Acherontic Abyss by Ayaan Fahad

I open the windows,

Welcome the agonizing cold breeze—

It blows

Within my soul.

 

It casts spells on my mind,

Shows beauty futile to my eyes

For I have gone blind.

I refuse colors,

Poisoning the lavender hyacinths

On life’s barren land.

I snatch a dagger

And stab your pathetic helping hand.

 

My fingers twist and break,

Refusing to write

For my sanity’s sake.

With my bruised palms I carve

Each verse, a prayer for solace.

A saint worshiping words.

 

My mind: a labyrinth.

I carve perplex pathways

Leading to chthonic depths;

A vexed abyss

Of an insufferable mind.

 

I weave mosaics in lunacy.

Seduced by insomnia’s ecstasy.

Starving in famine,

I bathe in sanguine.

 

Fragments don’t constitute poems,

Call not a heart a home,

Turn yours to stone.

Flesh, Tears, Bone.

Call not a heart your home

 

You will turn to—

Flesh, Tears, Bone.

Turn to; my beloved graveyard,

Tombstone.

 

Cut warmth,

Weren’t you born in fire?

Plead paradise,

A demise to unearthly desire.

A tantalizing glimpse.

 

Walk among shadows—

The light will burn your skin,

Your crimson-stained white linen.

 

Specter’s entwine my soul.

I step deeper into the void,

Fiat tenebris: dim the light,

Suffocate brains pleading paranoid.

 

Dismal.

I step deeper into the void—

I fall, paranoid.

Picture of Ayaan Fahad

Ayaan Fahad

Ayaan Fahad is a poet from Lahore, Pakistan. He aims to write poetry that emotionally resonates with people and captures things left unsaid, incorporating raw emotion within his works.

Call of the Forest by Fariel Shafee

cerulean loss and

snow-lined streaks of

hope were

painted in that voice.

.

you called me, wounded, happy and

tired from the cove of shadows and

ancient trees, and I ran, right into

that darkness filled with ghosts.

.

you whispered,

first softly and then

you moaned, sang the

tune of desperation.

.

did the wise owl fly away,

did the prowling beasts

just watch, frozen in

the shrubs?

.

the fool I was, thinking

how I mattered, how the

world had stopped for me

as I darted through the

knee-high grass and the

persistent weeds!

.

you whistled and the

rustling leaves shuffled, and then ibises

flew to infinity.

.

for how long did I chase

shadows I thought were

you? they were laughing at me,

the jungle ghouls, weren’t they; as I

raced

endlessly, until I withered, until I

lay upon the sacred tree that

watched silently

as the hissing vines

wrapped around my body,

sucked up all my blood,

sang to me the

sweetest

hymns of peace.

Picture of Fariel Shafee

Fariel Shafee

Fariel Shafee studied physics. However, she loves to wander in dark speculative worlds as well. She has published writing in 34 Orchard, Sirens Call and various Black Hare Press anthologies among others. She is also an award-winning artist.