the smallest

please do not leave me.

please don't leave me again.

please do not leave me.




i wish there was a way to take back so many of the things i have said.

the world is this small place and my words are plastered on its walls, screaming, reaching, yearning, thirsting. they are waiting to devour and belch and prey and combust.

words tumble out of my mouth, their momentum motivated by fear and paranoia and overcompensation.

and then there they are, etched in peoples reaction, heavy by the way they cause shoulders to droop, large in how they make ones eyes stretch. and then there is nothing i can do, but tower more words on them, in a lame attempt to conceal and back track and self preserve.

i am not

i am not asking for much. i am not asking for things to fix themselves or for tomorrow to be unnecessarily easier than today. im not asking for the heavier and more stagnant burdens to be put to ease, nor am i waiting for the wind to turn, or for the clouds to clear. i am asking for resistance, ever so little of it, so little that no one will even notice. that slight shift, that day one.

this has to be day one.

i am running out of time. 

i am trying

i will call today day one, because every day is day fucking one. i will call it day one on this day because this is as full circle as it gets - this is as desperate it gets, this is the extent of its stink, of its depravity, and my fear that defeat has passed me already, that this is just what organised free fall looks like.

as far as day ones go (and man, i wish i had more control over when and how day one happens) this was a pretty decent day.

lets examine the empirical evidence for a moment:

1. i am on the third day of my period. this usually always results in a bad day.

2. i am getting over the flu, and am congested and coughing and surrounded by tissue. at work. this usually always results in a bad day.

3. i wore clothes that i detest, because i overslept. i looked like a bum at work. this usually makes the best of days the worst of days.

4. i went into a public place, was there for about five minutes in total, and had a panic attack. this usually shatters my day.

5. i came home aching to create, acutely aware of how quiet everything was home. the hollow feeling that comes from closed doors and still curtains gave me the chills, rather than the relief that they usually do. i was unable to create because i didn't have what i needed, and so i am left feeling incredibly dissatisfied. that isn't that great either.

6. i am almost out of hash, this is terrifying. there is a shortage. i hate asking people, i do it anyway - and then i write them haikus to cover up for my weaknesses.

7. my friend, a dear dear friend, the kind that brings you weed when you have the flu, gleefully recounted the way he surprised his soon to be wife by cumming in her mouth. that kind of ruins the kind, yoga instructing, baked goods making image i had of her. now she's just the girl with his cum on her face. and hes the guy who told me that. gleefully. glee-fucking-fully.

8. i did shitty work at work today. when i sent it out i told my colleagues that it was shit and that they should not even bother reading this 'report' that was basically just a bunch of research from interns mashed together with a heavy dose of bullet points. i didn't care. i wake up every morning gripped with this acute sadness of having to return to that stupid town house with that stupid finger printing machine (late everyday last month, every damned day) and these stupid tasks and these stupid polite emails and ghost writing and too many goddamned responsibilities and this feeling that i do not know why my shrewd ass boss has left her business to me, a lowly addict, albeit a responsible one.

9. i have been dragged, head first, into my past. into the parts of my past that the drugs should have killed by now. the parts i have gone out of my way to avoid. the parts that i love, the parts that run through my body like ecstasy, the parts that result in sentences that get stuck in ones throat. you know that noise? the one where your voice grabs and for that one second, for that one second you are disarmed, naked, defeated, ready to be taken. there is nothing more compelling than that noise. i live for that noise. i live to say the sorts of words that induce that noise.

10. my envy is evident, i am running out of time. it is smeared across my face and trapped in my sweaty palms. i am running out of time and everyone knows it.



but it was a good day. my stomach is empty and i will sleep hungry.

today was a great day.

hopesfearsfailures.

I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesnt expect to arrive.
-Jorge Luis Borges.

I hope you stay forever young. I am too young to be in so much pain all the time, everywhere, in every dimension, in every turn my feet walk when I walk from home to class. I am to young to wake up every morning acutely aware of how my body fills up mattress's with such ease, with such wholeness. I am too young to start the day by wondering what to wear, what in this closet that holds an image of an eighty year old in a retired home should I use to cover myself, to appear the least obscene, to hide to an extent that the largest person in the room is wearing black from head to toe, everyday. Even her eyes you think, even her eyes in circled in black.

