{"id":430,"date":"2018-01-09T21:16:25","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T21:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/?p=430"},"modified":"2018-01-09T21:16:42","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T21:16:42","slug":"two-poems-by-sayeeda-t-ahmad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/2018\/01\/09\/two-poems-by-sayeeda-t-ahmad\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems by Sayeeda T Ahmad"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Love Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I tripped on your laptop<\/p>\n

case resting on the sidewalk<\/p>\n

and twisted my left knee.<\/p>\n

I was trying to catch<\/p>\n

the Metro at the next stop<\/p>\n

and its damn driver<\/p>\n

who shut the door in my face<\/p>\n

and left me running away<\/p>\n

from the last stop,<\/p>\n

three blocks back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You were standing<\/p>\n

by your Corolla,<\/p>\n

on your way home<\/p>\n

to your townhouse<\/p>\n

you said. I preferred to cuss<\/p>\n

at you and that bastard<\/p>\n

from the concrete,<\/p>\n

then hobble to the bench<\/p>\n

at the waiting area,<\/p>\n

because this was not<\/p>\n

my first slip, but you pulled<\/p>\n

me up and drove<\/p>\n

to the hospital, waited<\/p>\n

until the cast was on my leg<\/p>\n

before dropping me<\/p>\n

at my apartment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I began to respect you then,<\/p>\n

but didn\u2019t know you<\/p>\n

had fallen too,<\/p>\n

until my door bell clanged,<\/p>\n

and I found you standing<\/p>\n

on my jute welcome mat<\/p>\n

holding a box of cheese sticks<\/p>\n

and a vegetarian supreme pizza,<\/p>\n

grinning like the grill<\/p>\n

of an 18-wheeler truck.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t You Like to Know?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A pop-up screen blinks at me,<\/p>\n

asks me if I want to know<\/p>\n

when I will die; I reply no,<\/p>\n

and skip to the next website<\/p>\n

to check my e-mail. I will never<\/p>\n

find out when my heart will stop<\/p>\n

until angina keeps me<\/p>\n

from climbing trees at eighty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to suffer<\/p>\n

but slip away in a dream,<\/p>\n

not realize when fantasy<\/p>\n

becomes a stroll down the path<\/p>\n

toward the coffin waiting<\/p>\n

for my body, and my soul<\/p>\n

keeps me company<\/p>\n

until the Day of Judgment,<\/p>\n

when God will reveal if I deserve<\/p>\n

to go to heaven and if the man I love<\/p>\n

will come to meet me at its gates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Love Story   I tripped on your laptop case resting on the sidewalk and twisted my left knee. I […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[5,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-and-literature","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.jobanmagazine.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}