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Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

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Pyaar, Mohabbat, Ishq

By Rimel Kamran

In the native tongue of my ancestors,
Love has three words

Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq
Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq

 Mera pyaar tumhaare li hai
My love is for you

Soft syllables spilled from my mother’s lips
Sweet as the golden nectar of mango lassi

The delicate parting of lips
Crafting poetry with vowel and breath

Pehli si mohabbat
First love

The dawn of a heart’s blooming
The birth of a heart’s withering

Fleeting memories sealed with broken tears
For this is bittersweet hope the heart cries

 Ishq-e-illahi
Love for Allah

Tender and raw
The bruised and torn search

His mercy, the ocean’s abundance
Where unspoken duas sail upon

Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq
Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq

 And thus, from native soil my ancestors laced
With swollen palms and nimble fingers

The rich tapestry of love
Bridal crimson kissing sunbaked auburn

Heartbeats woven with footsteps
Anguish woven with stillness

 Breath and lip interlacing
With accent and diction

To birth love in its wholeness
To birth love in its entirety

For love they believed
Was meant to be felt, not defined

Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq
Pyaar, mohabbat, ishq.

 

Rimel Kamran is a current junior and the Cincinnati Youth Poet Laureate. Her poetry aims to build community, celebrate diversity, and share her Pakistani-American identity. She hopes to share her love for poetry, especially with youth, and encourage them to seek the unheard poem within them. When she’s not writing she enjoys pursuing her interests in science and medicine.

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Issue 26

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