Poetry

the etymology of love

Uzayer Masud

06 Apr 2024 — 1 min read

i. dhaka unfolds me with its stenches
traffic and what-
not

ii. the sun spills on the sidewalk like runny yellow yolk
folk music i hear on dirt sometimes holds
my attention elastic

iii. beneath five floors two children make a paradise out of
one pile of sand. five fingers one hand a slap on the tyre makes it run faster

iv. i see the leaves break the skin of the water we call a
lake, unmade of tongues

you pause more often now

i think of you in your full humanity
and all the women that suffered before you
whose memories you carry
in the wrinkles that now adorn your face

i may not be the daughter you wanted, the love you
once lost,
or a steadfast pillar of emotional glue that sustains
you

i write unfinished poetry in a language you were
beaten into memorising
but how do i tell you i am, i am, i am?
what abrahamic glorification of poverty is enough to
avenge the injustices of your childhood?

the earth calls unto you and bangladesh is now dead
whatever history i carry is within your memories and
soon they will fade too
you will forget them if you have nobody to talk to

the summer (2021) i learned what gold means

I. it was the month my father left and my mother learned how to laugh again i sat down for lunch in the same construed table with trinkets collected over years as she and i pulled the afternoon apart with a fork she always wore a gold bracelet dulled by

Nazrul's Immaculate Rizz - My Experience with Bangla and Internet Culture

My relationship with the language I was born with has changed significantly over time, and this particular metamorphosis has come at a time of self-actualisation as I grow into adulthood. I strongly believe that language shapes the way we perceive the world. There is the English I speak and breathe,

of wanting to go home

a thousand leaves, more than a thousand in fact green on brown on green on brown, waving, unanimously swing in open defiance of my frustration with this godforsaken land and perhaps for the first time in years i feel like a child bruiseless, in awe, with a tinge of melancholic

mangeshkar piggyback

panchhi banoon udti phiru mast gagan mein To be a bird and fly in the magnificent skies you tell me to live life for the living aaj main aazaad hoon duniyaa ke chaman mein And today I am free in the garden of the world and not the capitalist imperial

Read more

the summer (2021) i learned what gold means

Nazrul's Immaculate Rizz - My Experience with Bangla and Internet Culture

of wanting to go home

mangeshkar piggyback