ZARA M.

Dear Heart, There are some names we speak aloud, and there are names we keep quietly tucked away in the deepest chambers of our hearts. Dostoevsky wrote the name of his beloved 138 times, and not once his own name. I have not mentioned yours a single time. But every time, I have mentioned mine. The world knows my beloved only through the cute nicknames I have given him; the name written in the world’s records has never crossed my lips. But the sun knows. The moon and the stars know. The rainbows and the skies, the flowers and the trees, all are aware that it is you. Hoping for the day when you, too, know that it is you. ~Zara M.

Dear Heart,  Peaches Waking up to your name blesses my whole day, as it is like a prayer that graces my life with life. As time passes, the line grows blurred between whether it is you in reality or you in my imagination. Whatever it is that I am experiencing, I am joyous to love your presence, even the thought of your presence.  My sun rises with you, and it sets with you. With the lapse of time, my universe has started to rise and set with you.  As long as the stars keep brightening the skies, I will keep waking up to the prayer of your name.  ~Zara M.

You are alive,  feel the sun, the sun-kiss; talk to the moon, let it turn blue; watch shades of sunsets, let them seep into you. You are alive, feel the air filling your lungs, look upon the flowers growing young; hear the melodies the birds have sung. You are alive, visit dense forests, praise nature; linger over rainbows, bask in treasure; sit under the skies, settle your pleasures. You are alive now, cherish the blessings,  and settle the distressing. You will not forever be young; nor will life forever remain. ~Zara M.

Dear Heart,  Cocoa & Comfort I read somewhere today that "love, it is mad and holy, like Dostoevsky." I feel like I am travelling the same road. I feel madness and holiness both at the same time. Writing to you out of frenzied emotion and devoting my entire being to you as though you are sacrosanct.  Reading White Nights years back makes sense to me now. The dreamer was perhaps loving in his subconsciousness, no reality of Nastenka existed but his love was purer than the pure, and the heartbreak was born from loving something that could never fully belong to him.  Tasting the warmth of cocoa reminds me the warmth your sweetest soul always extended towards me. I consecrate my heart to you, I worship you with the whole of my being, and write to you like it is scared.  I have often heard that love itself is a religion; I am experiencing it. If love is a religion, then perhaps I have found my faith in you, and I do not know how to stop believing.    ...

For Mala who stayed through every season. You are a sunflower  I have always loved,  My eternal companion,  a bond time never moved. You have hung around,  far longer than I ever found. Always stood, always listened, never judged, never withered.  You have witnessed  me becoming ashes  gathering cinders,  and leaving me resurrected. All the dark paths I have traversed, it was you beside me, when the world felt reversed. No one could gather the pieces I had become;  it was you who made me whole, one by one. Every time I came undone, I found you when I had none. You comforted me like a sparrow sheltering its chick, and I became all wings.     ~Zara M.

Dear Heart,  Once the stars finally align, once the moon slips into blue, and once the extraordinary happens, perhaps the universe finally softens for us, too. Or maybe, we simply become accustomed to separation with time.  Swinging between acceptance and refusal, anger and peace, hope and hopelessness; life feels heavy on the heart. Indeterminacy prevails, but every reddish-golden sunrise reminds me of prettiness the world offers to cherish. Though, I have always sought to admire it together, there is one thing I am certain of: we are both admiring the beauty of nature, from our separate corners of the world.    Perhaps, the world keeps giving us the same sunsets, only in different skies. ~Zara M.

When the calamities learn my way,  and inundation keeps drifting into my orbit,  I remain devoted to the hopes of a day where things reshape, blessings shower,  and the soul, after all its wandering, flowers.   Yet darkness possesses power,  holding back what is purer.  Swaying over dreams,  leaving the soul obscure yet even in shadow, something gleams, a quiet light that time redeems. ~Zara M.

Dear Heart,  Watching the half moon today beneath the dark sky reminds me of you. It also reminds me that standing with valour in halfness is charming too. Courage, though, is required at every pace of life, but eventually you receive what was written for you.  Today, carrying a lot in my heart, recalling every word you ever uttered to me, and searching you in every person feels so distressing. We often have to live with what we never wanted to live without: you are one of them.  The sky notices how overwhelmed I am today, emotionally drained; it is unable to call you back, but the version of you that was fond of me is greatly sought by me.  The stars witnessing me reminiscing about what you could not keep, not complaining, but recollecting with cherries of you.   ~Zara M.

By profession, I have learned to observe the world. I watch geopolitics thousands of miles away, wars unfolding in places I may never see, the strategies that precede them, the calculations that sustain them, and the casualties that remain after them. I study nuclear proliferation and doctrines capable of shaping the lives of millions. I follow the day-to-day movement of an arms race, the language of deterrence, the posture of states, and the intelligence contained not merely in what is reported, but in what remains unsaid. I have learned that sometimes silence carries more information than a statement. My days are spent trying to understand international relations and security: why states behave as they do, what they fear, what they desire, what they conceal, and what they are willing to sacrifice in pursuit of what they call national interest. I watch borders become tense, alliances shift, old rivalries acquire new meanings, and familiar certainties slowly disappear. The world I stud...