zuubaida

I write. often.

[zuubaida]

[zuubaida]

A tempting woman, That's what I've wanted to be.

Not to others but to a single man, A man with a heart, A man with plight.

A signatory man, Symbolic of will- Ander, Sound, Wrath, Strength, Muscle.

A man so unafraid of the world around him, His only weakness would be me.

A man who is unmoved by the thralls, The many vanities of the living world. A man who is inclined to needing me, to wanting me; I become his entire purpose.

Does such a man exist?

A love which isn’t transient, Something that enwraps me, Where it kills him when I am not in his presence. My pain would be his to suffice, And maybe it is depravity, this kind of love—

To crave so much it borders on ruin, To want without measure, To need as though the world itself were hollow without it.

But if such a man could exist, I would not call it sin, I would only call it home.

Zuubaida

[zuubaida]

the wounded daughter the raging father

and if you would let the fire rise, quiet your storm, let it scorch the ground, tether yourself with fists and words to kindness instead I cannot still my hand

for you are the blaze fury is my crown, in all its terror. noise is my tongue, and I cannot stand I strike whatever’s near nor escape the night. to prove I still exist.

these cracks in my heart and these shattered things cannot be hidden, are proof I lived, by anyone but you (though I would break them all over again).

what if you go on, I will not stop, though I haven’t I will not mend, become whole yet? for rage is my shield and silence my gift.

you already are my hurt, I already am the hurt, and I already am your scar. and I already am the chain.

[zuubaida]

[zuubaida]

you love me,

but you love your fear more.

and i….?

i am not the kind of girl who goes quietly,

not the kind who can be pushed out like a chair

when the room grows too small for your shaking hands.

i told you:

i will sit in the corner of your silence,

gnawing on my own ribs for comfort,

stomach twisted in rust and salt,

while your absence presses into me

like a second skeleton.

and still

you are all i think of.

all i rot for.

you don’t know how loyal decay can be.

i carry you like a fever in my marrow,

like a nest of teeth gnashing in the dark,

like a hymn sung by the worms

that crawl the hollows of the earth.

you push me away?

fine.

let the distance snap my spine in half.

let me crawl on bleeding knees to the altar of your memory.

let me drink the ash of what you used to be.

because even in defeat,

even with the grave yawning open for me,

even when my body is only dust and tendon

you will find my name still trembling against your lips.

do you hear me?

i will not stop.

you will leave me alone with my thoughts

and they will sharpen themselves into knives.

you will leave me sick in the stomach

and i will tear my sickness into an offering.

you will leave me,

but i will not leave you.

i will haunt the cracks of your ribs,

curl into the hollows of your lungs,

bloom like a fungus in your dreams.

call it obsession, call it madness

but this is love,

and it has teeth.

[zuubaida]

i miss you like a wound…

quiet,

aching,

always.

[zuubaida]

if i could carve time,

i’d hollow out the hours

just to keep you in them.

[zuubaida]

2 am

some nights i swear the moon envies me,

because she’s never held you

the way i have.

[zuubaida]

all this and we still met,

two souls colliding….

in the infinite chaos of stars.

[zuubaida]

till we rot,

i will love you

with marrow, with dust,

with whatever of me remains.

[zuubaida]

i wish i were close to you now,

i would braid my nerves with those of yours….

if i could.

—zubi

[zuubaida]

There are months I don't remember because I was too busy surviving his absence - walking into rooms and forgetting why, whispering his name into coffee mugs like it could stir something back. I measure time by the last time he said "you're mine" and the first time I didn't believe it. I still wear the bruises he didn't give me, just moments that hit too hard.

He's a one-man apocalypse, and I've built cities inside me just to let him destroy them. I want to sit beside him in a car going nowhere, radio broken, heart breaking louder. I don't want peace. I want him - messy, bleeding, late, and mine.

