parted ~
a time to hold onto
when the darkest moments are darker than your biggest secret: the one you cannot tell anyone but the overcast  skies.

married~
there is no time
for myself (time running out)

they say I have it
and they count my blessings for me : my long walk down to the park.the mornings when I sit and write, before the house wakes. ( i take extra caution not to wake anyone. no, its not that I’m afraid they will get disturbed. its because i want them to sleep deeper and longer so i can linger in my own world. the delirious one i inhale in and hold onto so I can still myself around the home. even as I write this there is the safai waali and the morning routine that is scratching and peeling at my skin, groping my darkness.) they are counting and i am folding the clothes, smoothly touching the places the children have grown.

~ rooms that kill
there are rooms that
slowly take your life
while you peel the sundried
tomatoes, knit your winter sweaters, make the Kashmiri chai for the winter.
it will leave you without your knowing (life) ; till you are the very dream you envisaged as a little girl
putting those sofas together and playing house with tiny friends from yesteryear. adorning the dolls with bindis and tiny dupattas you weaved a dream for yourself. now you live in rooms that kill softly between caresses.

…

Dee is from Lahore, Pakistan. Loves dark nights and old trees.

safai waali : helper at home
Kashmiri chai : pink tea
bindis : a small coloured mark that is worn between the eyebrows, especially by Hindu women
dupattas : long scarf that is essential to many South Asian women’s suits