Otorva

Syeda Neha Rizvi

Daastan Publishing

First Published in Pakistan in June 2021 by
Daastan PVT LTD
House # A-41, Madni Street, Lala Rukh, Wah Cantt, Punjab 47040

www.daastan.com
www.meraqissa.com

Text copyright © Syeda Neha Rizvi
Book cover copyright © Rasmah Baiq & Masooma Mohsin Subhani

The moral rights of the writer and illustrator have been asserted

All rights reserved

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN (Print) 978 969 696 569 5

ISBN (Digital) 978 969 696 570 1

Printed and bound in Pakistan by Pixel Printing Solutions

 Editor:

Maliha Zafar

Format:

Maliha Zafar

This book is dedicated to my parents

Mr & Mrs Saqib Haider

with love.

They don’t read poetry so if someone doesn't tell them about this, they'll never know.

01

ONCE I WANTED TO BE A POET & NOW WHEN
THEY CALL ME ONE, I JUST WANT TO BE A POEM

A mysterious poem

An agonizing poem

An ecstatic poem

A melancholic poem

A Poem,

I just wish to be a p-o-e-m.

They are beautiful

even the ugliest of them,

they leave an impression,

even the sad & depressed ones

people love them

they leave no scar

or bruises

but they

change one's mind

& way of thinking,

these words,

these poems,

they stay forever

with a person.

I just wish to be a poem

of any kind

of any type,

they make sense

even when they are of no sense,

they are so full

even when they are empty & hollow,

they look happy

even when they are sad,

they leave a mark

on people's heart,

they stay

they stay

forever.

I just wish to be a poem,

A poem

whose whole

existence

is poetic,

who makes

this world a better place,

who bring out the changes,

who change one's way of thinking,

A poem

that lies on the tip of their tongue,

that they keep in their archives,

that they fear speaking out,

that they read between the lines,

that they hold,

hold until their last breath.

I just wish to be a poem,

A p-o-e-m,

that gives birth to poems,

that can break poems.

I wish to be a poem's poem

I just want to breathe in people

& breathe out words & poetry.

02

ZERO DIRECTION

I am writing this poem,

I don't know its name

neither its future

nor its past,

it is a wanderer,

it is just going

on and on

with the flow

wherever

these words

will take it,

it doesn’t have any motive

nor any reason

to exist

still, it's here,

doing the

simple

yet difficult

act of

breathing,

this poem

consists of

everything

and nothing

maybe its about

the people who are lost,

the love that didn't bloom,

the words that are never said,

the dreams that are not fulfilled,

the wishes that are never granted,

but this poem is about

no one in particular,

the

line

breaks

in

this

poem

are

just

an

attempt

to make something good, complete and meaningful out of these pieces,

this poem

is not

H̷̶o̷̶p̷̶e̷̶l̷̶e̷̶s̷̶s̷̶

̷̶S̷̶a̷̶d̷̶

̷̶N̷̶e̷̶g̷̶a̷̶t̷̶i̷̶v̷̶e̷̶

̷̶B̷̶r̷̶o̷̶k̷̶e̷̶n̷̶

̷̶N̷̶e̷̶e̷̶d̷̶y̷̶

But

Hopeful

Satisfied

Positive

Whole

&

Enough

this poem,

d

i  s  a  p  p  e

a  r  s

sometimes

to regain

& restore

its energy

&

to find peace

& purpose,

it even

b  r  e  a  k  s

this poem

is just

trying to find

its purpose,

it doesn't know

any end

it is walking

on just

one thing that is

h-o-p-e,

this

poem

takes

the

necessary

p-a-u-s-e-s,

the unnecessary

commas

in this poem

are not a

grammatical

error,

it, is, full,

of, commas,

but, it, never, learnt,

what, a,

FULLSTOP, is,

this is an incomplete

poem

maybe

you will

meet again

until then

Bye!

03

IN THE NAME OF LOVE

I call her,

in times of revelations,

about mistakes, theories and

the amazing cookies we eat at the café,

the one by that college we go every time?

That café.

We laugh about things,

weird things, sad things,

what-the-hell-are-we-doing things.

We laugh about our existential crisis,

she fixes my existential crisis.

She listens to me,

hears me out,

patiently.

Isn’t that what we’d like?

To be heard.

I look at our pictures,

from the day we roamed

in the sun for no reason at all,

the colours popping out of the photographs,

carving out the smiles,

and I realize I love her.