Published on 07:45 PM, April 04, 2024

POETRY

A Desire or death eats away at my corpse. You are basking in the sun

Do you want my hands/ Will they be enough to keep you warm

ILLUSTRATION: MAISHA SYEDA

Picture a sunset 

With a few thousand stars sneaking up on a night sky

Mostly filled with bugs and insects among other insignificant creatures

Look outside the window to the sound of the music

And you will find an orchestra of crickets sprawled across a thin patch of grass

After the moths finish dilly-dallying with their chores

You will find them rotting in the water-clogged sink until

A hope for tomorrow reveals itself over the trash bin 

With leftovers and scraps from last night's meal.

I was one such insect

 

Do you want my hands

           Will they be enough to keep you warm

 

When the mice trapped in glue contemplate life after their death 

They envision a next time with the trap out cold and a thousand suns up for taking

I was a creature blinded by such desire 

What do you think of desire?

A mishmash, a sandwich of simmered-down brain soup made of longing and yearning

An unwanted baby of nostalgia and the lack thereof stuck between a world of two abstract ideas

Picture a white canvas. Now splash as many colors as you can with your bare hands. 

Can you stand in front of the mirror and stand the gaze you find your way

I may have pinned my head with a hammer and a nail in the process of giving you my hand

And I may have set myself on fire to keep you warm and covered you up with the ashes of my remains in the scanty aftermath of my death. So I ask you this

 

Is      that    still  

not   enough    for   you

 

I am trapped here, somewhere among these flaky pigments of emotional jargon 

I have been here before. I have always been living here. 

I painted my bare bones a decaying shade of brown trying to fit into your idea of love. 

I will break free. I will break free.

 

 

A.M. Fahad is an aspiring poet and writer from Dhaka. He uses vivid imagery and elements of nature to encapsulate his emotions with words, which often end up in a thought train rather than a conclusion. Find him at amfahad1747@gmail.com.