New Names for Lost Things Quotes

“This unstitched loneliness keeps bleeding out of my hands. I was always ready to be someone else. To be remembered like a fabricated war history. Reunion with myself remains a personal tragedy. But to be a poet without being tragic would have been quite a shame.”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“There's very little fear left in me. If we were here,
you wouldn't know me.

I will take protection from my God. I will pray
for what is broken in half.

Love finds you somehow. I am neon lights and gajras.
You are the midnight of New York.

One day we'll forget this together. You could build your
house then. I could leave your town.”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“I think of you as a dagger without a resting place / too sharp too
dangerous too exquisite to be away from home / to be away / the
seas have mastered the killings / the sky can now fall / nothing
says welcome without a threat”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“My power was that I could build me a city. I could bury you a
hundred times. I could light up the sky with one star. I could
name everything that was left without one. I could kill my fate
with bare hands. My power was that I could write you into being.
I could scream you into a void and a body would appear. Which is
to say, I could summon you with a tiny breath.

[Take the light] I have saved four hundred days' worth of it, to
build a heart with it.
The grief was made mine and I will forget it. Your shame will
swallow you, there's no denying that.”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“Tell me, how do I contain / a joy bigger than me / -even my
grief is now looking / for a different place to be.”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“My apologies! / Your ache cannot be of gold there / Forever
an uninvited guest / This city doesn't carry hand-me-down
devastation / Unlike you / Unlike us”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“Our voices will always be urban trauma / Your love
will always be a season gone wrong / Always-not a word but
a sword/ That wouldn't ever see blood”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“[] remember: nothing is ever lost. It pauses. It breathes. It returns.
I am learning to pay for everything even if I don't have to.
Scream for a scream. Word for a word. Forgiveness for forgiveness.
I am lost. I am pausing. I am breathing. I am returning.”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“{} remember: nothing is ever lost. It pauses. It breathes. It returns.
I am learning to pay for everything even if I don't have to.
Scream for a scream. Word for a word. Forgiveness for forgiveness.
I am lost. I am pausing. I am breathing. I am returning.”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“I am grateful for everyone who had power but didn't exercise on me”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“I want to tell you that love means I will be protected / means
what love is if not sheltering / amma, it means I am seen / means
what love is if not present / ma, it means I have a home address
that breathes / means what love is if not within”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“On days like this,
home becomes a wound
to weep into. I have nothing
left to name. Everything that
remembers you- has
forgotten me. Just like that.
Just like that.”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“Ask the sky about absence
& it will show you my palms
Look, it was either a home or
a sharpened knife of freedom & I chose what
was to rip my heart open first
I am alive but at what cost / Is that because
someone was listening / Or is it because
no one was”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things

“Everything I know about you, I know it from the absence of you.
All the crushed glass on the road I once thought was water is
coming back to me. I wash my hands and there's blood everywhere.
I run the faucets and they only glow. This city has been eating its
loneliness again (I thought you should know about it).”
― Noor Unnahar, New Names for Lost Things