Posted on by Aqsa Shafique Ahmad

Head in the clouds

I’ve always romanticized everything in life, even without knowing or realizing it. Looking at the waves, I always listened deeply to every sound they made hitting the rocks, the sky was a vast ocean turned upside down, the clouds like waves and rain, like diamonds falling from the sky, glistening in the sun, reflecting every colour. For me, doors had stories and leaves, lifetimes. Nothing has ever been ordinary or simple, never really understood what these words mean. Sitting in an exam room, I always wondered what each person was feeling, moments before the paper was handed out, anxiety, stress or like me, just alive. People said it was too much, still say that, that I was always somewhere else, lost, never focused on what “I” was doing. Maybe it was the many stories that started shaping my mind through all the novels that I started reading at a very young age. These stories promised love, sensations that would brighten my heart, and I believed them, deeply, hiding, from a world that promotes realism and practicality in a way that sounds almost like a horror story. Well, am I disappointed you might wonder? After 25 years (the 25th only halfway through) of my life, have I been hit, slapped and broken by the cruel world around me yet, enough to realize that all those books were lies, fantasies?
The answer is simple; no.
No, I have found love, so honest, so complete, so natural and so deep that it leaves my heart baffled, astonished and sends it right back to the world of words, where I try very hard to translate that state, those, larger than life feelings to phrases and sentences. I have experienced sensations, colours, kindness, textures, and visuals only ever imagined by me in those “unreal novels”.
Life is so beautiful and this world is grander than anything our “very practical and logical” brains are trained to accept.
Everything you see is real but everything you believe and imagine is very much real too. Feel life in every bit of its wonder and you will be amazed!

Posted on by Aqsa Shafique Ahmad

Lingering Shadows

What drags behind me?
dark shapes or burnt bridges,
Lost to time with no return,
Merging colours or broken memories,
What lies ahead of me?
Cautious step-ups or natural incline,
Rewinding back again,
Sliding down or moving forward,
What should I want?
How do I know?
Instinct or analysis,
All of this thought,
Yet everything ends up,
The way it was supposed to.

.

Posted on by Aqsa Shafique Ahmad

All of it…

The moment you expose yourself, let go of the constraints you put on your behaviour, your voice, your words, thinking that this space, these people might be able to take the part of you that’s raw, the part that you so cautiously keep covered from everyone else, you realize soon that it was just in your head, you realize that everyone has the same threshold of taking you in, of knowing what you truly mean and how much of your raw self is just a relief of being able to finally let go of all the covers, how much of it is exaggerated because you are overexcited to finally expose yourself in front of another individual. In that moment when you come to know that you have to keep going with all the covers on and that is how you will survive this world, that moment is when you let go of all you could have been, all the good that could have come out of you with the little bad that you let the other person see. If that is how it is….

Posted on by Aqsa Shafique Ahmad · 2 Comments

Flying Colors

I close my eyes,
Flying colors gather,
Driven by a storm of emotions,
What I thought Blue meant,
What Red stood for,
All messed up,
Each one of them proving me wrong,
Some flying colors, they turned to dust,
Others changed shades,
Blinding my trust,
Oh, storm of rage,
Oh, flight of peace,
Hand me a green,
Just let me breathe ,
Cage them all in,
Let them be still,
Closed eyes,
Flying colors,
All blended in,
A beautiful shade of unbelievable relief.

Posted on by Aqsa Shafique Ahmad

Broken Verses

Finding poetry is for the restless,
Consumed within themselves in a fight against everything that’s out of control,
For the sorted, prepared and satisfied,
There is acceptance alone, giving in to the norm,
Disoriented yet rebelling every poem breaks me a bit more,
Collecting each broken piece and making art out of it,
Dripping with pain yet constructed with passion,
I leave it to the world, to break a bit more, disrupt a little too much,
After you are done, hand it back to me, the rise of a new verse, the birth of renewed pain.
Posted on by Aqsa Shafique Ahmad

Or nothing at all…

The fear of not being enough,
A little less, a little too much,
Or nothing at all,
One word, a gesture, an eye roll,
Shattered esteem, built up guilt,
Or nothing at all,
The courage to reach there,
Rejected climb, questionable intention,
Or nothing at all,
I have lost the urge to try,
Submerged my desire to grow,
Lost attempts, runover emotions,
Or nothing at all,
There is no forward, no backwards,
Stuck in between, crushed to extremes,
Or nothing at all,
Where does it start, how will it end,
Long road, lost directions,
Or nothing at all.

Posted on by Aqsa Shafique Ahmad

On days…

Those winds, that take you away, let you fly, carry your thoughts with them. Are they coming from heaven?
That sun, those scorching afternoons, that drain you away. Is it coming from hell?
If yes then why do you reach out to Him on days with the brightest of sun, when you are exhausted and think of giving up, when you can’t do this anymore?
Why do you cry to him only on days when the bed is too hot and you can’t sleep?
And on days when the wind blows you are too busy enjoying the weather, hanging out with friends, laughing the day off. You hardly think of Him.
Difficult days might not seem ideal but they connect you to Him in ways that make you stronger.

Posted on by Aqsa Shafique Ahmad

Blink away

All things are temporary, all places a blink away from vanishing and all people born to die.
Then why hold that ego? why let it be a strain? Are you larger than the mightiest mountain or deeper than the deepest sea?
Are you capable of stopping nothingness from taking you within or strong enough to hold back a storm?
Think of the end before you think of the present.

Posted on by Aqsa Shafique Ahmad

In between

“What should I write to you?” he thought, holding the letter pad in his hand.
Should I tell you about the many shades of the blue water or the splendour of light that encapsulates the sky when the sun goes down?
Should I talk to you about the buzz of the stream or the swishing of the leaves?
Should I let you know about the highs and lows of the mountains or the green of the grasslands?
But then would you want to hear about my love for His creation and poems for its beauty or would you want me to let you know about yours?
Would you want me to let you into my soul or just tell you about what appears when I imagine yours?
I am in a state of confusion my love for all I wish today is to reach to Him but I am bound to share my life with you.