dreams – Nameera Ever After

The Gardner

He sows, He reaps – He brushes past the instances of rolling buds and autumn heaps.

The misaligned creepers are set in line with the constellations and somehow, the ephemeral space makes it hard for them to breathe.

The Judgement day arrives in a pocketful of systematic hate until the garden becomes a miserable palace of weed.

He still sows – but there is no one to reap.

There are poets, here and there but He has built a wall of thorns that renders the seekers blind. Once their eyes start to bleed, the taste of their blood halts their spirit – it engulfs the hope of reaping the garden of faith.

I’ve been standing on the edge of this palace, they say yellow makes them happy but this palace of weed suffocates me – it also clings to my lungs, and calls itself my ‘Home’.

I lunge forward to blind myself, I really do but every single time I miss by a fraction of a sentence, a yawning poem stretching between my toes.

He sows – that awakened poem, that distracting sentence, that hopeful lunge / The Gardner has a season for every name, I wonder what mine is.

Rains/ a blackened sigh/ the ephemeral space/ the broken stars/ the melting clouds/ a stutter between the sunrise and the sunset – I’m an anomaly without a name.

I see, the uprooted garden and the enormous space. I breathe for the first time because I believe what I see. I believe what I seek.

The Gardner – that made me, you and the bellowing universe amidst a poetry of Creation, a scream of magnificence.

-Nameera Anjum Khan.

This poem takes inspiration from religion, particularly the depiction of God in the movie ‘The Shack’ which provides a brilliant and an optimistic insight into what kind of entity God really is. It also sheds light on how humans sometimes become the judge of events that they truly don’t understand. We become hopeless at the immediate sight of a bad circumstance, never once trying to grasp the meaning of divinity behind things.

Of Silly Ruminations

I want to be an openness bending at the tip of the sunlight falling on my back. But I’m also afraid of burning in my own fire.

I carry my hostilities like a poet who adores perspiring on a hot sunny afternoon in the arms of an old monument that houses some grand secrets only he can see – and I can’t unsee. I’ve been his muse and his monument – sometimes a pillar draped in silk.

I yearn to be a vastness, much wilder than the blue skies. Someone once told me that I was silly to think of blue skies as wild, and I only laughed. How can you not see the calm that has rained, birthed storms and swallowed deaths? I realise that it’s indeed silly of me to think that people would see how I manage to carry this calm.

I don’t burn in my own fire. I invite other’s to ignite my flame so that I can master my art of living for others – because what is a woman without a role?

Simply a human? No, that is deeply silly of me, indeed.

-Nameera Anjum Khan.

So yes, day 9 is over, where I live and I really did not want to break my flow. Hence, I quickly looked up this enthralling work of art to inspire me today!

This one is a take on gender roles – particularly the one’s attached to a woman. It takes inferences from the Indian culture as well and the thinking of a family/culture-oriented woman who is made to feel suppressed because of her desires for freedom.

Sometimes, things that reflect a particular emotion aren’t exactly what they’re composed of, the blue skies for example that are not always blue or calm, for that matter.

I always feel that seasons and nature is a very great way to deeply understand human emotions in a poetic light. Hence my obsession with them is pretty evident in this piece too!

Thank you for reading, have a great day/night!

A Melting Tangerine (#8)

A stitch, and now I dance.

My feet move in motions I’ve been alien to. Happiness is a planet revolving inside my palms. I catch you watching me undress my grief in the haunting moonlight. You move like a shadow I’m drowning in – and every inch of this downward spiral is a religion I’m learning to recite.

A stitch, and now I care.

Inside you, there’s a house that looks like a painting I once dreamt. It is so out of place and perfect, so otherworldly and intimate. It’s a touch I recognise and swallow – a strawberry taste/ a bathing tide/ a summer scream.

A stitch, and now I bite.

Tonight, you are my muse. I want everything – to myself. I want the heaven in my hell and the space in my skin. I want death in my voice and life between our meshwire forms.

A stitch, and now I’m the lady – yellow/orange/ a melting tangerine, tear me apart and make love to me until the moon refuses to go down and the sun forgets to blink.

-Nameera Anjum Khan.

I absolutely LOVE listening to the violin and would love to learn to play it someday! It was such an opportune moment when I discovered this absolutely gorgeous work of art. Do click on the link to visit the gallery & check out some cool merch available based off of the painting above.

