Loving you is like

spinning in a sweet shop

swallowing a handful of repeat prescription pills

saying your name ten times fast

in the hope that it will lose all meaning

tongue tripping over the syllables

like sticky hands caught in a candy jar

because a spoonful of sugar

helps the medicine go down

in the most delightful

writing prompt 11:11//make a wish 

11:11 

we sit cross legged from one another

knees touching

your hands cupping my hands 

cupping the fluffy white dandelion you plucked out of nowhere

"make a wish,"

you say softly

"because double the luck"

and I grin and say, "easy, winning the lottery"

and you throw your head back and laugh

"if the Universe accepts that, I claim a 50-50 stake"

"only 50-50?" I tease 

and you wink at me before closing your eyes and blowing, hard, 

on behalf of both of us

dandelion seeds carrying that stupid wish floating high above our heads and woven hands

and I want to call them back back back because I am already holding the lottery

the whole damn jackpot in the palm of my hands

jeans white t-shirt chiseled jaw-line so sharp it cuts my heart in two

"time", I breathe

and you open your eyes to glance at me curiously

and you blink as my fingers tighten around yours

so tight that I feel the oxygen leave them blue

and my heart stops 

because no time is enough to hold you here

permanent

and mine.

and I wonder if Cinderella, too, felt her heart in her throat

when she felt fireworks in her chest

as her hands seamlessly folded into Prince Charming's,

his hands lightly claiming her waist

mesmerised eyes wanting, searching, finding

everything he had been looking for

I wonder if she, too, wished for time

as the clock ticked closer to twelve

the wild hope blooming in her heart

crushing the inevitable that would crack it down the middle

ticking time bomb destined to detonate

in 49 minutes

blowing up dreams born of fairy tales and glass slippers and wanting hearts.

I wonder, if,

amid the blur of ball gowns and pumpkin carriages and roses in her hair

one man's unflinching gaze

much like yours

- much like the way your eyes hold mine for an eternity

and your steady hands still my restlessness

and your heart makes itself a place to call my own

much grander than a golden ball room

music swelling to a crescendo to welcome me 

h o m e -

made her wish for that waltz to last forever

knowing that it was a shot in hell

but wishing for it anyway.

it's 11:12

and the sweet magic fizzles out - the burst of colour dulls - the timely music fades

but your eyes still hold mine

and our fingers are still intertwined

and your heart still beats beats beats for me

eighty per minute

and if minutes were lifetimes

48 minutes still wouldn't be enough.

Twenty six happens

and you have conquered the quarter-life crisis

shed the youth of the twenties, that adult-adolescence

and it hits you how you have lost

your childhood idleness

the waking-up-before-mum-and-dad-on-sunday-mornings

kind of idleness

without chronic fatigue plaguing your bones

but the whole day stretched out in front of you

breakfast in front of CBBC

racing your brother down the swimming lanes
that you once thought flowers were a faded sentiment

a cop-out gift

an easy apology

and finding yourself one morning

appreciating the beauty in a bouquet of flowers

a surprise at the front door

all blooming colour

sunrise reds and citrus oranges

raspberry pinks and sunflower yellows

and finding yourself smile

despite the apathy you once harboured

towards a bunch of damn flowers
it's finding comfort in the grocery aisle

picking out a ripe bunch of bananas and the sweetest of strawberries

and chocolate cake for one - just because

it's the excitement in buying yourself a pink hand mixer

and matching pink baking accessories

and any other kitchen appliance - in pink, of course,

and finally understanding that, yes,

chocolate hobnobs are infinitely more satisfying than chocolate digestives
it's powering through the day on three shots of caffeine

and discovering the miracle of concealer

to cover up the dark circles you're too young to have

and crashing on the pillow before the clock even strikes eleven pm

the word all-nighter now as foreign and distant as a continent separated by ocean

it's when you closely look at sixteen year olds that walk past you on the street

and you wonder how time has flown so fast that you now have a decade on them

when sixteen for you still feels like yesterday

and you wonder how the world has spun so fast out of your control

that you are a whole generation away

that to them, you are so adult

that you get the look of awe from little onesand you get the eye rolls from teenagers

because you are now "too old" to get it

and you get a shared look of sympathy from fellow "adults"

who are completely winging it

just like you

and this is it - you are here.

