reader submission
POETRY / Ghostly tenants
My father speaks in a dismantled language that goes up in smoke.
POETRY / The song of freedom
the bullet hole/ in my brother's chest/ unfolds like a pandora's box
POETRY / Wonder
I feel my rage, ma, a living thing;/ A beast, caged, like me
POETRY / The things I wish I had never known
I skip talking to myself for hours / The “me time”, before going to bed
FICTION / Wings Across A City Wall
Shimu and Tushar had grown up together on an alley in the Mirpur area of Dhaka city. Their neighbouring houses were separated only by a brick wall, about two meters high. The branches of a tree growing beside Tushar’s house overhung the wall, its foliage shading a part of Shimu’s courtyard.
POETRY / My scarlet incarnation
Being a woman comes to me naturally If not me, then who? I was never asked to be one I was never asked to cook
Poetry / Bombardment
What’s life if a sense of darkness/ doesn’t connect night to sunlight
Poetry / Silent screams
Let us raise our voices, let us be heard, / Justice for the dead, let their voices be stirred
Poetry / Prompts
The pavements are hotter in winter, the rain never wets the asphalt and I never tell you to do anything else other than “be”.
Ghostly tenants
My father speaks in a dismantled language that goes up in smoke.
The song of freedom
the bullet hole/ in my brother's chest/ unfolds like a pandora's box
Wonder
I feel my rage, ma, a living thing;/ A beast, caged, like me
The things I wish I had never known
I skip talking to myself for hours / The “me time”, before going to bed
Wings Across A City Wall
Shimu and Tushar had grown up together on an alley in the Mirpur area of Dhaka city. Their neighbouring houses were separated only by a brick wall, about two meters high. The branches of a tree growing beside Tushar’s house overhung the wall, its foliage shading a part of Shimu’s courtyard.
My scarlet incarnation
Being a woman comes to me naturally If not me, then who? I was never asked to be one I was never asked to cook
Bombardment
What’s life if a sense of darkness/ doesn’t connect night to sunlight
Silent screams
Let us raise our voices, let us be heard, / Justice for the dead, let their voices be stirred
Prompts
The pavements are hotter in winter, the rain never wets the asphalt and I never tell you to do anything else other than “be”.
The colour of revolution is red
And along with our bodies, the rage keeps on, / we chafe and bleed and clot and steer; / we go mad and nude