As a university graduate my biggest fear is being asked by a first year student about the bright future and life post graduation. It's not that I don't have answers, or that I happen to be shy but I can't stomach that sparkle of hope in their eyes dying with every word of my response. I know our paths as people are not carved out the same and the same applies to the blessings that life itself throws our way. I also know that I am a terrible liar who flinches and blinks way too much...

The Arab Spring redefined the meaning of a revolution in the 21st Century. In 2011, a crescendo of demonstrations and protests ranging from the subtlety of picket signs to the severity of mass killings plunged 16 nations into near chaos and social upheaval. All of them have been considered failures. Except one. Tunisia underwent its formal “Arab Spring” in December of 2010, when demonstrations and popular instability threatened to destroy the regime of’ Zine el-Abedin Ben A...

1 million people worldwide know how I feel. 1 in 6,000 newborns know it to. Before I was nine years old, I was a little girl running around, acting silly and then suddenly everything changed. When I started having "day dreams" and forgetting what had happened, and where I was, is when my parents knew something was up. So they had me tested, and during an EEG, I had one of those episodes, and right away the doctors knew it was seizures. I was diagnosed with Partial Complex Seizures,...

Dear President Obama, Remember the boy who was picked up by the ambulance in Syria? Can you please go get him and bring him to [my home]? Park in the driveway or on the street and we will be waiting for you guys with flags, flowers, and balloons. We will give him a family and he will be our brother. Catherine, my little sister, will be collecting butterflies and fireflies for him. In my school, I have a friend from Syria, Omar, and I will introduce him to Omar. We can all play...

In a previous post of mine, I had written about the power of poetry in initiating social change. The third issue of my online literary magazine, Moledro Magazine, was released a week ago, on the theme ‘The Shadows Stalking Society’. Given my belief that poetry is an incredibly powerful vehicle to social and environmental change, I thought it necessary that the third issue contained a few poems and stories representative of this opinion. In this post, I’d like to share excer...

Drowning... drowning... drowning. She realised - she is going to die. No, her life is not being lost because she jumped into waters too deep. It is her soul, being suffocated by those around her forcing her to be someone that she's not. Misfit. Rebel. Black sheep. All words some might use to describe her. But I don't think she's any of those things. I think she's just a girl, plagued by her thoughts. She doesn't allow the intricacies of her beautiful yet dangerous mind to be seen...

We are sitting at the corner of the supermarket in town. People are passing us by and stare at us as we wait for a friend. My back is leaning against that grey window-less building and my friends talk about Germany. We share grapes and energy drinks and I feel a little bit like a gangster, because I wouldn’t usually be one of “the kids of the block” who would have nothing to do but to sit there and joke about life. At least I must make the impression like I am one. Even whe...

As a global citizen, I keep myself informed. I know about the horrors of our world and what efforts have been made to assist. I have kept in touch with our world of politics and I know that filth exists. I have also tried to be ignorant because they say it is bliss, but I can no longer be ignorant because ignorance is for cowards - cowards who fear the truth. And I am not scared. I am angry. I am angry because for the first time in my life, I have understood what I have known for...

It is the first day of Mubashir at a reputable university of his country. He has been selected in an engineering program. He has traveled all the way from lower Punjab to absorb education at a standard university of Islamabad. Walking towards the gate, he thinks about his hard work which landed him a spot in his field. He thinks about his parents, whom he’ll miss in his hostel days. And he thinks about his future. What will happen? As he crosses past the gate with these perturb...