you are officially one of them - congratulations

welcome to the grown up world of
student loans bills jobs

train tickets and gas station receipts

car insurance and speeding fines

and no amount of sleep ever being enough

it's pencil skirts and blouses

high heels and lipstick

and perfectly curled hair

picture of false confidence

making it all up as you go along because

fake it till you make it

is the golden rule of the twenties (and every other decade after it)

it's watching the cost of Freddo chocolate bars rocket to unaffordable

and penny sweets no longer being the price of a penny

and the night before your trip to Alton Towers

you no longer feel the finger-tingling excitement

that gives you butterflies and keeps you up at night

but it's the stress of will my car make it there and back

it's signing up to fitness classes

and self-teaching outdoor yoga

because your heart rate collapses after running up a flight of stairs

and you realise that youth

that fleeting, temporary, folly youth

is no longer on your side
but it's also freedom

of heart and mind

and choosing which moments to live for

like

jumping on the train to Merseyside to a football cup quarter-final

breathing in that adrenaline high that hits differently

when you wish you could freeze time mid-celebration

mid-everything

like

summer brunches in Manchester

and Blackpool sunsets over Pleasure Beach

and West End theatre nights

it's being able to say no

without having to apologise for it

the privilege of cancelling plans

because Saturday nights are for pyjamas

and watching Match of the Day with mum and dad

and that small fraction of the week is the only moment you feel

warm and comforted and at home

it's having no one to answer to

when retail therapy sometimes feels like oxygen to breathe

and eating sticky jam doughnuts for breakfast and coco pops for dinner

and the luxury of watching superhero films in the middle of the afternoon

without feeling guilty about it

and never having to apologise or feel guilty for being you

because you, you have realised, are enough

not for everyone

but for yourself, and really, that's all that matters

it's when you take a slice of the night to read a book

and having it feel like a luxury

when the night stills and the noises of life fade to nothing

and it's just you and the words and the amber glow of your bedside lamp

the words filling the periphery of a black-and-white world with glorious colour

an epic love affair

that bites out a chunk of your heart and crawls into waking life

a physical ache

because at sixteen you believed a love affair like that could exist

but ten years later knowing that a love affair like that can only ever exist in fiction

it's watching your best friend get married

and become a mother

and when you see her hold her little girl in her arms

all you can think of is that time in the playground when you had the biggest fight

and you can't even remember what it was about - something stupid, of course

but there was screaming and shouting and lots of tears

and you thought you'd lost her forever

until she wrote you a little apology card

a pink glitter flower with her neat handwriting inside saying

best friends forever

and so now here you are

still best friends

watching her hold the life to which she gave birth

and this time, there are tears because she is still here

and it amazes you how life works

how it fast forwards and spins and it goes on

...but the most important parts stay

it's when you drive past your old school

but now mum's in the passenger seat and you're at the steering wheel

and you're teaching dad how to use his new iPhone

when once upon a time he was teaching you how to use that old brick computer

Windows 97, it was

and that is how much time has lapsed

that is how far the world has advanced from your days of counting on an abacus

and listening to the singing alphabet from a faded yellow cassette player

it's seeing the mortality in your father's wrinkles and worn hands

grey hair he dyes black and vitamin pills he pops every morning

in your mother's tired eyes and aching joints

and the speed of their life that has naturally slowed down

and the very real fear that one day

soon

you are going to have to live in a world without them

and nothing will ever be the same again

it's regretting the teenage fights you had with your mother

because she didn't deserve the mood swings or bratty behaviour

when she is the best thing in your life

and the closeness you have with her

makes you realise how much of her you have in you

and suddenly you can talk to her about all the things you once couldn't

she confides in you, now, just as you confide in her

and you crave the comfort of her advice because, yes, mum does know best

and she is still Wonder Woman - she always will be -

but she is also human

and you love her all the more for it

it's remembering your dad tell you bedtime stories 

He wins

every time you comb through the conversations

script-perfect in your mind, memorised with painstaking detail

mulling over the coffee dates and dinner nights

dissecting his honeyed words that make the teeth ache at the injustice of their insincerity

pulling apart the threads of the sentences he strung together

to keep you wrapped around his little finger

playing you like a marionette

too entranced by the sight of his dancing fingers

to register the deceit.

And you obsess over his facade, his careful charade that had you fooled

his illusions an act of magic that blew your mind into a realm of fantasy

and you can't get over how you got it so wrong

because you had started to give pieces of your heart away

that you had sworn to always protect

and you hate yourself for ever believing he was a worthy keeper.




He wins

when the vulnerability he gently unfurled in the space of one night

gives him the power to make your heart constrict when he says no

and you let yourself believe that his rejection

can only mean that you are not enough

and that's when the shutters come down

the steel walls go up

and you barricade that heart in a stone cold prison cell

and throw away the key

promising to never again let someone bail it out.



