readers submission

POETRY / I loved you because I did

So go in peace, be free, be kind.

FICTION / A sacrifice

When he was handing over the money to Naimuddin, their father, Kalam silently cried, holding Dholi’s neck in the yard.

POETRY / Will you remember me?

When moon fades into dawn and when I pass away with it / Will you think of all that I was?

Poetry / Tupperware cake

1 and 3/4 cups of sugar, 2 cups of i-love-you

REFLECTIONS / The Doppelgänger

It was actually a bit of a relief to sit on the terrace of the Gezira Pension and have a quiet breakfast before plunging back once more into the traffic of Cairo in search of a carriage to the museum.

POETRY / My heart's longevity comes from my maa's magnifying kindness

Maa, you are an endless exhibition / of sweet-sour happiness

FICTION / City of bougainvillea

“The roads are too clean. The sun is too bright,” she thought.

FICTION / Shadhin

Sumedha replied with annoyance, "I will make him say the words. It's so simple, 'Apni kemon achhen, bhalo?' Why can't he say it?"

POETRY / Anger and other blessings

A walkway through the crystal-clear lies

July 17, 2024
July 17, 2024

Rebel is a letter in red

Where voices unite, a chorus strong, / Demanding justice, righting wrong

June 8, 2024
June 8, 2024

Raw Magnolias

This is a garden, these are my petals; this is my armoring plant

June 1, 2024
June 1, 2024

I've seen love

I've seen love/ Rolling down from a mother's eyes/ As she picks her lean child, bathed in innocent blood

May 30, 2024
May 30, 2024

A means to an end

go further than/ what the hills have seen/ through their ice pick scars

April 27, 2024
April 27, 2024

Saree

The yard in this noontime is buzzing with/ The white aroma of the guava flower

April 20, 2024
April 20, 2024

Cyan is my name when I talk about you

I'm tired of living with this nagging thought that we'll cross paths someday, /You and I

April 4, 2024
April 4, 2024

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

March 21, 2024
March 21, 2024

Sleepy ghost flight

You have made ice out of my heart;/ we were once nothing–you brutalise me

March 20, 2024
March 20, 2024

The smell

“Stop mocking me, Atif! I am telling you there is something here.” 

March 20, 2024
March 20, 2024

To the Newton of Gaza

Words were never my greatest strength/ But the arsonist's child will read them