“Maroon Diary”
In grandma’s old home, by the cotton fields
In the broken cabinet, by the window sill
There was a maroon diary dated 1933
There were many entries;
January said Love is found, and some thing about cold being unbearable yet mystic 1/
When girls are together talking over tea and cake (no boys around), it's a religious experience, the way they talk about their dreams and favorite books, dress they got from the sale, the mother issues and insecurities, their fictional crushes, it's all so wonderful
Majority of people is obsessed with the idea of love, and would ruin their life over one unavailable, stupid, mediocre, player of a person. Love is not when you ache for someone, that's good for poetry and movies, love is when someone's there for you everyday, love is simple,
For marriage, Pakistani parents have such low standards for their daughters, he just gotta breathe. I get it now why average boys have such confidence, because they know one day in arranged marriage, they'd get a girl they can never even imagine dating
You scroll though social media and it's all about how your skin isn't beautiful enough and what more skincare products you need, or how you aren't exercising enough, or traveling enough, or shopping enough, or watching enough, or studying enough, how you aren't healthy enough,
In memory of all the discussions with my girlfriends, safe spaces where we'd sift through our traumas so gently, so easily with laughters and speaking at the top of our voices, sipping tea, talking about books and ideas, dissecting our own desires in guise of liking characters,
"Every time my family argued, my initial response was to fantasize about moving far away and never speaking to any of them again. I thought about starting a new life on a new continent. By the time I was in my bed, waiting to fall asleep, I started to feel bad for everyone."
When Jaun Elia said, "Ae shakhs ab to mjhko sbhi kch qabool hai, ye bhi qabool hai k tujhe cheen le koi", & when Sajid Rahim said, "Me tujhe bhoolne pe razi hn, aj to is qadr udaasi hai", & when Ahmed Faraz said, "Is se phle k bewafa ho jayen, kyun na ae dost hm juda ho jayen"
May your fridge always have left-over cake, may you never run out of sugar and salt, may your kitchen gets filled with sweet aroma of tea every morning, may your cabinets always have biscuits and coffee, and may you always have someone to share them with!
When I was younger, I used to think people in mid 20s early 30s had their life together, but oh my God it's like we're starting to learn to live once again, everything is new but more in stressful way or I'm already so late in life way but then everyone around is same so it's ok
and common, it doesn't give you butterflies all the time, it actually brings you peace and calms your fluttery heart. It's silent and smooth like a drizzle, not loud & flashy like thunderstorm, but people keep chasing thunderstorms throughout their lives. Move on, there's a
Do you think it's possible for people to forget how to be happy, because they waited for it for so long that when it actually came they didn't know what to do with it, so they put it on their shelf and continued with their life wearing same old sadness?
What Fleabag said, but I need someone to tell me what choices to make in my career that'll make me happy, how to answer back to people who have been hurting me for years, how to make friends that stick, how to become the friend that shows up, how to wake up and not want to die-
It's like you can never be enough, it never ends, how are all these people making perfect videos all the time, with their perfect bodies and perfect skin and expensive makeup and newest clothes with latest iPhone, in big fancy houses?!
Handwritten letters are too intimate because they even show the tremble of your hands while putting words on paper. Were you excited, were you scared, were you crying? A testament to every emotion lived in the process.
When Faiz said, "Chand roz or meri jaan, faqt chand hi roz", and again, "Mana k ye sunsan ghari sakht karri hai, lekin mere dil ye to faqt ik hi ghari hai, himmat kro, jeene ko to ik umr pari hai"
Some people are born with sadness bigger than others, their life isn't necessarily tragic, they just got dealt more sadness, a more fragile heart, more loneliness surrounding them. Some people are just born with it all.
Do you ever wonder about the kids who held that press conference months ago, asking the world to let them live, where are they? Are they still alive? Are some of them alive? Kids had to ask the world to let them live and nothing changed. There's no hope for us.
