Childhood
by Faaizah Ghazi
(New Delhi, India)
Waking up we see the moon only it isn't the sun
Which used to blind flowers and
It was darker than we imagined
The kind that brings sparks inside your eyes
As children we reveled in such mysteries
But the world now
Is betraying, those wonders burst like balloons on a birthday,
only its a funeral now
We were hanging from the precipice
They told us to hold on but the pit tempted
And the abyss seemed appealing so
We pushed our lovers and smiled on our fortunes
This was a good deed
Which kept us wishing for heaven even when they pushed us towards hell's gates.
We used to sing to flowers, thinking of ourselves as nightingales to
These bare roses, only they are thorns now
So we learned to shut out our screams and
Complained, to mirrors
Nights we loved, are nights that scare us
As children, those ghosts lurking
Only now do we understand what they are.
***