As a freshly lit cigarette

Announced his supposedly

Camouflaged existence

I saw a tall frame

Collapse lifelessly against

A cold green wall

All it took was a thump

And rot begot rot

Puffing vicious circles of despair

While a misdirected gaze

Wandered alone in oblivion

Breaths and beats are effortless

I realised,

For a darn good reason.

An age old repeatedly verbose

Tale of chloroformic convenience

Stared back hopelessly today

Battered by sporadic reason

Justifications, he wondered

Intricate, detailed, elaborate

Choke and kink

When gnawing guilt

Nibbles away,

Even the most peripheral of conscience

Wrinkling his forehead

He casually slid his fingers

A gleaming gun

A metallic thirst

And an argumentative seizure

Survival is, after all

Only the most logical

Crackling,

Against a cold silent night

Raw. Naked,

And unashamedly alive.

The burning flames in his eyes.

Melting corneas silently ignite

From praise to debris,

As it infiltrates,

Layer by layer, penetrates

Setting them all,

A(n)esthetically ablaze,

The workings of a subtle culprit

Flaunt once, mention twice

You can run

But where will you hide?

Barbed wires

And concrete walls,

Of a world

That exists only within

Sheltered, shattered

Of untold ruins

Fervently picking up another brick

What good is a tragedy

Without the sighs of an audience?

He has none, never had one

Emotional investments – nay too vulnerable.

Cementing self, freezing it dead

Careful, don’t lay a hand.

Only if,

Let me in.

Measure not in meters

For his thoughts run a mile

Stagnant skin often contains

The gush of an endless ambition

Sloppy, slouchy, slithering

You think.

He moves – once in a while

He dreams -

Wait, what?

Oh yes, preoccupied.

A restless soul in a lethargic mold

Wilting dreams and a withering being,

When inertia battles movement,

To be,

Is not, even,

Relevant anymore.

This is How My Story Ends

By Namra Khalil

I silently stand

On the edge of the cliff

While snow melts

Beneath my feet

Minute after minute

My life embracing danger

My tears, falling one by one,

into  the ocean deep down!

Across the sky

A storm

Ready to make the ocean cry!

The Illusionist

By K Malik

The blank spaces

that yearn to find a match

and the illusionist

sees all the ones

that are claiming to be

the inlaid pattern

and the illusionist

who secretly says the magic word

and without a care for pain

no looking back

the tiles join

and the multicoloured laces

criss-cross over the lines

of connection

they set out roots deep inside

make cohesion

of the pieces in their places

and creation

of an unknown world

with foreign interiors

alien tongues speak strangely

and gestures happen

words left hanging

and coalescing into a rapport

and an exit of light

and the illusionist leaves

to whispers of promises

the edge of the black velvet cloak

sliding over the last edge of the pattern

- Compiled by NA

Thoughts Transforming into Verse

siine me~ agar soz salaamat ho to xud hi

ash’aar me~ Dhal jaati he afkaar ki suurat

(Wasif Ali Wasif)

Transliteration guide: ‘~’ represents a nasal sound; ‘x’ represents the sound of the first letter in “Khuda” (God)

Translation: If the heart continues to burn with passion/ the thoughts themselves would transform into verse