between lips, incense sticks

spring fades the fragrance remains

i remember when i first got on substack, i would be so scared to post but the community here has been so sweet <3. i recently read a post written by

jeri lee | جيري

which got me inspired and the poem here was born.

also my first time writing in hindi/urdu on here. i know its not perfect and i have a lot to learn and my mother will probably laugh if she ever reads it but i’ve been inspired by the very talented

Wasia

and

momina

.

also the original spacing is ummm not like this but substack did not maintain it and it makes me mad so i just added screenshots oops

---

blood-splattered cherry pits 
love spit muddied kiss
wind hissed lost wits 
hesitations, I missed 

lovestruck rose thorns
petals fried lovelorn
letters wrote hand torn
your scent, my loss

can you not see? 
i spared you my grief my uncertain 
certainty of staining your palms 
you'd wish to scrub clean, no soap suds 
lighter in my hands, black soap to wash
away my sins. the younger ones still say love 
will win—can love win over this pain? 
will it be enough for you to stay? 
when the stains bleed through these cotton 
sheets when the ink spills on the stone floor
and seeps between holes 
we could never see.
when the cold doesn't last,
neither does the heat—
when will you see?

stone fruits kissing ground
when will you come around?
lonesome foes keeping house
rough hands scrubbing grout

lips blow bubbled smoke
feet running wrong roads
lungs choke lies hoarse
summer love's dying words

i could never teach my hands to play these cards
to win against your eyes. can i ever lose 
what i cannot touch? glass eyes crying dust
overcast failures overrun 
planned paths turned, acrid scars 
heartstrings twisted—creeping bruises
your eyes trace sinking boats—dreaming hopes
splashed between waves your eyes ripple 
acid hailing skies across shoulder blades 
dull rusted cutting dents over kin ties—
my hands raise to cover your eyes

one foot standing on land
palm curls over ghost hand
rogue horse carriage unmanned
fairy towns fire fanned 

other foot over the grave
God sends cleansing rain
ink-splotched chest flaming pain
you're never beyond His repair

gulistaan bahaar ki khusboo
(the garden is the fragrance of spring)
bhavare kaliyon ke ghungroo
(bumblebees are the bells of budding flowers)
sholay mere ishq ki arzoo 
(embers are my love’s desire)
toh kaise na jale behte aansoo
(so why wouldn’t the streaming tears burn)

gunah ke mail bhare saare talaab
(the dirt of sins fills the lakes)
har khwaish ka gul sirf ho aap
(the flower of every wish is only you)
jis siyahi ne likha is khwaab
(the ink that wrote this dream)
zinda na rakh sakhe ek bhi gulaab
(couldn't keep alive a single rose)

joh qurbani deti qurbat 
(the sacrifices that bring you closer)
daag bane makmali rehmat
(the stains that become velvet mercy)
khule aankhon mein bhare khuda ki ayat
(open eyes are filled with the signs of God)
jab nazrein ban gaye mohabbat
(when glances became love)

darkest nights turn morning glow
dead salmon birth pearled roe
sinner’s tears spring shoots of growth
ranks of angels lighting rows

heat waves smothering dreams of spring 
darkness creeping teeth-white singed
roses bloomed wilted crisp
hands fragranced with incense sticks 

your eyes burst springs on barren grounds,
my noxious breath leaking tar—i rise 
morning wisps of smoke —i fall
night ashen along your shores— 
secondhand odor lingering close  
houses built on broken bones
i run between closing doors 
yet how it is isn't how it must be 
my joints numb from hitting rock bottom 
so many times that I forgot footsteps sound —
the space between heart and tongue creaks your name—
miles between golden days —songbird calls
lilies crushed beneath naked feet
water sprung from the desert returns clean

lilac forest highway fog
windows down steaming thoughts  
headlights on nighttime blots —
ignoring old friends’ calls

quill scratched poems cursed
tear stained pillows burned
bruised forehead kissing earth
bloody lips berries burst

The endless seas in your eyes, gardens bloomed 
in every smile, this peace — a piece of
hearts knotted in heavens — and dust scattered 
over the skies, burning light into you  
the night kisses skin into life
tempest creeping into veins — at the interface 
of earth and highest skies 
your whispers drift, flying swift —cinders 
burning my heart  — flammable veins leaking soot,
your hands stained from scrubbing my heart
while mine sustain from holding yours, the rosebuds
can’t bear the heat past spring, yet the scent lingers
of love, the honey sourced still sweet 
in sticky drips over petals crumbling between finger tips,
trickling tears, twisting braids  — this love ages
and never fouls the rosen days evergreen in
smiles, tessellating in memories
falling into glowing embers in open hands
we sip fragrance rising in smokeless wisps —
and we finally see: 
this love, my love, our love —
incense sticks between our lips

---

also when writing this poem, i got reminded of a prompt i was tagged in a while back:

so i did write something for this prompt back then but never posted it because also scary. anyways, i’ll add it here as a bonus.

---

an old friend smells like cigarettes whenever i see her. she tells me she is in love with a boy who stole a pack from his dad and got addicted to the nicotine. he is her brother’s friend, but uses that term quite loosely. her brother knows him just well enough to have neither a good nor a bad opinion about him. when his father asks for her hand, the get engaged in two weeks. they don’t touch, she narrates, but he hands over his leather jacket to her whenever they meet, after the sun blends into the horizon, and after the breeze begins to whistle the soft tunes he hums. she returns it before she leaves his car but the odor permeates through her clothes and dissolves into the oils on her skin.

she tells me about her home where her her dad smokes puffs like downpoaring clouds and her mother lights bukhoor rising like a morning fog. over time the impatience crawls into hasty hands as some of the resin splatters into the noxious fumes blending into the city’s smog. neither smell overpowers the other but there isn’t any harmony in the way they blend. they linger in the air until they weave into the tapestry draping windows, until they seeps into the grains of the wood furniture in the house, leaving a near unseen ash daze. the windows creak and barely swing a few degrees past their bolts. what’s born in that house doesn’t leave it. between the smoke and the steam circulating in a kitchen that never closes, she jokes that living in her house is like having cataracts develop over her eyes.

i use the analogy of a smoker’s lung being like a sponge soaked in tar but she brushes it off and says everyone dies some way anyways. that all our hearts are splattered with black spots of sins. so what if his lungs are too? at least he doesn’t smoke indoors, she insists. he doesn’t blow puffs in your face until you start choking amidst a conversation. bare minimum, i retort but she insists i’ll understand when i am an adult. i was seventeen then but she was only a year older.

one day we grab lunch and she starts to tap on the table. she’s been learning morse code for fun. the taps begin to flow into a rhythm and I wonder if she has translated a poem in her mother tongue. she tells me she decoded his puffs of smoke into a declaration of love. what else has he confessed, between these breaths?, I ask. she finishes her meal in silence.

as we rise to leave, she tells me not to worry. she says that when he steps out of the car parked beneath her apartment window, he lights love in his fingers and smokes bukhoor between his lips.