Written by
Raiya Sohail Hashmi

Raiya is an engineer by profession and a writer by passion. Her friends keep telling her that she has this habit of randomly drifting off into space when her eyes lock upon a particular object, her ears tune out and she becomes oblivious to her surroundings. What she doesn't tell them (for fear of ridicule) is that this is actually the time when she is concocting a poem, structuring her next article or coming up with the plot of her next story. She was a columnist for the youth supplement of Saudi Gazette and her work has been featured in SAMAR magazine and on Chowk.com. A winner of Oxford University Short Story Competition 2012, she lives in Karachi and works for the aviation industry.

When I Love

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He is home tonight.
The walls close,
the noose tightens.
Latent reluctance, he cannot see
as I remain shrouded
even after he uncovers me

Life leaves on the first touch
and serpents crawl
over a frigid carcass.
The ophidian then breaks in
and colors fade;
black, gray and white;
a disappearing spectrum
extinguishing all sensation

Brighter, they return
red, pink and blue
as a sinful fantasy
reincarnates you.
In another world,
ecstasy brings to life
your doting girl,
not his feigning wife

Misunderstood pleasure
for one
and perpetual venom
for the other
ends this night.

Won’t you come now, darling?
Perhaps in a dream
to purge out the poison?

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

Volume 8

Forbidden - July 2011

Verse

When I Love