Downtown Houston
By S. Iqraa Bukhari Continue reading Downtown Houston
Mandala
St Pancras Station, walking to, and you’re already late, or on the verge of being it. You approach the entrance, hurriedly, but in the corner of your eye you see a woman sprawled on the ground. The station beyond is at once glittery and austere; it pulls people in and churns people out – an endless flurry of bodies, giddy and frenetic, like molecules around … Continue reading Mandala
Pinky
You’ve changed, where’s the pink ha-ha? Those words linger like a bad smell as we stew like sardines, too few people for a party. I’m wearing something black and too tight and it’s a stinger, your words slice me like the butter knife we use to chop up cake on the coffee-stained counter. Crumbs coat everything, stick to the bottom of plastic cups we’d both … Continue reading Pinky
The Seer
I’m walking into a room made up images.
These are all images of myself
I assumed them from my figurative past,
Now they’re gathering dust on the shelf.
Female Genital Mutilation// The Air We Breathe
6 years old.
‘That’ day has come
‘lay down’ ‘legs apart’
Hushed.
‘Strip.’ Forcefully stripped.
Continue reading “Female Genital Mutilation// The Air We Breathe”
Crash Course
I’m sitting here, wondering, is there still an us. Will there be, an us? Or, was there never an us to save. Nothing left but pieces. The polaroid pictures strung like bunting in my bedroom, couldn’t you have ripped the rope and dragged it out, like you did with your things? It only took a single touch and I, unravelled. I wasn’t wound tight enough, besides, the knot is always tighter when you’re not the one tying it.
The Party
The sun had been exposed all day, uninterrupted by clouds, and now rested in the looming veil of evening like a lightbulb behind a curtain. The hall was the largest room in David and Lily’s house. It overlooked an abstract cauldron of water and mountain too vast to comprehend, and the guests nested by the huge windows, admiring this sight. Continue reading “The Party”
Bacha Posh
At one her father and mother locked eyes
The birth of a girl brought dread to their lives
A parental love, too strong to watch ache
Emerging through doors, a babe in blue awake. Continue reading “Bacha Posh”
Better an Empty House
This house
Is empty there is no
Tenant here they’ve left you left
First but left the door open
In case you’d come back and you
Did, shield yourself from the Continue reading “Better an Empty House”
This Will Put You Off Having Children
For as long as anyone could remember, Shannon Fowler had wanted to be a Mother. Even as a toddler, long before her parents even contemplated having to give her the “birds and bees” talk, little Shannon Fowler could often be glimpsed in her families garden, pushing a gaudy pink pram around the perimeter and cooing to her teddy bear within as though it were her own flesh and blood. Indeed, this phase of playing with dolls as though they were babies was something that Shannon did not grow out of until she turned thirteen and even then, the decision to relinquish this once-endearing display Continue reading “This Will Put You Off Having Children”
