If I were born among books and guitars? And fed with honey gleaned from wheat If I had grown up among children singing and whirling dance circles in twilight? Among smiles stolen with the drowning nights Secrets pilfered in nimble moments out of raw lips And fondling caresses shared in maize crops? Among festivals that celebrate with madness The innocent erotic throbs of hearts And release moaning like musk into silence of nights How much I regret all those walls of time Which kept me away from trumpets That beat and shake earth behind running devils who paralyze electric tremors in limbs Contaminate spirit with carbon Clog blood ripples in excited bodies And hold away all sensual designs from nights How I curse all those marbled monsters All those scriptures which carved rules across weary hearts And banished away angels and delights Who poisoned aesthetics of love? Who blighted music of instincts? Harbingers of malaise and decay! Demented vultures of life! The writer is a student of English Literature at Government College University, Lahore and can be reached at rosseautolstoy5@gmail.com Published in Daily Times, November 24nd 2017.