November 2018
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Photo credit: Valentin Salja
Mud and Blood
By Namal Siddiqui and Agnes Tan
We are born
We are born
Of mud, and blood
Of mud, and blood.
We must live
We must live
Red, and tooth in claw
Red, and tooth in claw.
We are gone
We are gone
Like dust, and rust
Like dust, and rust.
Photo credit: Kaya SS
Papercut
By Kaya SS
A thousand paper cuts
to hollow lungs- a void
mass loss of blood to blue
like blue crabs cricketing through
the red ocean
Photo credit: Fabrizio Conti
White Canvas
On this white canvas
I find my mind
weeping dreams and bloody thoughts
Everything that this world can’t fathom
living in an esoteric universe of its own
where there are days
that I’m out of my own league
flailing like a fish in the sea
out of its school
Do you find this drifter within you too?
or is this white canvas supposed to be my home alone?
Photo credit: Ioana Casapu
Self-Doubt
Crippling self-doubt
plagues my existence.
Injecting itself into my blood stream;
immobilizing my muscles
numbing my tongue
and muting my voice box.
It quenches its thirst
by tearing my self-image
limb from limb and
ploughing my insides
till there is nothing left.
It either bombards like
gunfire inside my head
firing flaws into questions
or drain each cell’s confidence
leaving the muscles to shiver and shudder
and words hesitant to leave my tongue.
My flesh that houses doubt
is familiar with every capillary of my insecurity;
Whispering my shortcomings
and scrutinizing the details that make me, me.
It is a constant fight, invisible to the eyes.
Internal;
it’s all in my head.
Photo credit: The Dark Sea Project
Toxic Addictions
By Yaman Nimer
Every now and then
you stop by,
you come in softly
like a gentle breeze
through the open crack of my
bedroom window.
And I never could deny
you from slipping in,
I never could
close that window.
I think, maybe this time
it’ll be different.
But you take up all the space
in my lungs,
leave me gasping,
used,
having to learn
how to
breathe again.
Enjoy more poems from our earlier editions in 2018:
Edition XXV
Edition XXVI
Edition XXVII
Edition XXVIII
Edition XXIX
Edition XXX
Edition XXXI
Edition XXXII
Edition XXXIII
Edition XXXIV