Kash Baloch — Poetry, Prose & Survival

Your love was a cameo; a supporting character to my storyline. Transient, in every role just like an inexpensive wine. No plot twists or cannonballs, a mere filler to buy extra time. Yet somehow I'm missing you, but I know that's not a crime. Lights, camera, action Act one: and you were already mine. Your charm caused chain reactions, audiences clung onto your every line. Around the intermission, we snuck away to unwind. But like most of my romances, ours was the tragic kind. So, I take a bow and watch as the curtains fall, this is our final act, and, at least we had a ball, silence as we fade to black.

When repressed emotions reach the surface, they crash through my floodgates, like raging bulls in thin, red curtains. They seep into my bloodstream with poison worse than gunpowder bullets. No words remain to ease the suffering, that stains my soul with spice & sorrow. Saffron shames me like a scarlet letter, so I submit to its turmeric terror. I'm not a slave until it beats me into bonded labour; it's on those days I wish that I were braver. Like all things else, it fades away; time has always been my sweetest saviour.

I defy danger; feel the energy of strangers & so I remain, an endearing explorer. Through every endeavour, in all my alluring adventures, I grow wiser; I prosper. I blossom, like Banyan trees in tropical, Thai weather. As astute as Asoka, or perhaps even Alexander, I stay as resilient as the rebellious oleander. I'm not afraid, won't take 'no' for an answer. Never a victim, even when I've been preyed on. With each taste of triumph, I try even harder. I am a warrior.  I am the commander.

Aching like broken backs on beasts of burden, or perhaps the over-confident wrists of unsuccessful surgeons. Heavier than the hearts of ex-lovers who are still hurting, more calloused than the splintered fingers of soldiers no longer serving. Preyed on but never self-pitying, like idle hands no longer earning. Thicker than a theatre's final curtains. Oh, how it burns like my throat when it first tasted bourbon. It is the fraying thread of fickle turbans, and also acquired skills, as they're emerging, like new languages that we're still learning. Regardless of the fruit it bears, there is one thing of which I'm certain; vulnerability's seeds grow differently in all our gardens.