Daydreams, for Kashmir
Ira
Prologue
Tshopt, for silence.
like your Dal is a silent water of witness,
no ripple or murmur,
Durer, for distance
As in how do you measure the distance between
my night and your darkness
Anigaet, for (this) darkness.
Cith, for letter.
Because the cell phones and the
landlines are captured in Tshopt,
So instead, I write you a letter
Daydreams, for Kashmir
Kashmir is drowning, lover
one heavenly lake, swallowed
one sprawling mountain, devoured
a hundred forced-martyrs,
two nations claim
Survival is a stone-pelting game, lover
They have captured the dreamers
And their dreams
Now
there are empty skull caps
lining up for our hollow namaz
bodies bending on burning carpets
praying for death
Surrendering defeat.
Azaan is only a call to the terrorists, lover
children
clutching angry stones
in place of hope
or home
already state criminals
Identities only veils for warring souls
burqa-covered faces
eyes too no longer free to see.
We have occupied paradise, lover
Our country occupies their feet,
Their beautiful, rotting streets-
Love must be a gunshot wound
in our hallucinated boundaries
They hear the laughter of our bombs lover
a prisoners’ cinema
in their landless daydreams.