Also when I say ‘Stitch’ I’m actually referring to the way the sound of a violin just makes my heart so full. It feels like every reason to fret is slowly fading away and it stitches all the pieces back together.

Wonder (#7)

A wonder. A womb.

I have a feeling that my eyes are too many faces looking down at the dusty pavement. But the skies were never made out of ribs, the seas never mastered the tides of my blood and the moon could never command the gravity of my heart.

This may look like a weak surrender upon a deaf glance but look again. It’s a wonder, not of virginity re-shaping itself or the veil of pregnancy blooming through nine seasons.

It is nine births, and more – all emerging from the point of no return. My head is all the colours of your rainbow touch. My skin is all the senses of your secret desire. My existence is all the questions you’re too afraid ask, let alone answer.

Sex. A fluttering of –

Nothing.

Sometimes, I see myself as the God. Sometimes, I see myself as the Creation. In both versions, I remain a sinner seeking heaven – an irony dodging misery only to write poems on it.

How do you see me?

Why do you see me?

You say that the sun is out tonight, I never knew untimely mornings, not face-to-face at least. I had heard of a happening that corrupts itself overtime. A sickness that spreads like creepers, everywhere. A tangible dignity swinging from the chandelier.

A woman and her birth – the untimely sunrise and the timely corruption.

Everything. Inebriated buds of truth. Nothing you’ve read before and everything you’ve read before; you die everyday just to see. How? Why?

Answers. Questions.

Birth – the memory burns. When will it rain?

-Nameera Anjum Khan.

Who is a woman? What is your understanding of a woman? Womanhood is one of my absolute favourite topics to write about and when I stumbled upon this work of art, it invoked so many things inside of me. My mind and my heart was filled with all sorts of questions and answers. I hope you enjoy persuing this reflective piece, thanks for reading!

P.S

Kudos to the artist for this wondrous artwork that can captivate anyone’s attention effortlessly and not just that, but it seems to knock upon your conscience in multiple ways. Click on the caption underneath the painting to visit an enthralling gallery!

Of Summer Sighs & Wishful Graves

Expression of eyes (Hitomi) by Kiyoshi, Kobayakawa

Nesting in the sighs of a summer dream, is an autumn wish dying in its reflection. She trembles like a dead leaf under your embrace, as you tighten your love that comes in only one colour – that of taking and taking until ‘Giving’ is but a whitewashed truth.

In her eyes, it’s not the moon that shines or the stars you promised her. It’s a dying volcano uprooting its veins until her lips form a smile. You looked like you understood, you did – but only the smile. You could never contain grief so you bore pretense in its stead.

Her mouth is a language you know all too well, but beneath it is a forest that gardens its own warmth, a hope that eats itself because it has never been fed. Every soft caress is a tale that burdens her.

Soon the summer will be a realization and in it, a dream that erupts for a long, long time will take shape. Until the dead leaves are cursed again by impatient wanderers and she’s not the silk maiden anymore.

She’s but a stale page – yellowed at the tips and still gnawing at the leftovers of a letter that was never sealed and sent. It contains her heart – a corrupted muse, and it won’t be long till the body commits suicide in the lap of a nameless suffering – the kind you carry to your grave, and further.

-Nameera Anjum Khan.

Epidermis (#5)

Sandy shores inside my mouth

There are tides in my tongue that erase your name every time I trace it on the corners of my mouth

I create a vigour in my ribs that swirls in the tangerine buds of the laughing skies

My paper feet are cut in places that can never learn to sleep,

I eat this canvas until I’m the piece of art

But I’m deranged in places that don’t exist loud enough

I de-layer,

Bit by bit

Until the flesh is a bare secret-

It’s your story but you keep peeling it away,

Look at you now – a subsumed flame in a nest of rage, a holy prayer covered in filth and harbouring a look that says more than actions do;

You’re a ship in the sky, sailing away the gravity in hopes of falling on the ground.

You never do.

-Nameera Anjum Khan

Before this day ends, I decided to pen down a muse which was quite spontaneous, which speaks for itself I suppose :3

There was a potpourri of thoughts behind this one but the most particular one was – the description of a toxic relationship and the fear of conformity to truth. Sometimes, people lock themselves up in a cage because they fear getting hurt and in the process, they end up hurting others. It’s an interesting paradox to reflect upon but going through it is an entirely different phase.

