What My Teachers Taught Me

My math teacher taught me that

The years of effort our teachers put in

are walls of whiteboards filled with workings

of cascading equations, deciphering the universe

and how the journey is just as important as the answer

My english teacher taught me that

The love our teachers have for us

cannot be contained in the libraries of the world

driving us to read and write and write and read,

we made friends out of books, and lived a thousand lives

My science teacher taught me that

The respect teachers deserve is tantamount to

the infinite space between atoms and

the earthshattering energy it would take to pry them apart

akin to a mother losing grip of her child

The lessons our teachers teach us

Are never for just the classroom

Never just for passing

They are the whetstone that sharpen us

The guided fingers that shape us

And the message, to pass along those lessons

That have made us


Performed at Dheere Bolo's Open Mic at AQS, Islamabad, 3/18/2016

My Answer to Everything

In the far-flung future, in a galaxy not too far away
I will be sitting in the space-garden of my space-house
enjoying a space-coffee
from Starbucks, obviously
when the reporter-droid who is chrono-logging my thrilling life-story
will ask me about my relationship with my one and only

I will gaze at my beloved and
huff the deepest of huffs
bust out my space-ukelele
and play a ballad which would mean something like this

I fell in love on her first word.

We met at a support group for neurotic writers
while a revolution we couldn't care less about brewed outside

i came in wielding fan-fictions from multiple universes
content to sit cross-legged, beaming at my own geekiness

she came in with a lightsabre

she sliced away my preconceived notions of
poetry only being for emo hipsters in poorly-lit rooms belting out cliched moroseness
she showed me raw, un-apologetic honesty
she force-choked my heart that day

the next time i saw her, i had my blue suede shoes on
dancing a merry jig, all hooked on a feeling
and through our infinitely interwined fingers
she called me her Star Lord,
she was already my Pryde

And i'll strum about all the saturday nights
we spent galavanting across all of time and space
no adventure too big, no life too small 
she is my brilliant TARDIS and i am her Doctor
especially when the clock strikes ten and noon

i would follow it up with a power-chord
of all the times fictional characters had us going
"Noooo" and "Whaaaat" in equal measure
and how she is the Holmes to my Watson
even though she is the real doctor
the Frodo to my Sam
and how the One Ring is a metaphor for like life or something
and how sparkly pretty elves are

and when my epic space-ballad of the ages is coming to an end after at least a 40 minute solo
i'll breathe deep
and look at the one who was with me through it all
and will be with me for countless more
i'll say that all of that means just one thing:
she is my 42.

Mumbles - my first slampoem

Sometimes, words get stuck in my mouth.
Like a sock caught in a washine's spin cycle.
Yes, I call washing machines washines because... duh?
And I'm filled with words
I make up, dig up, read, smell and see 

that my tongue doesn't want to be
But you see, I only have one meagre opening
And so many words struggling to rush out
And the custom officer my palate plays indulges in bureaucratic lethargy: never opening the gates to the masses
Only letting a select few; the worthy, the suitable, the appropriate, out at a time
But sometimes
The refugees waiting their turn to escape this mouth's wet confines, muster their numbers and swarm the gates
The fat officer can barely, luxuriously lift himself before he is inundated with words and letters rushing out through honesty's irrigation
But see
This mouth 

is still small
My words will get trapped
so when they come out
Sometimes half
Sometimes all at once, know that they are
All aching to make that journey
From one hole to the next.