way,

But scared to implement them.

It hurts to see you with that moron in photos,

Hurst to see you with a loser, I thought I deserved you,

But, here I am strolling through,

While I still think about you.

One day we might meet,

But I won’t greet,

I won’t smile, I won’t laugh,

I will leave in front of you, while you keep looking at me,

Treat you like a stranger,

Because that is how you came into my life as, a stranger,

Then we got to know each other,

Things changed,

Maybe being strangers are good than knowing each other and getting hearts broken,

Desire burned alive, dreams shattered,

No one has this strength to walk in the lanes I walk,

No one can talk the thing I talk,

No one has this kind of life that I live because of you,

You’ve changed me.

Well, now, things turn around,

I must hit the ground,

Start the race of following my dreams,

Before I scream of your name.

I will hit hard this thing called life,

Smash every feeling of you right where it deserves,

Take my pen out, cut my veins and dribble out stories and poetries,

Because it is time, time to show, myself who I am and what I deserve.

I now move on, from this thing called “One-sided love”

I don’t want to walk in these lanes again,

Don’t want to hurt me,

Time has come to bleed on the blank paper while drinking my coffee.

I know, writing this doesn’t make any sense,

Putting it on paper and sharing it online doesn’t matter to you,

Because you have forgotten me long ago, why should it even make a difference?

I’m doing this for me.

You came into my life, smiled and my heart filled with butterflies,

You sat in one corner of the class, while the flask of my imagination,

Carved out stories, to tell you,

Then you departed leaving things unsaid, and I stood broken.

But, now things have gone past,

I take a pen and bleed the flask of my imagination while drinking my coffee,

I removed all distractions, delete all contacts, that know you or share your photo,

Remind me of you,

I want to forget you ever existed.

S, you’re fucking dead to me.

Strain

I talk with my reflections,
I perform my compulsions,
I have a mass of impulsions,
I go back my erotic obstructions.

Held back beliefs I had about love,
Now here is only a lonesome dove,
Crept up deep into the veins up and above,
My rage boils on the stove.

The obstructive erotic muse,
Came to me abused,
I was wondering amused,
You were that muse, infused deep into me.

You burned inside my veins,
While I boiled my strains,
I smoke the strain, you struck my brain,
Ingrained inside my head,
Infused into my thoughts.

I talk to my reflections,
I walk in the night,
Lighting the strain bright,
I smoke the pope of high,
While, I cry thinking how much I loved thy.

© Ashraf Shaikh

My Lover, The Insane

Stones of love pelted on my face,
Bones of the soul cracked the disgrace,
Pebbles of desires struck by fire,
Last I knew, the evoking of passion inspired.

Was stoned and pelted,
Melted my heart of love,
Was hated and spatted,
By my lover, in the little cove.

Was hurt and sewn in on many pains,
Was cut and mut by my lover, the insane,
Was left stuck in life,
Was pelted, hurt by love and my lover.

Stones of love thrown out of the house,
Rats of love infested my heart,
Lice of desires filled my fire,
Now, I live by with no faith and desire.

I bathe in the cleanest water,
Cast away any sin,
I live without any desire,
Shed my identity and become a saint.

The cloud of memories whirlwinds,
The stones of love get pelted again,
Again, I lay hurt, cut, spatted and hated,
Again, I sit besides my lover, the insane,
Again, I frown.

© Ashraf Shaikh