It Will Always Be Like This

By Anshuman Das

As Carthage burns and Haemon holds Antigone in a faint

embrace of death, we find ourselves in one of those nights. 

Those nights that mark the mood of the city, 

there’s no moon, there was no sun. 

As humans die in fits of vanity, the golden rain colours

your sins yellow. You hold your tongue, you hold

yourself, about to flinch, against the drunk delight of abuse.

You’ve grown quite brave, have you? 

But remember, Carthage burned and Antigone hanged,

the road is laid out for you.

Nothing is true, the golden rains colour your sins yellow. 

The day has come, the yellow mist leaves

the city shrouded in sold souls. 

You speak, harbingers of evil, you have died

and your corpse bleeds ink, makes people kill.

As the yellow mist trespasses into your room,

as the coffee cup steams, only temporarily, 

it hardly understands what it helps thrive,

But make dead freely, Carthage will always burn, Haemon will always hold the

faint embrace of death, you will always flinch.

As you are coloured blue, you paint the world, a 

canvas for your blood and your ink, one and the same. 

As the city is taken over by sold souls,

they are taken over by you. 

By Anshuman Das