Seven Poems – Fizza Abbas

The Diva (A Poem by Men For a Woman)

A string,
in the process of becoming,
takes all the chances,
good, bad, ugly,
whatsoever;

She is in the pursuit of evolution,
for her, learning engulfs the word ‘judgement’,
happy because this is the only word
that resonates with her process.

Years pass by,
and she is still buckled into her own self,
still strapped by her charming, bubbly nature—

An only constant that she can afford,
she still yearns to evolve herself,
not realizing how many sheaths of evolution
her life already ensembles.

When she will realize,
she will start unfurling herself,
and in the process of deconstruction,
she will become an identity of identification —

Not herself!

Gratitude

What a thrill –
Shreds of flesh instead of a blood
splattering all over the floor.

Chicken broth is ready
Call the barren woman from the mosque.

A Journey of a Poem

I look at a slice of a yellow-red mango
settled quietly on an orange plate:
a glittering bauble on a worn-out chain

The veins in my neck pop out,
scars glint in the flashlight
This culprit has too many crimes under its belt

I conceal it in my tawny brown attic,
the tiny hippopampus, as my little brother says,
Words like treasure, erratic, fine, jewel find a place

My desk has a stack of papers,
A pile of poetry books, dictionaries and an ashtray.
The cigarettes hold a funeral; I’m the corpse.

Chamomile Tea/miscarried baby

Ingredients/parts

Honey/Bitter colostrum
Apple slices – 2/blood spots – my heart!
Boiled water – 2 cups/dry fluid – my child!
Chamomile flowers – 2 tbsps/wilting rose – traces of red

Directions
Take out the ingredients and place them on your counter./I’m lying naked in a labour room. Soak the flowers with cold water./Waiting for my flower to be soaked. Add hot, boiling water to the teapot./I tell them water’s boiling, baby, alive. Add apple slices into the pot, chop with a wooden spoon./Then remove my silverskin from ribs. Whisk in chamomile flowers and 2 cups of boiling water./’I can’t see anymore’, ‘my ba-, ‘’do-’, ‘’ple,’’ ‘VVVEEE’, ‘pls’. Let it steep for 2-3 minutes./They say it’s my new life. Pour tea into two cups, enjoy it with honey./Little do they know, it’s the first living funeral of the dead.

Nameless emoji

I often found it strange,
they call happy face a smiley
but a sad face, a face.

but now I know why.

In a rearview,
It’s all pretty much the same.
A face, just a face, my face,
a phase, a jok–.

I’m optimistic.

If Mirage were a philosopher

I fight my own battle
to gauge my inner strength
(and) protect myself from a shell
I’m encapsulated in—
a cocoon of self-doubt that mystifies
my own entity
in the eyes of those who profess
they know me
with such confidence
my inner-demons look at them
with a condescending sneer,
they think they have got a competitor
that might give them a hard time,
so they make more efforts
to win the duel;
with each move, I lose one bit of life
leaving my family with an illusion
that I committed suicide.

Creation is a wrestling match

A wrestler in the ring
attacked by another wrestler
showing the same feats of courage
opponent
against opponent

not to win the battle
but to prove the identity
others render supercilious

for him, as equivalent as a law
an object, not a subject
in the story created
a ring is his identification mark
he captivates the attention of a referee
gets confused in a conundrum
by the object
the object gets protection against its opponents
in the arms of perplexity

(a subject is so insecure within itself
that it needs the shelter of object
to exist)

both meet over the course of time,
proving the existence of each other
the armour of destruction.

Union bows down,
Opposition enjoys a deep slumber.
New world in the making!

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Fizza Abbas is a Freelance Content Writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her goal is to get published in 10k journals by 2030. Her work, so far, has been accepted on 64 platforms. She can be reached at @fizzawrites on Twitter.

Banner: Fuse by Robert Frede Kenter