Published on 12:00 AM, June 18, 2022

Odds and Ends from a Poem on Odds and Ends

A pity, it began as a reflective study.

A bird's eye view of Kafka's conundrum 

Is a fallen leaf lost, or free?

I slid a window wide open

Found a dead moth crumpled on the sill.

A lost (free) king's battlefield burial, adorned in

metal from worn swords, dim and jewels off their hilts.

I pondered as a practiced witness.

Was I the one to strike the killing blow? 

As the window rolled over it's breaking bones

Was I bound?

Or found?

Tossed a lonesome coin into the wishing well, 

Praying it would skip like stones.

I was nothing, I am nothing

but a witness.

An odd.

An end.

Lost.

Found.

In this whirlpool of odds and ends in their quest to untie their odd-end knots.

A ghost, but

I was not the only coat of dust

Settling on walls, floors, bars and handles

Hinges of doors, I was not the only architectural irrelevance.

Empty cabinets, abrupt bends, scarce flower beds against the yard wall.

An onlooker drowning in a sea of moth-killers.

A moth-killer drowning in a sea of onlookers.

An Odd.

An End.

Alone.

Waziha Aziz is a grade 11 student from Chattogram, Bangladesh. She is an amateur writer, published on platforms such as SHOUT magazine. She is also currently a columnist for the Ice Lolly Review. You can find more of her work via Instagram @useless_depressing_poetry.