Raazdaar/رازدار
(secretkeepers)

I am (re)learning a lost language
to speak to you in secret ways,
banished across a border
(yet hidden in our hearts)
this is how our people
learnt to love like art:
sweet nothings (electric)
eyes that linger (magnetic)
and all the softness
our subcontinent knows best.

Jaan-e-bahar/جان بہار
(the life of my garden)
Dildaar/دل دار
(the one who steals my heart)
Chitchor/چِت چور
(you come to me in secret)
Hamraaz/حمراز
(I keep your secrets well)
Shehenshah/شینشاہ
(king of kings)
can you
untie my mother tongue,
so I can spit my loving out.

Irada/ارادہ
(your intention)
(all this intimate attention)
Ishaare/اشارہ
(our secret glances)
(close tender dances)
Ada/ناز
(all the graces I conjure
to pull you closer)
Sazaa/سزا
(separations/complex situations)
Hawaa/حوا
(the wind between us)
Mehfil/محفل
a field of flowers
(as lions roared I whisper mysteries into your folds) (lower lip caressing earlobe)
(fingers tracing lines into a new continent
we had never explored)

Janaab, Huzur, Shehzada (my) Emperor.
I’ll let you reign over my interior kingdom,
make a sovereign territory of my skin,
mark borders, drink from rivers,
harvest salt, make your fortress.
(I’ll let you in)

manzur/منظور?
(If not) I’ll make a muse out of the wind
and a desert out of thirst.
(secular sovereign immortal)
(fearless)

I belong to myself first.