This is the worst of our ways of remembering – this tendency to prod the crust of anecdote in the hope of releasing a gush of piping-hot symbolism.

The world won’t get more or less terrible if we’re indoors somewhere with a mug of hot chocolate.

Konrad had been right to say barriers were made of metal that could turn fluid when touched simultaneously by people on either side.

Why didn’t you stay?” she had whispered against the unyielding stone. Why didn’t you stay? She pressed the berry against her lips. Why didn’t I ask you just one more time to stay? Sajjad stood up quietly and walked over to her. “There is a phrase I have heard in English: to leave someone alone with their grief. Urdu has no equivalent phrase. It only understands the concept of gathering around and becoming ‘ghum-khaur’ – grief-eaters – who take in the mourner’s sorrow.

He put his arm around me. That was all. He put his arm around me and we didn’t say a word.

Those Genes Could Have Been Mine.

Why didn’t you stay?’ she has whispered against the unyielding stone. Why didn’t you stay? She pressed the berry against her lips. Why didn’t I ask you just one more time to stay.

In his prison poems, the bars on his windows are merely the grid through which he sees shooting stars, each lash of a whip is a reminder of the insecurity of tyrants, and a rumour that orders for his execution have been dispatched is reason to weep for the executioner.

I will not be in here for ever, I promise. All metaphors need to come up for air. When I can bear no more of separation, when I have learnt all that absence can teach me of desire, the walls will shimmer and I will step out of the mirage, into your arms, to lose myself and find myself.

Character is just an invention, but it’s an invention that serves as both reason and justification for our behaviour. – Broken Verses.