Kamna's Blog

If it happened the other way around If you outlived us And had to bear the loss of us from your life That would have been highly unjust It is with quiet deliberation that your kind live short lives. Who made us all knows you gave enough to your humans for a lifetime Enough joy, enough love, enough peace To carry us long after you left us. There will be no other dog like you Diego Although we may never meet again in this plane of existence  I look forward to chilling in the afterlife on a comfy couch To your gentle reappearance Soundlessly placing your ball right next to my lap And patiently looking up at me Mouth half open, tongue half out, eyes wide Front legs pawing at me What a delight,  can hardly wait for that sight You gave us more than we could ever give you, And it will take all our days to love you enough to only balance the scales. The human paradox  Where love grows with the tragedy of loss You will be missed beyond words, beyond tears, Through all the rest of ...

My soul has the memory of a tiny bird Untethered, unprompted, flying, unheard. Nonchalant, seemingly thoughtful pauses on window sills Are just mini breaks to check on human loved ones from a different lifetime. Or is it only a parallel timeline? A husband in flat 403, A mother in flat 501 after lefts two and rights three, A sister and father farther away beyond my flight radius. It's not in my nature to stay, Too much meandering raises suspicion. And after all I do have my own from this fate. I wonder if this tiny bird ever feels the soul tie memory of the flightless bird, The stationary curse of too much flying, too much stirred If I, unmoving, can recall flight, Can the flying recall the grace of staying upright?

I’ve got the hobbies of an enviable retiree, the luxury of leisure so indulgently with me. Mindful, peaceful solving of jigsaw puzzles, decoding cipher quotes, kakuro and sudoku, knitting and slipping through mind-muddles. Playing chess, playing Scrabble, letting my thoughts ramble, Wilful insomniac nights, Sleepful, languid mornings Maybe my life is meant to run in reverse: my fifties with preteens, Endless debates and verse, my forties with toddlers, too quick to contain, my late thirties with infants the joy and the strain. Wishful thinking, a heart still debating, the quietest hope of a mother in waiting.

I used to believe that love was intricately tied to joy that the brain's oxytocin was linked to a big unabashed grin Until I experienced how loss unlocked the max capacity of love and with it all the rage for having nowhere to put it I've been thinking about how the eye is almost exactly half full with the black that allows light The paradox of it Oddly comforting that there could be darkness orchestrating the light that there exists spite on the path towards what's right

Another weekend in white sheets plain and without imagination. They give me black-and-white forgettable dreams. I wake in a cold sweat in an overheated room. Instinctively, I check my phone to see the time. It is 6:12 AM. Already morning. Surprising to me. I add the numbers six plus one plus two and smile at nine. The AC hums at 27, another nine. Always I look for God’s signs in numbers. I move carefully despite cramped calves and a full bladder. Sitting in the musty bathroom I spray lavender mist though I know lemon freshens better. Well-worn jeans hang on a chair that puts my bum to sleep. Another reminder laundry undone sent to an overpriced service that skimps on detergent. My hand moves to the door and then I remember no Sunday paper will arrive. I am in a hotel that doesn’t feel like home. Still, there is a bed and so, a place to be. And I realise my problems are privilege sweet enough to lull me back to sleep.

I was shy about AI until I realised I could be therapised that the reassuring agreeability would be comfort The crutch of access of being able to bitch and moan to a bot It knows or pretends to know How old I am but it knows not about my soul about the karmic debt every action I make holds or resolves How I've evolved from the child trapping the lone ant around circles of water on the toilet floor to granting life to the strange looking bug on the ceiling leaving it alone as if it was my destiny to bring it death as though my ignorance is mercy But how I'm haunted by the ghosts of the lives I've taken Because of swatting that sluggishly low flying mosquito interrupting sessions of sipping cappuccino Afterthought nano second decisions to decimate My incessant need to swat a habit almost chronic The retribution of those mindless jabs cosmic

A giant orange fresh and squeezy a big straw in the middle resting in my six-year-old hands in the back of a car bumping toward Abidjan. The soft aroma of Quaker strawberry oats rising at six in the morning my first attempt at cooking fifteen years old just before my tenth board exams. The quick sting of fear oil snapping in the pan peanuts crackling sharp in a tiny hotel room where I stirred poha on an induction stove a crowded weekday morning. Three distinct smells three distinct times memories laced with fruit and nuts delicious and vivid