To Birth Sorry First
Hannan Khan
About the Author:
a nefelibata, poet, fiction writer and scholar of literature & linguistics from Pakistan. He combs through moments of love, death, delirium & relational complexities, seraphically tracing what’s breathed and what flickers unbreathed. His pen grooves between haibun & heartbreak, ghazals & ghost games, intimacy & apocalypse. Winner of the Native Voices Award 2025 for his poetry collection Isn't Cooked Is Cursed, he thrives on distorting ordinary until it sings. When he craves reprieve, he devours dark thrillers like he’s dissecting crime scenes—psychological, raw, unpredictable. He sips coffee, reads Manto & lets the world unravel. His work has appeared in Failed Haiku, IHRAM Literary Magazine, Graveside Press, SpecPoVerse, Eye To The Telescope, Abyss & Apex, The Headlight Review, The /tƐmz/ Review, The Literary Hatchet & is forthcoming in Notch Magazine, Winds Of Asia & Native Voices Anthology. Poetry is his altar; Fiction, his rebellion. He writes to unsettle, to unearth, to unlace. For a glimpse into his life, find him on Instagram: @hannan.khan.official
Cover by camila-quintero-franco @photoquintero (IG)
To Birth Sorry First
She left the sliding window open. Again. Let the monsoon breeze into the room. Damped mosquito wings, acrid sweat, putrefaction — every odor they loathed turned into familiar in that little rented box. But neither of them shuttered it. Like they never shuttered anything between them.
He boiled eggs without salt; she boiled rice without rinsing. Resigned war, erotic in its own way — it wasn’t just aloofness, it was an ambiance, a setting. The theatre of two paramours clawing each other wordlessly, tongues less fangs bared under the same leaking roof, between the same drenched sheets.
They choked back the urge to say names. He morphed into ‘tu.’ She metamorphosed into ‘hmmm.’ They munch together without chewing. They slumber together without grazing. The fan spun more voice than their breathing. She donned the cerise blouse he once adored, low cut & backless. Bent deliberately to cull things up. He eyed her, motionless. Voiced nothing. But she grasped. The throb of his gaze crawled up her spine like perspiration.
He rolled in home late, reeking of something floral & not hers. Flung his shirt near her laundry heap. Didn’t demystify. But she clutched. Her pulsing heartbeat turned metallic. Still, she pleated the shirt. They played chess. Not on board, but on each other’s vulnerability & weaknesses. He didn’t text or call her on her birthday. She didn’t pick him up from hospital. They let slip dates, ignored texts, deserted used condoms in visible places.
Tit for tat; hurt for hurt; heart for nothing.
This was their argot; the more it battered the more it meant.
They dwelled inside loops. Not loops of reminiscence — loops of almosts. Almost breathed sorry; almost held hands; almost abandoned; almost stayed.
Every fight was a fervid reverie. Every hushedness an aphrodisiac. The fucking pain was sensuous. The bloody distance was foreplay. Rue became their kink.
One sable night, in the dim kitchenette’s light, she finally spoke:
‘do you ever wonder if we’re already dead? just ghosts fucking each other to attune electric again?’
He didn’t wink. Just said, ‘at least ghosts don’t sense voracity.’
She stuffed her bags one night & perched on them like a refugee. Didn’t leave. Just sat.
He unfurled the door for her. Didn’t closed it; just poised; they tarried.
The rainwater on the marble floor slithered toward her feet. She didn’t move. He slanted on the doorframe like it was gallows. Neither nictitated.
Then she said, ‘make coffee.’ He did. No sugar. She gulped it anyway.
Another time, during one of those supper lulls:
She murmured, ‘i miss who you pretended to be.’
He swallowed dryly. ‘i miss you before you mastered how to hate me silently.’
She undressed in front of him that night. Not stealthily. Mechanically. Like skinning abashment from skin. He didn’t touch her; she didn’t implore.
That was the goddamn night they fucked without fucking; caressed without caressing; screamed without screaming; came without climax.
When he turned away from her tap:
‘you perfume like someone else,’ she said.
He didn’t spurn it. Just retorted, ‘at least someone still lusts to feel me.
And once, gazing at her while sleeping with her mouth slightly open:
He whispered, ‘i muse i only ever loved the idea of you loving me back.’
She was awake but she didn’t make any movement.
Because that was their current — to say the cruelest axioms only in shadows & to mourn each other while still respiring & in the purple morn he was gone. No message; no clothes; even his toothbrush vanished. She guffawed; then she bawled. Then she chortled again. And then she lingered.
The rain slid back; the fan creaked; the eggs simmered.
And the blouse — claret, sodden, unworn — sentenced to the back of a rocking chair.
A week later, his moniker lit up her cell. She didn’t answer. A week after that, she zonked out with a bastard who said thank you afterward. It felt like betrayal. Of herself.
She tried penning him a letter. Never dispatched it. She tried lapsing. Failed better every day.
Months evaporated. He texted again, ‘are you okay?’
She typed, ‘you bailed.’ Then she deleted it.
Instead, she shipped: ‘i’m making coffee.’ He broadcasted: ‘no sugar.’
She smiled, then tossed the cell into the chipped sink. Peered it crackle, drown, die.
They both strayed on endgame. Because they craved the other to win. Because winning meant birthing sorry first. Meant genuflecting & both of them were never good at prayers.
Amour was too loud; ego was more reticent; so, they latched onto quietude.
And silence outstripped them both.