Words fall off this knitting needle
as I spin a yarn of moonlit memories
the stitches keep growing larger
and before I know
I have spun myself a sweater made of yearnings
I dust myself off
I pick myself up
and I harvest my dream
it urges me to write a poem
the sky on fire
a cloud creeping in like September’s secret daylight
We stand illuminated in the middle of this world
holding on to a leaf
where does all that light come from?
much like finding warmth in each other
some of it explained
most of it unaccounted for.
blessed be your dreams and your demons
you whisper,
a crack in the mirror lends me a miracle
it stays, like a festering sore
a question, dogged
the answer, elusive
the sun cannot be extinguished in a single day
I crouch behind this prayer
a plea for Groundhog Day
a partisan to walking this tight rope
a pledge to arrive, not depart
I am far less capable of being a part of your world
than you are of mine
and so like birds avoid getting hit by windmills
Victorian buildings pretending to be older than they are
the final note of a choir
the tender gasp of a confession
standing back up from an ancient kneeling
a ship leaving a devout harbour
the last leaning of an old scribe
the resting place of a letter
the train which moves away from its station
the child which weans itself off its womb
a robin which drops the final twig for its nest before flying away
just to create enough distance for
separation
Junaid Ahmed Ahangar
works as a doctor in a tertiary care institute in Srinagar, Kashmir. He graduated from Dhaka, Bangladesh and completed his MD in Medicine from Srinagar, Kashmir. He also has an MA in English Literature from India, and is currently in the second year of MA in Philosophy. He devotes his time between his profession and passions which over the last few years have seen a conscious departure towards writing poetry and prose. He is also a singer-songwriter and occasional guitarist with other interests apart from literary pursuits like music, film-making, podcasting and theology. He has upcoming poems in The San Antonio Review, The Shallow Tales Review and The Hellebore Press, as well as a short story in LoftBooks Volume 5.