Diamonds in Glass Bowls

Guest post by the crazy pretty blogger girl (aur meri duur ki rishtedaar), Osheen Fatima. 

'Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?'

Sometimes, I feel sassy. I'm sure you understand. I feel sassy, and that makes me carefree. If you were a glass half empty kinda person, you'd use the word 'careless', but I really do not aim to be your (half empty) cup of tea right now. On my sassy days, I pop a yellow Piano pen in my mouth, and a hat on my head (or a tea cosy, whatever's nearest) and I play cards with my boys (the younger siblings, of course) and we all talk in our various accents, because we're sassy and we're cool, and that's what such people do. Sometimes I sit with these two girls I barely talk to anymore, and we act out music videos, and paint each other's faces. By the end of the day, my lips are stained blue, or my tongue is green, or my eyes are red. These sassy days let their presence be known. After one such episode, I sustained minor burns on my arm from over zealous straightening irons. Over time, the burns turned purple and , 3 years later, I have a crescent shaped mark that only I can see. It will remind me, till the end of my days, that I possess the ability to be wild, and joyous. It is my outspoken, free wheeling, unthinkingly beautiful youth marked upon my body, and I will carry it to my grave and it will be my testimony to a life (maybe well) lived when I appear in front of God in my earthly body.

A few days, I feel it is so lovely to be born a me. A girl in Lahore in this home. Because how else would I have met these wild monkeys, who say it is okay to hoot at beautiful things (even if they are mostly beautiful boys), and who hold legitimate contests to see who gives the best hugs with ME as the judge? How did I get so lucky? I've met this fearless woman, who showed me tolerance and patience by bruising my palms black and blue, and this class 2 baby who taught me to climb trees and monkey bars and when we got older how to climb the rungs of every tall ladder placed in front of me. I've met this girl who understands the language I speak only in my head, and have I told you about these two dummies who gave me reason to try, and be better? My two mothers, and my baby, and the reckless older sister, the lights I can bitch to without reprimand. I am a girl, and a plastic tiara lets me be a princess. I am a girl so I get showered with kisses and everyday affection. I am allowed to be gorgeous, I am allowed to feel whatever way I want, and if I give up in protest, if I stop being me, the world will fall apart. This is power, and I have not realized it fully yet. I hold hearts in one palm, and pens in the other. Oh, how glorious to be me. To be you. To be able to show love, to be able to feel sexy, to be able to cry, and birth babies, REAL HUMAN BEINGS, and be brave for everyone else. How joyous to be girls, how great to be human royalty.

Every now and then, I feel lonely. I feel stuck, in a glass bowl, and I'm running out of oxygen. And usually what I do, is I roll over, and breathe through the one I love, who is living his life like I wish I could live mine, who is letting me see things I cannot afford to see, and who is letting me be better than I am. Most times, his laughing heart reminds mine to scream and shout with glee at being here, at not being born as fish who have no memories, or birds who flap their wings so eerie and detached. He is he, and I am I, and if the world were different, we'd still find each other, sitting in a cafe in Venice, or bathing in a fountain somewhere in Karachi, and we wouldn't get along because we are SO DIFFERENT, and so wrong, but we'd be together and he'd become he because I am me.

And it is Lahore that bears witness to my youth, to my heartbreak, to the love I am surrounded with. I will always be walking the streets of Fortress on a chilly winter night, I will always be sitting in CTC, gossiping and eating battered fries, and then I will go and eat falooda in a Mehran with 5 other girls. Muharram in dabbi bazaar, clothes from Liberty, the slopes of Lahore Zoo, the city where everyone actually knows your name. Sundays will always be halwa puri channay, I will always have my tea with history and beauty, and the sound of 21 canons will wake me up gentler than any loving whispers, to remind me that I owe my soul, my body, my being to a battered, mad country called Pakistan.

This is my happiness at it's surface. This is my heart, these are the things I have tattooed across my mind. This is not a story, this is not a tale, this is real, it is now, and it is a reminder. To forever celebrate what is mine. To remember I am a human, and not a fish, not a bird. I have responsibilities, I have thoughts, I have picked the right card out of a deck of billions so I cannot let my poker face falter. This is thank you, I'm sorry I don't say it enough.

Osheen's own blog: http://osheenay.blogspot.com/