my mother tells me

– Qais

My mother tells me to arrange my room

That the new patterns of item-keeping I come up with

Will tire me in my time of need

So I bend, I break, I mend that which is natural to me

I finally live like a human now

I wonder how many toes I have cut off

To fit the standard shoe

“Aha! A perfect fit”

Don’t worry, I don’t feel it anymore

It’s like I never even existed in those hues

My mother tells me to plan for my career

I never was ambitious- a flaw, as it was pointed out to me

“What was I to make of myself in the future??”

As if I wasn’t a person already

As if my existence was invalid until I was valuable

Valuable economically, of course

I envy those who have found their calling

“You were put down on earth to make Excel sheets, apparently”

Ah, protestant ethic, you plague my mind so very much 

My mother tells me routine will do me good

I should move like the hands of a clock- rhythmic, in the correct time, just the correct amount

I must bend my life energy, the erratic chaos that flows through me

Like Ganga flowing from the locks of Shiva

Into that which is proper, subdued

I must be measured, contained

Analysed, categorised, labelled

And put into boxes of “productive”

And “that which is wasted”

Me and my time are one and the same

I know time is money, but I am spending myself

I give myself for free

No, actually, at a loss

One social institution to the other

School, uni, work, marriage, death

I can see the path ahead

And yet I sit here wondering

If I will ever build up the courage

To get up and leave

I don’t do poetry

I write incomplete sentences

Break the rules of grammar

And put them in verticals like this

If poetry is indeed radical- and its essence is that

Which refuses to be captured by rules

Then yes, I am a poet, because,

who is not?

Love, Qais

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