He wins

when you tell yourself that you won't find someone like him again

someone who let you be yourself

without having to apologise for it

someone who looked like the soulmate you'd have written for yourself

and felt like the human manifestation of the prayers you had made for said soulmate

and God did you like him

so much

because it was easy and natural and felt like the beginning of something

and enjoying his company was a rare thing you thought couldn't exist

and he let you believe he felt the same

only to then have the rug pulled out from under you

when he tells you that it wasn't enough.



And you feel like the world's biggest fool

because the secrets he was concealing behind that smile

and the musings he carefully masked with his jokes

and the mixed signals he threw your way

with his casual compliments, easy teasing, borderline flirting

and the feelings resonating behind his sweet gestures

will forever remain a mystery.

And he wins when your mind plays them over

scrutinising them for the signs you missed and the red flags you ignored

the hints that maybe you were starting to fall

for the game he was playing

and you wonder why you didn't catch on

that you were just a pawn on his chessboard

and then you wonder why you even have to wonder that at all

and then starts the spiral of doubt and cynicism and the bitter tirade

and this is when he truly wins

because now you have convinced yourself that this is how it will always be

that you will always be played for the fool

and you'll be damned if you let yourself be entered for round two.



He wins

when you lose faith

in yourself

and in everything you have been praying for

and your heart is no longer feeling it

or believing in it

and your actual soulmate deserves better

because when you meet him

it won't be the confident, cocky attitude that has you falling head over heels

but he'll be just as nervous as you

just as tentative

and just the right touch of terrified

of the cosmic connection you know isn't in your head

not this time




and that's when you know


that you win.




You won when he walked away from you and made space for the one who is everything he was

and so much more

because he was just a shadow of the real thing

and my God was the real thing worth the wait

and you were always going to win

because he wasn't deserving of you

or ready for you

his hands not worthy

of touching the something-special in your heart that makes you, you

he was never the one

destined to shift the atoms of your Universe

and he wasn't the one

whose footsteps would match yours

his heart and soul and stars

not written to be aligned with yours

because you are worth more than everything you thought he was


And it’s why it's time to call checkmate

and dethrone his crown

because it wasn't a game for you.

But you win, anyway.

I am giving God the silent treatment.

He calls five times a day. I ignore the commandment to talk.

When He calls in the morning, I sleep in.

It goes to voicemail in the afternoon.

I lose the signal in the evening.

And cannot connect when I watch the sun set.

I have an early night and am in half slumber when the call comes through at night.



Truth is, I don't really feel like talking to Him.

I am stewing in bitterness, resentment, frustration. And I need someone to blame.

I guess I'm rebelling - but why does it feel like I am the only one losing.

He is too graceful, too merciful to call me out on my silence.

He doesn't stop calling. And I don't stop ignoring.

But the silence is gnawing at me, so much so, that I fear it's going to swallow me whole.

I feel His absence more than He likely feels mine.



And yet.

He doesn't stop calling.

I don't stop ignoring.



With each cycle of night and day, I lose myself

My faith waning with the waning of the moon.

I tried to talk to Him last night.

I could hear Him listening. Not saying a word, just waiting.

But I didn't quite know what to say. So I hung up.

And didn't dare try again.



Shame has taken root, replacing the anger with something much deeper and so much more hurtful.

A numbing realisaton that I am not worthy to be listened to. Not worthy for forgive-and-forget.

His messages say otherwise.

He reminds me that He is the most forgiving. The most merciful.

That indeed He is near and that He listens - and answers.

He always answers.

And I know that the wavering connection I am trying to rekindle is no fault of His but fault only of my own.

Because He never left. I just drifted.



Take one step towards me and I will take ten towards you. Walk towards me and I will run towards you, He says.



And my hardened heart cracks.

The tightness in my chest eases.

His call reverberates through my heart

My soul raising its sleepy head when the melody of His words filters through


And when I finally, finally answer His call, I am home.

I am home.

I am home.

the hospital walls whisper Death's name
i feel Him
lurking beneath my bones
in the shadows of what they call terminal illness
slowly stealing each breath of mine as if it is my last
but don't we all come with an expiry date
a ticking time bomb lying dormant in our blood
each ready to detonate in their own way, in their own time
when the clock hits a specific hour
at a specific minute
at a specific second
down to the very millisecond at which it has been designed to explode

they tell me about a scientific breakthrough
"life-saving", they call it
but tell me, do any of us really hold the power to save a life

i refuse it

i refuse to look in the mirror
and see that i have morphed into just another statistic
just another figure for the world health organisation to publish
i have become the "one in three..."
have joined the ranks of thousands who have been reduced to just a number
and i refuse to accommodate it

