Kash Baloch — Poetry on Identity, Love, and Survival

Window shopping often combined patience, and flipping price tags  to find  out what cost too much, or not enough. And the identifiers on cleaning products  had saved my life on more than one inattentive occasion.  Without nutrition guides to remind me  that my thighs are getting wide behind me, I'd have ballooned at least a decade ago, since sugar and I were quite the delicious duo. But a label that has always irked me, as though it were meant to hurt me, was the one that could prevent me, from potentially meeting a kindred spirit, simply because they did not fit within the margins of my sexuality. Never one for restrictions, do not prohibit me unless you'll suffer my performance, labels are for soup cans, so why do I need to be butter basic boring? Taught to love and see beauty in all of the human race, it seemed much simpler to satisfy my carnal desires with men, than to appropriately court our counterparts for a coveted first date. So, it stayed this way for ...

Fluidity, that laps away at favourite finds; a predatory, poisoned ivy vine, that spreads like somber hues, and sorry news, a secret song of sadness, that snags on softer fabric, catching it inside its icy-grip, that tears and rips, like turpentine. Anger like this, is guillotine, that races wildly to cause a scene, enraged by novelty, an offence much worse than commodity. And as it melts, to ooze out from the room, just to retreat. It swallows the signs, and all the lights that line the city streets. I swear it gets so vibrant bright and blinding white that you would think the world had self-combusted, caught on fire, taken up pyromania-inspired admiration. Scarlet reds then black again, orange-dead, like ashen dread, burnt orange, just like the sky during an atomic bomb, yellows so bright and stark, it starts to spark, then white again, like roasted dust from cigarette butts, and all the ash is all that remains, of stories told, and memories of all the nights we'd ignite, under t...

In the water, I am beautiful; serene, when its sirens sing me into seabreeze slumber. But its rage can wreak havoc that roars then rips through roads and rocky mountains. Elemental eloquence, its ecosystem is a universe of underwater excellence. Aquatic artistry is evident in every detail, from insignificant algae to blue whales in all their breathtaking magnificence. Capable of capsizing acclaimed ocean liners that could never sink, or erasing entire continents whose Atlantean existence still remain an unsolved mystery to this day. Poseidon's power knows no limits, he could be both—the calm, but also the storm. Seamonsters, spinning cyclones, tsunamis, and hurricanes could just as simply become seashells, sandcastles or skipping stones. And in spite of all its splendour, we must always remember that no shipwreck or buried treasure is worth risking the wrath of rivers or the ocean's unpredictable nature.

I wrote you a four page letter, we've been back, back, and forth, and forth, I really needed somebody, and you showed me my worth. We rocked the boat like we were one in a million, and you made me feel like I was more than a woman. Hot like fire, when we started, and our love's still off the charts, we might need a resolution, if we can't reach the stars. You're the one I gave my heart to, so you better not let me down, if you can't be the one I can give my all to, you've got to tell me now so I can bounce. Are you feelin' me still, or do we dust ourselves off, and let it go? Were you just another one hit wonder, or are you feelin' me, yo? I can be your babygirl, you know I'll hold you down, but if you can't be straight with me, I've gotta get back on steady ground.

Big fucking deal, about  your sacrificing sheepiness of rescue ranger superhero. Career victim, like COVID, you dazzled when they gazed down at you with sympathy. Pucker up then pout as you play-up their pattern to protect and help the  poor, broken apex predators.  Waiting for the perfect instant, crimson, sinister scarlet stains  inside your sweater said it best. You slaughtered me, I'm soaked in burgundy, murderous; so what is perilous when the system we defend was designed to defeat us and break our spirits—BUT, we assume that it is broken, because it's fucking obvious, isn't it? Our governments love us, so much, they will always save us, from the very same destruction they designed to divide, conquer, and erase us.  Open up your eyes, just think it over, research their double-edged details, familiar strangers with the same secrets, a speck of seasonal sky spray is soon breaking news as senseless storms  siren their assault during CNN's  Apocalypse...

Losing you left me weightless, now I float through life, a spectre; a phantom made the day I woke to find you'd slipped away.

Set ablaze by an array of greys, that grazed my grace like the gaze of glazed, but gloomy, Sundays. Every memory had a melody, albeit one that made me muddy, then melted away my better moods. Trauma so toxic, it got sick, then terrorized me ten times a week,  just to teach me about adversity. Until one vibrant dawn when I screamed, "ENOUGH!" And shed the soiled skin  society sentenced me to keep. My spirit rose anew, reborn, again, rapt in raging red, unyielding yellows, and emancipating orange flames. I suppose I should've shared that I am still the same cyclical phoenix who strives to  stay alive, to survive, to thrive, who's surely  soared in every timeline yet.

Read between the lines— the words often left unsaid. Worries that weaken the warrior, exclamations of love that go  unheard because they begin  as quickly as they end. It is a shouted sermon of silence— like bated breath in a flute,  it hardly makes a sound. These memories were melodies, but now they're the ghosts  that haunt the carousel  of our unfamiliar fairground. 

Dear little Kashif, I want you to know that you are loved, that you are worthy, and that you are worthy of love. Regardless of how invisible you've let the vindictive voice within you convince you that you are; the opposite is true.  You light up the darkest rooms, and illuminate every unlit space you enter.   On the days you feel you are unimportant, when your every effort is met with rejection, just remember that you matter!   Your brilliance is unmatched, and brings a breath of fresh Rocky Mountain oxygen into every organism or atom it enlightens with its existence.   So what if you feel each emotion with such extreme conviction, whilst the other guys are brainwashed to believe that boys don't cry? And so what if you prefer playing house, with Barbie dolls instead of hitting sticks with balls?  Your way with words is a sport that other sorts will never even attempt.   Although society may question your flamboyance, and balk as you bak...

 I used to bend.  Melted into velvet  backdrops, like  couture. A formless figure; easily posed,  with fickle bone,  that floated across  the stage. The marionette me even made the frigid  melt.  But now, I fray. My timeless youth no longer ticks,  as sickness seared me with its brand.  Torture, in tremors, & aches so great I quaked,  like the open mouth  of a bellowing  grave.