Friday's Children by Afzal Moolla

Why I Cannot Stay

Dim images, grainy memories,

of walking down empty cobblestone alleys,

seeking elusive shadows,

trawling through teary depths,

finding a faint sliver here,

a solitary footprint there.

Crawling, limbs flailing,

needing traction, sliding on slippery thoughts, fluid memories,

cascading down windowless mirrors,

hidden from oneself.

Lost, desolate, alone,

buoyed by whispers caught on the breeze,

hushed murmurs, quiet pleas,

like driftwood in streams,

distilling a few splintered dreams.

Glancing over curled locks,

staring into deep chasms,

looking for the colour red,

in harmony, tuned-in, softly,

wearing scars, wishing inside stony fortresses,

knowing that hope slipped away, and fled.

Lost, I am unable to see, to breathe,

to feel, to touch, to sense,

to raise a spirited defense.

Desolate, I have slipped in sensing a feeling of touch,

in breathing a heartfelt ache.

Alone, I walk on, shuffling my winter coat,

wiping my dripping eyes, scratching my itching soul,

picking at a scab festering in my mind,

knowing that only further blindness will I find.

Wasting away, they laugh and say,

he's torn and twisted and he has lost his way,

while they point and kneel and pray,

the demon of their apathy they will fail to slay,

and I can never in such a place stay,

my brain stews in a mothballed tray,

and I leave, Ieaving to make my own way,

down through passages of rotten decay,

sliding in colours of muted gray,

it is I, myself. Lost.

How can I ever find my way?

Copyright © 2012 by Afzal Moolla

Also check out my other wordpress website. It's a literary journal called Randomly Accessed Poetics! Submissions are open. We Publish continually. Lastly, Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words came out. If you're interested you can find it in the kindle store.