Essay Skeletons
Still they haunt us, the fluffy uninked ghosts
Of ideas that fall by the wayside
When we whittle down their fluttering hosts
To huileux essay skeletons that glide
On while they are torn
Apart by your pen. Essay skeletons
Are fatal scythes for the forlorn fleeting
Whirligig rays of unorbited suns
Hungering for a home in a penned thing
About to be born.
They haunt us with visions that could have been
Ink-real, if we had cared, if we had dared
To stand and stare before scything the green
Mist with outlines. Here’s to the wraiths who bared
Their souls, and were shorn.
Nightmare
My scribbles are ruled by dread of a tree
Fear of blooms only dawn can stem –
Blue the daisies glimmer on moonlit nights
And make us forget the day’s soft beauties:
These flowers, standing in the field
So demurely in the sun’s rays,
Swear at its moon-mirror to yield
Leaves and petals stolen by days
Scouring each face for the bad side,
The scar, the gash, the furl, the leaf,
Able to hold the pests they slide
In, locusts made of untold grief.
I shudder and let the dancing wind-lights
Absolve me of my abandoned duties.
The flowers hate me too, do you not see,
For writing such lies about them?
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Bandit Fiction, Shot Glass Journal, Across The Margin, Panoplyzine, Feral, Literati Magazine, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.
Twitter: @hibahshabkhez
Instagram: @shabkhez_hibah