The sixth alarm of the morning goes off and you look to see your roommate still blissfully asleep, eventhough you have already put on the music and blasted the hairdryer. You call her name, over and over and she finally moves- a little. Im changing you tell her and she says okay and you either way go and hide behind the closet- lest someone see's lest that girl with her 120 pound frame and dancers frame manages to catch a glimpse.

If anyone who understood Urdu looked at the margins of the notes I take in class and were to read what I wrote hidden behind another language they would know all of my greatest fears.

One day, I will be beautiful.

That day is not today nor tomorrow and I will forever live a life of obscure insecurity until one day, one day- I will be beautiful.

the stars look very cold about the sky.

you say, go slow

ive fallen behind.




there is only so much heartache you can handle and only so much of yourself you can give of yourself before your mind shuts down on you and all you can do is crawl into bed and stare at the walls in quiet disbelief. Its an odd sort of disposition, its an absurd of existence, trying to keep up with people you dont really care about and be an activist for issues that dont really effect you at all. you get so caught up, so very tangled in issues of others, so very hurt if they are hurt, so very jaded in your discourse, so harsh in your self image, so involved in one song, and so weak.

so very weak.

i miss this space.

come down now,

but we'll stay.

Safe places are for fools.

Ive been found it, it isnt safe to write here anymore.

Damnation.

Thats all folks.

dontleavehome

Dear Ma and Pa,

Hey, sorry I havnt written in ages, I always promise you guys an email every couple of days but it seems like I never actually end up writing. I was going through the old emails to you guys to see where I left off and seems the last thing I wrote about is international orientation when I was begging you guys to book me a ticket back home. Those were they initial days I guess, full of not knowing which way was up or down, no way of figuring out wether to turn left or right, lost, confusion, one bad time basically.

Things have changed, turns out ive been here for almost two months now but it seems like ive lived through a lifetime. Im a new person, or atleast someone who doesnt really know what happened before I got here. Oddly enough, I dont have a home now, when I think about Karachi or my room or other things that were integral to my old life they just seem..out of place. I remember my past, but it seems like it was just a movie that I saw or a book I read, not really a life that I lived for eighteen years. When I speak to you on the phone or when a friend from home calls it feels (and I hate this word) surreal. I cant place you guys, you no longer make sense in this context or in this time. I dont have parents, im no ones daughter or sister, nor someones childhood friend or ex-girlfriend. Im this, im this girl sitting on the third floor of the library acting like shes doing work for her midterm tomorrow but is instead wasting away on blogger.

Im coughing a lot, and it seems to be bugging people. Im sitting in a 'reading room' and I guess it isnt really a place for the sick. If I were smart about this flu I would bunk a day of classes and drink soup and get over it. But I dont have the time to fall sick, I really dont have the time to do anything that I need to. Even meals seem like a luxury that I dont have the time to indulge in. Every break, every five minute run to the bathroom, every short nap on top of my books seems like the biggest tragedy in my life. Dont worry though, atleast my grades are good. I just kicked ass in my Greek Mythology Presentation. Heh, dad I can just imagine you saying 'my daughter gets my speaking skills from me' and sure, your right. We can bullshit like no other, helps us get away with a lot.

Everytime I speak to you guys you ask me if ive made friends, every single time. I guess the first couple of emails gave you the idea that I im the biggest loner here. Dont worry, I have friends, more than I could ask for. Its Karachi all over again. Mom called it my 'charisma' but I dont know. Everyones really nice here and I guess you just have to be nice back.

Today I was told I had really pretty eyes, made my day.

Decemeber is going to weird.

Oh and I must confess, I kinda miss the dog more than my family.

Heh, enough for now, I have class in ... three minutes.

Oh and its frightfully cold here, was minus 7 two days ago.. and I hear it just gets worse.. and I only have six dollars in my checking account so it would be nice if you sent me some moolah.

Much love,
Your daughter.