I sit cross legged on the green of the grass that flourished unexpectedly, under the blazing London sun that tries to imitate the Lahore sun, thinking of the misty drizzle of metallic Hong Kong rain and the fiery red autumn leaves of Virginia backyards; I often smell bonfires of my village in the nooks and crannies of this city. The plastic oranges assembled meaningfully in their grocery stores degrade the oranges of my vast orchards which are lined and irrigated perpetually in my brain. I am forever immobilized between spasms of nostalgia that linger like a mad man’s drunken slur.
Forever a foreigner. A foreigner often in my own country and always in someone else’s.
I travel the broad streets, and the narrow alleyways and the paved ways and the cobbled paths and the foresty paths and the dirt and dung frosted paths even in my sleep. My body is stamped with purple triangles, encased with dates and airline names that the airport officers corrupted me with, thinking it was glamorous for me to be travelling the world. Luggage tags are clipped and tagged on my limbs as I speak now, and they pierce my wheat skin.
I drift my Visa body through their beer chugging and the hijab clad girls who smoke weed by the river, getting stoned on eachother, watching me with their boiling eyes- the common foreign freak with her headphones and ticketed body rushes against the throng of locals. I am neither the foreigner, nor am I the rooted local- my abode remains anonymous.
In this city I trip over inhuman humans who stride with tattooed backs and bearded faces and grizzly manes. I latch on to whomever I think looks like a Messiah, their Jesus faces illuminating my common face and drink their wrinkled veins dry like the Vampiress that I am without them knowing, crediting their mediocre black and white photographs for my delirium. Brown eyed Moses. Bearded Adam. I see you everywhere- his brows wrinkled amusingly as he talks to God on that hill nearby. I am an amoeba now, and I infiltrate the blood of those who know me not with a curious disease. Dengue. Bird Flu. Malaria. I am all these and more- hovering about them like an invisible mosquito.
I waver in limbo between the spiced dimensions of this city, sucking the platelets from their reddened bodies out of sick revenge for my grandmother whose platelets were sucked out by some vile mosquito- my stamped Visa body only needs to slightly brush against theirs on a crowded rush hour train and I can write for days. I am the mosquito and I know the secret of the papaya leaves too.
a cool and curious piece of writing. Like something in the tradition of Mr Burroughs.
words are confiscated to write something here. perfecting art of words, breathing your surroundings and capturing every feeling from nooks to your heart.
‘Words are confiscated’ is such an amazing statement. Its good to know that brilliant writers such as yourself admire my work:)
You are an inspiring soul, your voice is so fresh and beautiful, you can only share it.
Blessings dear.
Intense. Love it, as always.
my GOD….You could literally wrap this around you as a shield against all things mundane in the world….BRILLIANT!
see saw between what the mass hunch says it is so pleasant
and what you see–plural kaleidoscope
and in many ways a remedy to paranoia…for me anyway
rather than clinging to one perceive
there are branches here flowing in all directions.
I started writing this when I had titled it ‘Visa’, but my mind wandered into much more complexity than I had initially started off with and the image of a mosquito infiltrated its way into the course of writing this. Then I realized how connected these two words were for me a few months ago and how getting my Visa and losing my grandmother to a mosquito bite became two polarized occurrences in my life. This pretty much sums up the last eight months of my life. So the branching out is a good thing I suppose- it means I’m heading towards a new direction through writing. Thanks Steven
Momina,
a real heartfelt appreciation for what you’ve shared here.
you’ve redefined the word visa through an emotional sincerity coupled with your dazzling pen.
your eyes are brave,
seeing from the the ledge,
the valley below,
in great detail.
i consider this 8 month cycle you speak of as
8, as in after the 7 days of creation,
as in a new beginning.
I think it’s a late point of the day to consider you my soulmate as you already know you and I are related in a way, but this piece broke my heart and sewed it back together again. seven years from now, there will be teenagers sending each other quotes like “I am the mosquito and I know the secret of the papaya leaves too.” and probably not understand anything about it…
oh I heart you!
You probably understand this piece more than anyone else actually. We should write an epic together. Haha imagine somebody writing this as a quotation in their high school yearbooks- it would look pretty enigmatic and profound. If I had written this two years ago I might have used it as a quotation in mine. Instead I wrote something about being a dragon. HAHAHAH
As someone who grew up moving to a new place once a year or sometimes twice I loved this.