they call it denial
i call it acceptance
because i do not want to embrace with open arms
a modern miracle
that is no miracle at all
because no miracle can prolong life

i am dying
at the same rate i was
before drugs and dosages became the only language i spoke
and no translator in the world could possibly slow it down
despite how loudly they claim it
my time has been written
introduction, main body, conclusion
complete with acknowledgements, references and bibliography
and a deadline extension is a myth i would be fool to believe

i am more than my diagnosis, symptoms, prognosis
i am more than estimated percentages and calculated risks
and just another occupied hospital bed
i may be hanging in the delicate balance between life and death
but aren't we all
because my scale could very well tip in favour of life
while yours tips in favour of death
and yet it was me against whom the odds were stacked

and tell me again about this scientific breakthrough
that could have changed it all
or do you not see that we are trying to chase time
we do not have

i do not want to spend my final months, weeks, days
confined to hospital beds and operating theatres
having what is left of my life
dictated by the prodding of needles and the invasion of tubes
having only murky white walls to fill my imagination
while the static of daytime tv dulls the silence
when i could be gazing at the bluest of skies or a star-riddled night
feeling the breeze of the ocean on my face or the sand in my hair
tasting the candied sugar of melting candyfloss
and hearing the ruckus of the world spinning
as it slowly tilts on its axis
taking me closer to the moment at which i let the last breath pass between my lips
knowing that i lived to be more
than the thing that took it
that i savoured the ticking minutes
not counting them or trying to add to them
but i lived them

and i won.

It hangs in the air, the metallic stench of blood like crushed copper mixed with acrid smoke and the sharp chemical tang of poison. It stings as I breathe in and my lungs burn.

Blood. There is blood everywhere.

And the screams. The screams vibrate against my ear drums until I fear they will burst.

Maybe that will be a mercy. It will be a welcome end to the ear-shattering screech of the mother clinging to her only child as he takes his last breath, the wails of a father who carries the broken bodies of his daughters, sounds that cannot possibly be human for they are laced with so much anguish, a pain that reverberates through my bones and snaps the threads of sanity.

I stumble through the rubble, searching for signs of life.

All I see is war. The slaughtered bodies of innocents make me stagger against a wall and I shut my eyes, desperately hoping that I am walking through a bloodied nightmare that will cease to exist when I open them again. But no, I am still in a war zone and I cannot unsee the carnage that lies at my feet.

Torn limbs. Expressions of the dead lost in the ghost of a scream, upended in a mess of blood and bone. Chalk-white faces that have been drained of life and blood.

My feet catch on bodies. Body after body after body. Lifeless things, scattered haphazardly across a land they once called home, not knowing that they were building their lives on a landmine.

I sway, a veil of black threatening to descend as coloured spots fill my vision but I have to keep moving. Life. Please, God, let there be life somewhere in this field of the dead.

Dust and debris and death. I am walking through a river of corpses. The battered bodies that are splayed across the shattered ground are small. Too small.

I collapse.

And come to.

I cannot breathe.

I think of my kid back home. I wonder how sheer chance - or luck, or destiny, or some miracle I do not deserve - gave him a life halfway across the world untouched by the stuff of nightmares. I wonder how he could just as easily have found himself in this little hell, his childhood burnt to the ground, his family ashes amid the explosions, his eyes windows to a shattered soul.

I wonder how it is that he wakes to clouds of candy floss pink floating in a bubblegum blue sky instead of waking to a cloud of smoke, the drop of a bomb and the roaring of planes overhead in a chaos of fire and tear gas and collapsed buildings.

I wonder when the bodies that stretch on for miles stopped believing and instead welcomed death with open arms.

I wonder when they stopped putting their hope in the hands of those who do not care.

I wonder if they will forgive the world that watches through blind eyes and sends thoughts and prayers through dead hearts.

I wonder if, when God asks them why they do not want to forgive, they will say that Syria became a cemetery void of mourners.

I wonder if God Himself will refuse to forgive.

And I wonder. I wonder about the global outrage that would colour television screens if these bodies had white skin and blonde hair and blue eyes and were pooled in a river of blood on soil in another part of the world.

I wonder how the mounting pile of massacred lives does not spike an international outcry, nor does it commandeer international intervention.

I wonder how one human life does not equal another. How the hundreds of children's lives that soak the soil red does not even remotely equate to the value of the life of my son tucked away safely in his bed thousands of miles away.

I wonder how we so easily discard lives.

But, after all, this is war.

And I have to ask.

It doesn't take much to wage a war. How many lives does it take to end one?


- 27.2 // the bloodbath of Eastern Ghouta, Damascus