Written by
Mir Elias

Mir Elias, née Mehrin Masud, is the pen name of Mehrin (“Mir”) Masud-Elias. Mir was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, came of age in the United States and found her voice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband and their two dogs. Mir’s poems about her coming of age, the immigrant experience, love, loss and aging are often influenced by the Sufi poetic tradition, as well as Western myths, folk and fairy tales. Mir’s poetry has been published in Nothing But Red, a collection of artwork, poetry and short stories about violence against women, and in one of the recent online issues of Papercuts, the bi-annual literary magazine of Desi Writers' Lounge, an online workshop for writers of South Asian origin and writing on South Asia. Her first collection of poems is titled Glass Dreams. (Photo credit: Jamal J. Elias)

Duzakh

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We’ve learned to fly the air like birds, we’ve learned to swim the seas like fish, and yet we haven’t learned to walk the earth as brothers and sisters.

That night when you stepped out
For a moment to the corner store—
Time, space, consciousness
Became defined by your absence,
Collapsing into a singularity
Between the twin poles
Of my heart and stomach,
That expanded outwards
On waves of shock
Tracing a reverse creation story,
As the dreaded inevitability
Of monsters escaping closets
Ended up as an unfamiliar knock
At my door.

That was hell.

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• A BIANNUAL LITERARY MAGAZINE BROUGHT TO YOU BY DESI WRITERS' LOUNGE •

Volume 10

From Pulp To Postmodern: A Tribute - July 2012

Verse

Duzakh