Star Literature
POETRY / Cyan is my name when I talk about you
I'm tired of living with this nagging thought that we'll cross paths someday, /You and I
FICTION / The chasm
At around 2 AM he was awoken by the sound of Shahidun’s sniveling cries on her prayer mat. As grating as it might have sounded, he felt grateful for it to have woken him up.
FICTION / Konokbari
Reya looks out the window of the bus, the glint of sunlight falling across her oval face makes her olive skin shimmer.
POETRY / The hills
They say the hills have eyes Iridescent, all knowing, and deathlike.
POETRY / A Desire or death eats away at my corpse. You are basking in the sun
Do you want my hands/ Will they be enough to keep you warm
POETRY / Possible answers to “Why did you block me?”
I needed to de-escalate.
POETRY / Persephone’s blood
Your gaze, a dagger, cuts through me,
POETRY / Kissing strangers
Kissing strangers only feels good
POETRY / Shrines
Words have crashed onto your shores,
Sleepy ghost flight
You have made ice out of my heart;/ we were once nothing–you brutalise me
The smell
“Stop mocking me, Atif! I am telling you there is something here.”
To the Newton of Gaza
Words were never my greatest strength/ But the arsonist's child will read them
Be a tree
Be a tree Get wet in sorrow’s shower and you’ll recover. From envy’s scorching sun gather strength
There’s no way you’ll outrun a bear
Smoother violence fills our hearts like charming splinters. The irony is I am the first of my women
The graveyard in the desert of void
The voices–the wails that had called me here–were emanating from these very graves.
In another life, I’d still live as her
I've lived as her;/ I've known my mother’s plight.
Nearness
How do you think I feel every time I find you hovering over the door to my classroom? Like when you’re the only passenger riding up a lift, and then it suddenly stops.
The last crime against humanity
The only way they chose to do this was probably written or imprinted in our genes–a wild frenzy of carnal expressions filled their faces.
My Parents’ Window
Years later, when I would no longer live in my parents' room and grow to have my own,/ I would disregard all the hours I had spent by the window staring at beetles hiding.