[zuubaida]

A nexus of despair

Grief is a nexus of despair; a forged signature. The pipes froze over, and you forgot to call your mom back, and that was three days ago. Grief is addictive, residual and graceless; I grieve in place of a painted-by-hand ceramic, potted plant. Grief is visceral itching, a scabbing tattoo, Sunday at 6pm, tumbleweeds in the pantry, and my bedroom is sick of me; Grief incarcerates my mind, tantalizing my heart with moments we’ll never have again. It’s a phantom limb, a symphony of sorrow, Lingering in the shadows, A bittersweet echo in the night. Grief is a spectral threshold, opening the blinds for the first time at 6pm because it is better to start the day dripping faucet and all, when the alternative is keeled over in a parking lot. Grief is a haunting feeling, or a meaning, a meal, a money order, a missing sock or a tearful walk— But I can grieve you in rooms I haven't stepped in yet, But I can grieve you in brush strokes on a blank page, But I can grieve you in how I cough up smoke. Grief is regret. Grieving you, like gawking at a full moon only to discover it was yesterday, so now what will you find in the sky to celebrate? Grief is the spectral threshold we crossed together, Grief is a leaky faucet. Grief is macabre, desolate and sombre, a lugubrious march through temporal ruins, A chilling portent, a somber passageway, Bleak and ghastly, a morose reminder of love's ephemeral wall.

[zuubaida]

the stale end of summer,

Is precocious, 

July is dripping, 

                 right into August, 

the scorching weather,

               that comes with memories

Helter-skelter,

               the summer is stagnant, nights full of stars.

As August feels closer, 

And july,

         drip,

            drip,

               dripping 

                      away

February feels far away, 

The months feel like burnt edges on a paper, 

The days we spent running on fields till supper, 

Suddenly feels deeper. 

There were 

one,

 two, 

three, 

and four

And way too much to explore-

                   There was melody in the sun

And a very slow run;

                   There were stories and tales

Smooth and rough trails

                       Woven but smelly threads

Some not so real trends

                            Flavours new and old

Walls with stolen gold

                         New faces with colors old

And old faces with new folds

                        Some minutes of solitude

And a positive attitude :)

[zuubaida]

Addicts of tragedy.

We are addicted to tragedy; it clings to us like a shadow. We hunt for wreckage; it's all we know. The planet scorches while leaders squabble over the heat. Catastrophes erupt, yet many can't feel the ground quaking beneath their feet. Thousands perish, and we question if their deaths are true. We doom scroll through socials, watching our idols flaunt their brand new. With one hand, they seize our money; with the other, our lifeblood. They silence the defiant, dragging names through the mud. نحن مدمنون على المأساة؛ تلتصق بنا كظل .نبحث عن الحطام؛ هذا كل ما نعرفه

[zuubaida]

love

love is fleeting,

it is said to be almost imperative,

the honest truth of god once,

and now suddenly its gone. love is fleeting-

Maybe the love i had for you,

was mine all along- you were not special it seems, the gut wrenching feeling of your betrayal showed me that. you were not special,

I made you special. it seems as if i have had to always. I know the truth now…yet why does my heart still feel pain? the moments, things i asked of you for three years… you gave to the woman who didnt even want it?

how am i any lesser than her…it seems as if my goodness, my poetry, my love, my life’s work, my art, my songs about you….was not enough. It never will be. You will never find me enough.

i cannot yet hate you. I do feel pity for myself…for my love that you robbed for years…

what the hell did i do? Ive never been the type to let someone see through me, but i gave you that. I let you see through me…my stoic self, my unbalanced self, i let you through it all. i am not afraid to accept that my heart still loves you. But not you. It loves the “you” i made in my head. the smiles i gave you…even when i was dying…

i fall apart as it gets dark, i cannot cry can i

tears are signs of weakness my father always told me-

Which is why i loved you…you cried so easy? but it was all a game for you. I thought that we were just two slow dancers, the ones left at last…

its funny how you always came running back everytime she gave you less than attention.

i wish you broke the news that you were walking out,

to be a good man for someone else. I did my best- my best to just exist for your name for your love.

At the end of the day-

i am a twisted creation of God. My love was enough for me. I can accept that. Your scars have only given me a reason for art. -the last poem i will ever write about him :))

[zuubaida]

My father could not love, but he believed he could, and that must be enough, because perhaps half the world feels that way. He believed he loved me, but I could tell him how untrue that was, I could list for him the number of times he had placed me squarely within the jaws of death; I could list for him the number of times he had failed to be a father to me, his only daughter, while on his way to becoming a man of this world. He loved, he loved; he loved himself. It is perhaps the way of all men.