Toubib Or Not To Be

I want to be emaciated, not of flesh but of need. My hands are so cold. I keep wondering if they will ever learn warmth, as if warmth were something earned, something the body could retain. Everywhere you touch me, my skin ignites. Flames, sudden and violent, as if I mistake burning for salvation. I confuse your warmth with interest, with care, with something that belongs to me. But it doesn’t. It never did. It is warmth I borrow, pressed briefly against my chest before it fades. Intimacy gives the illusion of belonging. It tells me I am held when I am only close. Each kiss feels like survival, like I’m siphoning life from your mouth to nourish what’s starving in me. When it fails, when nothing inside me wakes up, I kiss you again, believing insistence might become resurrection. You touch me and the desire to disappear loosens. This is easier than repairing what’s broken. For a moment, the void quiets. For a moment, I hate myself less. When our fingers intertwine, I want you endlessly....

Parents are forgotten gods. My first act of worship was not a prayer but irrevocable love for my parents. It was easy to cast parents as gods when they were your eyes to a new life. The slow movement of your mouth as your teeth grind food, the small steps that you take confidently in a stride now, the smile that goes too wide because there is no shame in showing a moment of joy: all of my parents’ teachings live through me. I was their New Testament, their Vedas, their Torah, and so were they to me. Their voices wrestled in my head at every decision. What would my parents do? In moments of fear, I reached for the safe blanket of parental security to take cover in. Their ideas seemed so big and inconceivable. My inexperience ascended them to the pedestal of gods. I sought their blessing as earnestly as any believer. Heaven was the small smile of approval. Hell was the disappointment concealed behind indifference. It was important to maintain this balance, albeit impossible; my brain fou...

Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, paintings, or films. Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking at all. Maybe because it’s easier that way, easier not to wonder why certain sunsets make our throat tighten, or why an old song can feel like a memory we never knew we’d buried. They’re busy living, or trying to, so they’re not really concerned with Plath’s or Dickinson’s poems, or anybody’s poems. Poetry is for dreamers, a hobby for people with empty calendars. Artists eat dreams for breakfast, but they don’t. So they stay on the surface, filling the hours with meaningless conversations and repetitive tasks, letting their hearts sink in the familiar numbness that’s been running their lives for far too long. So no, if you ask them, human creativity doesn't matter, or maybe it does to those who still remember how to feel . Until, one day, their mom dies, they lose a friend, their home doesn’t feel like home anymore, somebody breaks their heart , they don’...

A large ceremonial tent planted in the middle of a dark, crowded street; it's a wedding, a love celebration, I couldn't help but wonder whether the people inside truly feel happy. It raises a deeper question: Is happiness something we show to others, or something we feel within ourselves? Marriage is a happy day, a simple, sacred moment, a bond shared between two people and witnessed by family, friends, and neighbors. It used to be a communal blessing, not a competition. Weddings nowadays have slowly turned into showcases: who invites more people, who spends more money, who looks wealthier, who appears happier. The meaning has shifted from forming a partnership to displaying a performance. And then there’s the tent itself, a massive structure blocking a narrow street, separating those inside from the rest of the neighborhood. It creates a temporary world where the couple and their guests are visually shielded from reality. Yet behind that elaborate fabric, many are stressed...

She had to admit that there was a beauty to the still body held in her arms. The soft fur losing the warmth that was embedded in it, one of life’s last desperate attempts to cling to its skin. The deer’s eyes were wide open, slightly watery at the edges, as if they were stuck right at the moment when tears were formed. It was still too early for the coldness to settle. For the numbness to reach deep into the bones and turn the flesh rotten.  She will always be afraid of herself before taking the first bite, her fingers clutching the stomach of a creature whose only mistake was existing at the exact time and place of the hunt. Hunger rumbled in her stomach, reminding her of the reason she came here, guided by nothing but a dull moonlight, small feet scrunching on the forest floor. She unwrapped the knife Sophie gave her, tucked the handkerchief into her dress’s collar, and got to work. The blade ran smoothly along the skin, uncovering the pungent smell of blood and entrails. She f...

It must be strange for you to hear what I have to say when you could easily step on me and continue walking without even once looking down. “ Did the tree even exist if no one was there to hear its falling, ” they say, but the tree is always there. A tree needs no attention to be noticed, for she always stands high and mighty, basking in sunlight before scattering those same rays through her branches to fall upon us, the measly creatures on the ground like blessings she no longer cares to claim. They should have rather made that saying about us: does a pebble even exist if the sound of it tapping against your shoe isn’t heard? But alas, pebbles went unnoticed even by old folk as they gathered acorns, feathers, seashells, and roots to weave them in parables stitched into truths. But no one bent down for a pebble to claim. We are, after all, too modest for myth, too unpolished for fame, too honest to weaponize into wisdom or blame. And perhaps that is all there is to say about my kind...