6th August. 11:09pm.
A bedroom conversation: A life cycle of the disease (malaria) is completed inside the predator (mosquito) before it bites the prey (human).
How unaffected, unaware of your own blood?
*
i want to write.. who? interesting characters.. what makes characters interesting? attention.. have you paid any? time.. how much is enough for you to stay? for me to say yes, that was enough..
*
out of every vow, i read, “in sickness & in health” will test you the most. i don’t know how to care for the undead.
15th August. 6:17pm.
Theories of [no] Change™
A: to hold onto power, whatever of it is still left, recognized. look, you left me & i am exactly how i was. just without your company now. (& vice versa; to honor the power the other held.)
TL;DR you are in control.
B: a number’s game! Small heartbreaks, loss of friendships- small changes. unnoticeable at first, but gradually expanding, like each cell of your body replacing until one does not recognize the other.
19th August. 6:09pm.
Making chai; missing making it for friends. Missing M who, since I shared my “secret” recipe with, started making it like me. Missing her saying “aadha doodh, aadha paani, do chammach patti, do chammach cheeni”. all things balanced. Missing my other M saying mine is the best chai she’s ever had. Missing S who didn’t mind my finger dipped in his chai. Missing W without whom there would be little chai to make, & less fun to drink with. Missing T & his unceasing passion to talk about, & drink, chai.
21st August. 8:10pm.
Went flower picking in a quiet, slow drizzle, Picked a white flower & put it behind my ear. Like I used to everyday. Then picked one more, then several. Missed my actual flowers dearly.
Called Amma to know the water had almost reached home. Baba still hadn’t.
Rain— a Divider™ second only to death.
Z said tomorrow morning, it will be as if it never rained.
25th August. 8:00pm.
Karachi is only its underbelly, & those blinded by the light to see it. Professor M always told the contrasting characteristic of abandonment is constraint; it’s combination is what makes poetry. Now I realize it’s abundance. And poverty does not make poetry.
*
A rainbow had formed in S’s city today.
*
A bee whirls upside down, like a suspended ballerina, a sexy lady on the pole; electric buzzing, spinning faster. And now, for the final act, ladies & gentleman— falls dead.
11:04pm.
I only brought the Jasmine scented candle here so I wouldn’t drench into the smell of overripe bananas.
Although, in a family of monkeys, who let that happen?