The city comes awake like it has never been asleep because this city has never learnt how to
We keep our windows closed or we risk crisp hair and the gentle, scorching touch of the sun upon
our foreheads; the sunscreen has left streaks across my cheeks
Sometimes when I drive, the rickshaws decide to trample me or maybe it is the motorcycles that
swarm upon you, a flock of bees and you are honey perhaps i should have stayed at home instead
But this traffic is a river, it is a migration home, this traffic has learnt to fight itself a path and forgo
patience what are traffic lights to gods what are straight lines to chaos, sometimes when you swerve
around a bus all you hear are prayers
We are a drought for a year and a half, parched tongues and cracked lips maybe the vaseline will
help maybe the tin isn’t empty maybe you can take another bath but then the skies open up and
they know no moderation
Karachi is not cold and yet karachi is not gentle it is monsoon rains until we are afloat until the water
has flooded our lungs until it has washed us free of sin karachi knows no moderation
It is skies that are ablaze and skin that prickles, the car seat has burnt me enough times and yet I still
brave the outside still I have to brave the outside but my god when the sun goes down and the sky
becomes a painting the pastel colours have me hanging out a window breathless the pastel colours
have painted my room pink
The thin line between love and hate and karachi has taken refuge just under it the thin line between
home and a prison how can you love the water that laps at its feet and hate the homes that protect
you from it how can you walk across a beach and realize man has forsook it so you discard the five
wrappers you found and you apologise to the ocean maybe if you ask desperately enough it will
swallow us whole
Fire that was the first act of betrayal or perhaps it was when cain struck his brother dead or maybe it
was when your friends went for parathas to chai wala and your mom said no
Karachi is men that can’t decide if they want to stare or not and children that knock on your
windows at traffic lights we have perfected the art of a straight face and unwavering eyes how can
you pretend there is no one beside you maybe we should try theatre tomorrow
Cars that do not know to keep their high beam off or maybe they have forgotten this is the city that
flashes a light seven times before it remembers to use the horn maybe it is politer or that we hate
the sound just as much as the next car over and yet neither moves and so you have to honk the horn
anyway, this traffic has learnt to swerve around itself after all
Karachi is a raised corner at the side of a busy road and the distant sound of azaan how we fight at
every dinner and yet strangers gather as one and we are the same in prayer how you are angry at
your father but the sight of a cat outside the door you just slammed behind you softens your heart
how you cannot wait for winter even if it lingers barely a month
Sometimes the sun decides to hide and we decide what a lovely day we decide perhaps this time we
should have pakoras and chai on a rooftop somewhere, karachi is nothing if not rooftops. it is all the
plans we make and forget it is the heat that ruins this hair I spent all of ten minutes on. you say
that’s nothing, you should see mine after I take a bath. I see my smile reflected in a new necklace I
bought before the rust overtakes it and we shake our fists at that damned salty, sea. once the ocean
swallowed a book I was reading and I don’t think I should have fished it out
The mosquitos have never learnt to be quiet or maybe it is the quiet ones that leave you swearing,
how the wind barely whispers sometimes and we have learnt to wave our arms around to keep the
insects away. there was a centipede in my house the other day and I killed a leaf to save it
Karachi is an escape and yet you are stuck in traffic do we park in the basement or choose the valet
we can never decide. it is the malls that have nothing and everything at once. the billboards have
only gotten bigger and emptier and an eyesore all at once, it is a labyrinth of streets we have learnt
by heart and that one woman on a motorcycle I wish was me
How I have grown here and hated here and yet I do not mind waking up for another day, how it is
mine but has never been mine how it belongs to itself and yet we argue over it. I will wake up
tomorrow and take a plane and karachi will never have existed at all
Karachi I will not remember and yet I cannot forget.
