Pickled Moments is a debut poetry collection of Nasiba Babale, capturing the essence of love, loss, and the human condition against the backdrop of cultural and political turmoil.
We shared a chemistry because books catalysed the reaction that steered our attraction. We fell for each other because books were the gravity that pulled us together. We could fly because books gave us wings. We loved because we were in love with books. We were books, there were pages on our souls.
Are poets really cowards? What if they are sadists who love to mock the whole world? What if it pleases them to see people wracking their brains trying to find meaning in their words while they sit and laugh at their foolishness? Maybe there is some sort of high that comes with writing what sounds like pure gibberish to most people.
Most importantly, I hate poetry for teaching me how to love. Poetry made a lover out of me. Before poetry, I didn’t know that the gaze from my lover’s eyes could loosen my joints. I didn’t know that a single touch of his hands could melt me like candle wax. . .
