#Poetry ‘The Leper Poet’ by Fiza Pathan

The Leper Poet

By Fiza Pathan

My old lover, my darling lover,

don’t break the weak bonds of our love
and throw them to the vultures to eat.

All that you have impressed on my mind are lies
but I don’t care if you lied to me for the rest of my life,
as long as I could hear your voice again.

I cannot go on living without you nearby,
I miss your smile and your warm embrace.

Nothing has been left with me
from the remnants of our love
except memories which I wish to keep
locked up in my heart forever.

I dream of you every night my old lover
and the thoughts about you haunt me in the daylight.

There are so many songs of happiness
sung by my lips when you were around
but now all these lips can do is curse the heavens.

Where have you hidden yourself dear old love
and when will you emerge from your hiding place to greet me?

I know that you will now not fancy me because I’m a leper
condemned to shake the bells of platonic love wherever I go.

But please, have pity on me for it was your absence
that made this skin rough and decayed.

Don’t condemn me now that I don’t look beautiful anymore
for remember old love, I loved you when no one else cared.

Does the beating of your heart tell you
what wrong you have done to this leper?

Does the blood in your veins not call to you
whenever I cry out in pain?

I’m poor of spirit and vitality
so I live at the leper camp
with other broken souls like me.

Come old lover of mine and visit me in my leper camp
and see the way I peel my skin from my chest
along with the flesh which is rotten even for a mongrel to eat.

Return to me old lover I plead with you-
have you no pity for the suffering?

Return to the lover you once called an angel
and watch my flesh crumble into
the dust of our time long gone past.

Copyright © 2014 by Fiza Pathan

Image courtesy: Google images

http://biblefood.blogspot.in/2012/09/spiritual-leprosy-of-all-sinners.html