Conclusively, I’d like to add that vulnerability is a very precious thing and if someone decides to take off their mask in front of you, you’re not under an obligation to reciprocate the same. You must take your time but through means that don’t end up hurting others.

Thank you for reading, have a nice time ahead!

A Heavy Summer (#3)

My senses are always in consonance with the way time flicks my insides. A heavy summer crucifies my tongue inside a nightmare that I keep wanting more and more. They say pain is an addiction and this day has been everything but that – an addiction sucking me knee-deep. It unfurls on my neck like a morning breath rising anew, like the birds fluttering inside a jar of mishaps. You shake it, until there are enough cracks for you to get in – enough space for your word to mingle with mine.

I think of all the pages dying every night in the grave of your spit. The way this world wraps itself under your skin and inside my fingernails – is a fable residing in the very vacancies of our hearts. Do you know about a ‘Wanting’ that ‘Needs’? It often dawns upon me when your scent travels down my spine. Chills.

This heavy summer is but a monsoon under my eyelids, stretching beyond mortal lines. I want to make the most of it with a hand that can trace all these poems and own them, need them. Need me.

-Nameera Anjum Khan

The Language of Words (#2)

Descent to the Mediterranean by Vladimir Kush

My hands were tied to a pole and I couldn’t speak

You see, the only way I could speak was through a language I hadn’t yet deciphered

My days went on, in a shell of thoughts

When out there, was an ocean waiting to devour me

People often stood long enough by the pole – long enough to let the streetlight lick their sins away

Until one of them untied me accidentally

And I traversed within after he ran away, so deep within that I didn’t even know that there was a path underneath my feet

People often talk about the ground slipping from under their feet, but have you ever felt it slipping right back?

I did

And so did the words itching the insides of my body

And the poems begging to crawl into the ocean

And so, I wrote – never stopping once, never looking back at the pole and those delicate strings of a self-made prison;

I took the path not meant for me, but the one I had been meaning to take anyway.

-Nameera Anjum Khan

Day 2 prompt was inspired by the famous and much loved compose by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken. It took me back to a time when I was still a novice at writing and didn’t exactly measure its importance in my life. Years later, I can proudly say that the person I am today is because of the choices I made, despite the paths that lay ahead of me.

I’ve been confused and lonely at times, but I always made sure that whatever it is that I do, my heart and my soul is in agreement at the end of the day.

Following your heart is easier said than done, especially in a world that’s always out there to complicate things.

In the Shadows of a page

Do you ever wonder what you look like in someone else’s poem? Is it some made-up version or reflects who you truly are?

If you ever want to know yourself better, read yourself through someone else’s letters and poems. It may seem as though you’re reading about a stranger but if it doesn’t, then you know that you belong there. In that moment of creation, your spirit was complete.

What you hold in your hand is a page, only momentarily. Soon it morphs into endless dreaming and hopeful possibilities.

It becomes a page that is no more that – but something that lives, it is not a thing anymore; but something that breathes you.

-Nameera Anjum Khan

Naked

‘Naked’

And to my mother’s ears, it’s ‘Blasphemy’. I wonder what’s more suffocating, the fact that I am Naked and a mere reflection of her or the fact that she’s had her eyes closed this whole time?

The society is the most illusionary mirror to ever exist. It shows you what you desire, but at the cost of negligence to your own needs. But here’s the catch, it only ‘Shows’ you this understanding that you possess. One single deviation can render you hopeless and so, the question remains; How much do you actually understand about yourself and this so-called ‘Society’?

You see, you’ve got to choose between the two. I choose to strip off of my regularities and give in to this maze of infidelity, I coincide with complicated minds and irrepressive hearts. I’m swinging through the gallant aspirations over to a newer side of things. It’s like a constant dalliance with the impossible heights.

I see my home right here, not up there when I say ‘Heights’. I see it on this ground and between these people. I want to run away sometimes, yes. But I think this distorted mirror has its own gravity that pulls you in, helplessly.

‘Naked’ – Blasphemy? I think freedom is but an unfiltered mind, a careless yet considerate human. When you choose a path of irregularities – it’s neither a garden nor a parched land that have been walked before, it’s a whole new world where you might even fly, who knows where possibilities end, right?

But without taking off those hideous reflections that you’ve been borrowing over the years, how can you expect to let your wings breathe?

-Nameera Anjum Khan