Of Coffee Conversations.

Black as night, sweet as sin

[miseryunplugged]

hi all, palestine’s going through a mass genocide right now and really needs help, here are a few ways you can do that

palestine children’s relief fund: provide urgent humanitarian care for children in gaza

anera: provide on-the-ground emergency relief

united nations relief and works agency: food assistance and emergency physical+mental help

medical aid for palestinians: emergency relief for women and children, psychosocial support, disability help, other medical needs

doctors without borders: medical teams on the ground treating injured palestinians as needed

feel free to add on in the notes, notify me if any of the fundraisers listed arent necessary/actually helpful to donate to, and let me know if anything needs added on/modified

as always, if you cant donate then please share and spread awareness

[ofcoffeeconversations]

You kill

You bomb

We stone

pebble by pebble

We reason

every time

You murder

We protest

We cry

We raise voice

You blabber

You lie

We stand

We stay

We die

We wake up

We fight

We fight

You jeer

You dance

You cheer

You murder

We throw rocks

We sob

but not lose hope

We resist

We tear -- up but not apart

You censor

You silent

voices, people, feelings,

blood that runs through our hearts

You buy

dummies, countries, leaders

We resist, we stand, we stay, we fight

We old

We young

We children--

we sleep with fingers in our ears,

get handcuffed with smiles

correct you at the stake of our lives

Here's the difference between you and us

Your missiles

Your iron dome

Your bombs

Your blasts

not Your land

not Your people

Our 22 year olds

Our childhood

Our youth.

You take away our lives

We die on Our land.

(for my Palestinian brothers and sisters)

[ofcoffeeconversations]

She looks down from the window on 23rd floor. A basketball court. Newly painted. A bunch of kids practice their shots. She inspects the large glass window that covers the road-facing wall three feet above the floor. No openings. No locks to unlock. All fixed glass panels. Central air-conditioning cools the room at all times. She knows this. She has been here for a week. No outside exposure. She…

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Three days in the world

Three days in the world

Nine months in the womb, three days outside. Why did the world become too small for you? How did 2.5 pounds  get too heavy for the universe to carry? Your brother misses the smell you both carried together for 270 days, and what of the shadow that you were, of each other? What about the moment, that decided you were going  to be two, instead of one? It was a betrayal,  Deceit—a…

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October dystopia

I am going through a writing block but my brain has constantly been buzzing. There are some long pending texts that I have to reply to, calls that I have promised I have to make, things I have to write and plans I have to work on—but I have been waiting for a decision to be made, which has probably nothing to do with all of these, but perhaps everything to do with them too. I am consistently…

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Greek god and wingless fairy Yesterday I listened to a euphony of violins that a Greek god danced to, with a wingless fairy…

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Of a thousand thoughts

Of a thousand thoughts

Thoughts float. It’s never that no one is not thinking, but I am always thinking a thousand things at a time. My thoughts wander farther than an Albatross’s flight without landing. Before people start speaking, I make up their future in my head. I miss out on people’s names. Because when they’re introducing themselves, I am thinking about what they’re going to say next, even though I remember…

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Paras Abbasi

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Short Story: Sami Sahab

Short Story: Sami Sahab

Author’s note: My short story, Sami Sahab has been published in Queen Mob’s Teahouse, where you can read now at https://queenmobs.com/2020/05/fiction-sami-sahab/

Initial except is shared below: 

  Sami Arain is a funny man. And when I say funny I don’t mean that he makes people laugh, although he does make people laugh, it’s just that he doesn’t intend to make people laugh and yet people snigger.…

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Snow by Orhan Pamuk: Book Review--Enthralling, dramatic and brilliant

Snow by Orhan Pamuk: Book Review–Enthralling, dramatic and brilliant

I picked up Snow by Orhan Pamuk after I read the essay ‘The Last Train

trip before Everything Changed’ by Lauren Markham where she talks about solitude, snow and finding reasons to write during the pandemic. In the essay, while Markham drew her inspiration to write from Orhan Pamuk’s Snow during her train journey quoting the lines, “As he watched the snow fall outside his window as slowly and…

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Mother tongue

You know how your mother tongue separates you?

In answering your phone, sitting between your friends

when your brother asks when to pick you up;

in the surprising tone of your colleague who tells you how

your accent is different from those whose language you call as your own.

I carry my language in surprise of people’s faces and sometimes in my own,

when I recognize a native smile,

a nod, a…

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Book Review: Essays in Love (Allain De Botton)

Allain De Botton’s Essays in Love (also called On Love) is a beautiful story of love between two people who meet during a London-Paris flight, with the narrator falling in love with the girl by the end of the flight. It’s not a love-story, rather a story about love; of how we fall in love, and its philosophy.

  Essays in Love made a space in my heart as soon as I began to read it not only…

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Day 10 in Quarantine: Life in the midst of chaos

As I listen to the slightly subdued voices of our neighbors wishing one of their family members a happy birthday at the change of the date at midnight, I suddenly start with a pang of reality hitting me in the face—there is life in the midst of chaos. As they finish the ‘Happy Birthday’ song with a loud cheer at the end of it and ask the birthday person to blow the candles—blame my room at the…

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Mockery of the Pandemic

Spatter. Rub. Repeat. Spatter your sanitizer. Rub your hands. Repeat the process. Wash your hands. Soap. Foam. Rub. Rinse. Repeat.

Make sure to replenish the sanitizer. But, um, um, don’t hoard. Be a good citizen. Think about others. Don’t waste water while you rub your hands with the foam. Think about what would happen if Karachi locks down. No tankers. No water. Can you envision what I can?

Buy…

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Music in my neighbor's backyard

Music in my neighbor’s backyard

I’ve been trying to write lately but my thoughts wander. It’s been about changes in life, embracing growing up, growing old and of noticing changes that makes you realize that it’s not so scary growing old after all. There will always be some people who, when you meet, talk about the same reservations that you have about this trickery of growing old, and so all of a sudden, you’re not alone.…

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The Homely Feeling

Hum bhool gae har baat magar tera piyar nahi bhoolay

Kia kia hua dil ke sath, magar tera piyar nahi bhoolay

We forgot everything but we did not forget your love/ whatever happened to the heart but did not forget your love

I stand in the light bluish marbled floor lounge, a seven year old, scowling at the cassette playing Lata on the tape. It’s a cold Sunday morning, the light entering through the…

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August - weddings

August – weddings

It’s halfway through 2019. But you left your heart somewhere in late 90s, early 2000s, when you didn’t know how things worked. Standing in the middle of a segregated wedding where women laugh a second too openly, and walk around a bit too comfortably, there are things you love and things you hate. Things that have long become contradictions. Old wedding songs that you’ve seen your cousins dance…

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