Fitting
poised as summer in the center/of a cold house, yellow joy/in the midst of blues, a girl/at a woman’s time of descendance.
December 2022
Patterns
she thought, now i am not a mother/not a wife, but force, annihilation/havoc and ruin
Lately I Can Only Watch Two Things
Listen to the gravel and see how each/clink of glass finds a beat in my starving/heart.
Endless Nights
The moon could be with me/like an old lover,/but romance is dead,/so I must stay awake,/alone.
A Woman in Public, from Karachi to London
Our bodies give us away, regardless of what we wear or how we behave outwardly; our bodies give us away because we can’t breathe until we step foot inside our safe spaces.
Spotlight: Alexandra Gallagher
TMS co-editor, Zahra Hamdulay, interviews artist Alexandra Gallagher about her creative process.
The Essence of Womanhood
Even as they are engulfed in the vast and bleak pits of sorrow, women are to prioritize their izzat and the delicacy of the khandaani ties over the vacancy and wrath in their own selves—to remain quiet against their will when someone complains about the lack of aloo in their biryani, about the chai being too cold.
Like Plates Thrown in the Air
After supper/he sang to her. Even/the dog listened.
My Nose Was God’s Afterthought
my nose is sitting in the centre/of this poem like a prey waiting/to be devoured
Duty free shop
A haiku.