My name comes with a puzzle. It’s actually an Arabic word - ’Fedda’ ... which when written, shares its calligraphic curls and dots with Urdu, but in Urdu, it’s pronounced Fizza. Meaning? Silver. Colour or metal? I don’t know ...

If I were the colour, I would be used to describe the streaks of hair that cling to an old woman’s scalp.

If I were the metal, I would be a tarnished, locked-up treasure chest with no key.

I am an indistinct voice; an endless whisper that echoes incessantly with mysterious desperation rustling through ... I fade into silence every time you try to listen and hiss yet again, when you begin to walk away.

I am the tear that springs from the depths of your heart where unspeakable emptiness persists; and while aiming to spill through the corner of your eyes, I get stuck in your breaths and choke your throat. Either you entrap me, or I feel afraid to let go.

I am a petal that withers off a blossoming flower and is strewn into a bowl of potpourri. Amongst dried fruits, lavender oil, crushed spices and shots of brandy, I lay soaked in a mixture of artificial floral scents, helplessly yearning to go back to my pure state.

I am a candle, melting down the edge of an elevated surface. When the flame vanishes into a wisp of fading smoke, I slowly harden and become solid ... I strive to defeat fire despite knowing the struggle will turn me into a frozen cascade dripping in mid-air ...

I am the piece of skin that dangles from a wound. I try as much as I can to hide and protect my bruises because they burn even under the mildest exposure. I hang loosely from the corners of the cuts. It’s where the bleeding begins by sprouting as a thin black slime, and then melting into a stream of red threads. Why is blood so repulsing? Because it is a raw part of our inner selves; ashamed at revealing naked the flesh I once concealed, I scrape off. And from being that part of a living thing that could feel the sense of touch rushing to its spirit, I turn lifeless and numb, like brittle onion peel.

I am a feather that curls itself and spins o’er its own shadow. I coil around dust; I twirl with little dead leaves. I tickle your ankles and disappear into the vastness of a hollow whirlpool underneath the sky. It may seem like I’m rejoicing my freedom but really really, I’m a prisoner. A lonely prisoner entangled in the wind, trying to make my way through a labyrinth of intangible spirals. And every time I complete a loop in the air without descending to the Earth, I prove, to you and to myself, that a broken wing, can fly on its own ... all alone, all alone ...