Yes girl I know you're very mehndi, curly hair, ghazals, bangles, khussa, eating at expensive cafes, tweeting about being jobless, rich dad, sheesha, readings, books carrying tote bag aesthetic, now shut up for a minute
It is a psychological law that those who are most attracted to calm will almost certainly also be especially irritable and by nature prone to particularly high levels of anxiety. We have a mistaken picture of what lovers of calm look like if we assume them to be among the
There's something about grief that makes your thoughts profound, gives you an eye to keenly observe life, be poetic, write sonnets and songs. But happiness— it's bland, it's beautiful without comparisons and poetry, you don't write to songs, you dance and sing at the top of your
I'm tired of carrying the griefs of past & anxieties of future while running at full speed towards some unattainable goal, of like being accepted for my existence, like if I do enough, I'll be worthy of the space I take. I'm out of breath, and each goal is a mirage & so arbitrary
Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language
“Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin and in this hasn’t changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.”
-John Berger
How are people living? How isn't everyone crumbling under the weight of their griefs and anxieties? Why does life keep going, and running never ends? I want to sit under a tree and read a book, and think of no responsibilities
There's a certain kind of peace that comes from losing the things you so much loved. It's gone, what you feared happened, you don't have to hold onto your fears anymore. There's so much peace on the other side of loss.
By bigger love. Almost nothing is permanent in life. We need to take our griefs that way too. We might be a little tarred in the end, but we'll laugh again & be happy again, after all our losses.
One of the names of Allah is 'The Delayer', and nothing makes us as restless as waiting for something. I think in those moments, it's important to remember who's behind the delay and how it's only out of His love, mercy and eternal wisdom that He makes us wait
Love is not the knife stuck inside your heart, whoever told you that didn't love you ever. Love is the softest warmest blanket, sometimes a little too heavy to carry, but it always shelters you. Love can never be the sharp pointy thing that makes you bleed
Wasif Ali Wasif said, "Jo tmhe acha lgta hai, tm bhi ise zroor ache lgte ho", and "Jis ko ap yad kr rahe hain wo bhi ksi na ksi surat me apko yad kr rha hai".
"According to Quantum Physics, the particle vibrating from your soundbox when you speak can affect a molecule inside a star at the edge of the universe instantly, this is what's known as Quantum Entanglement. The greatest illusion of the universe is the illusion of separation.
I'm a love poet, or a poet in love with the world. This is just who I'm. If the world is falling apart, I do have to say the truth. But, I don't stop being in love with the world.
—Ilya Kaminsky
In heaven, kids are now counting watermelon seeds, showing one another their handfuls, stomach full of food after months. In heaven, their parents don't run after trucks. In heaven, food doesn't fall from above, a symbol of depravity. In heaven, there's abundance
Why aren't humans beautiful in letting go? Why couldn't we be as gracious as trees in autumn? I've found it too hard to be human persistently, it aches to be one. It aches.
If you stick around, despite my long intervals of sadness, I'll let you have a glimpse of my joys too, and their softness. It's worth it, I know I'm worth it.
Imagine being offered kindness over the same thing you've been despised for by everyone for years. Imagine the immense softness of the moment and how you'll spill everywhere then. Imagine being seen for the first time in years.
I love how spring and autumn are both serene and quiet. Winter is silent, I love its silence too. Summer is too loud and noisy. I don't like summer at all.
Reading Kafka's letters is like reading forty rules of love and calling yourself an avid reader, or posting pictures of starry night and thinking of yourself as connoisseur of art
If you're a girl/woman, none of your accomplishments will ever be enough for your parents or society. The boys in your family will be celebrated for doing far less than you. Their value is inherent with their 'y' chromosome, and your defect is inherent with your 'x' chromosome
It takes a great deal of bravery and skill to keep even a very ordinary life going. To persevere through the challenges of love, work and children is quietly heroic. We should perhaps more often sometimes step back in order to acknowledge in a non-starry-eyed but very real way
I keep waiting for life to happen, anxiously & holding my breath, when life's happening, unfolding right in front of me. I don't know how to stop waiting for something that's already here
Sometimes I look at people who've got all I wish for and they're still sad, and everyone's a little bit sad honestly, hoping and praying for something, what if sadness is an integral part of human experience? Unless you somehow manage to numb yourself, but even numbness is sad