Lahore, What Happened—
Everybody wants to leave you now
and maybe they should
so you can grow in yourself
a free tree without the discourse.
Joy is easy: dub smog
as fog, summer as a season,
dust as the dirt we were built from.
I remember my first bright blue sky
was at a parking lot
outside Toronto Pearson
where I mistook my first
breath of fresh air
for freedom.
No one has held me
like you have, Lahore.
So please-- don’t cry.
For this is acid.
The monsoon burn my eyes,
flood the streets, swell up
every mosquito in sight.
Remember the hail? The snow?
Every winter we endorse
God, call His every warning
miracle, His every nature
natural. I burn against blazing
gasoline, layer my skin
in the skins of authentic
kids and lambs, try to keep
warm in all this cloud and sand.
Remember, you are not fit
for snow, that these flakes
will one day drown you,
will one day poison you,
will one day make everyone leave you.
Lahore, was my asthma,
my phlegm, my consistent lack,
because of you?
I held a breath so clogged,
my chest begged its acid
to burn a hole for a way out.
We have thickened the dusk,
killed food and shelter
for food and shelter.
We have become the smokers,
the juul puffers, the hot duds,
our love, a love, like love,
dying after each and every
practiced misuse.
Ayesha Raees identifies herself as a hybrid creating hybrid poetry through hybrid forms. Raees currently serves as an Assistant Poetry Editor at AAWW's The Margins and has received fellowships from Asian American Writers' Workshop, Brooklyn Poets, and Kundiman. Raees's first book of poetry, 'Coining The Wishing Tower' won the Broken River Prize hosted by Platypus Press and judged by Kaveh Akbar, and will be forthcoming in March 2022. From Lahore, Pakistan, Raees is a graduate of Bennington College, and currently lives in New York City. Her website is: www.ayesharaees.com