#Poetry ‘The New Short Term Affliction’ by Fiza Pathan

The New Short Term Affliction

by Fiza Pathan

I said I would wipe away my tears and would never love again.

I realised that affectionate words were not meant for me, they were out of my reach.

I was just adjusting to my self-admonishing decree and settling down to custom.

But that’s when you came in, that’s the time when you came in.

You brought a breath of fresh sea breeze air to blow away the darkened sky.

Your words were more than what you said; I heard my heart come out alive.

The rhythm of your kindness is too touching not to smile at.

The conviction in my mind now trembles with a cry.

You brought youth back into this ageing body of mine.

You cured like the Messiah the black holes in my sockets; you brought back the stars into my eyes.

Now everything looks so different, all that charm has a name.

And that name is love…..love is the name I sing.

Absent minded am I, these days are just fleeting me by.

Ever since you are on my mind, this Scrooge has seen the divine light.

In the quiet moments of the night, when the fog of heat swarms into sight.

I blush and blink to this new fleeing….the feeling in every single dice you cast.

Gambling is not my sport; I used to keep away from the spinning board.

Now I am addicted to the revolving game, so that my present may receive some little shine.

I will toss my bet on the scales and with fingers crossed I’ll stand there.

Hoping you will also one day or in another lifetime feel, the love you brought back to me.

Let me dance to the bagpipers tune and sway with the crowd.

Now I’m afflicted just like them, common cold will last a lifetime.

The spirit within me was crumbling in agony, now once it hears your name…there is hope, it lives!

Intellectual, people hiss as they pass me by.

Cold and lifeless as a book, they think of me at every sight.

But even a story in a book breathes life in the reader’s magical world.

I’ll beg the literature Gods to help me pen in verse, what I just cannot say to you.