Sleepless Nights

By Omar Jawed Shaikh

2 am walks in dreamy cemeteries

Withered fields and winter weather

Cool breeze and snow fall on broken Graves

Cracked Gravestones and faded marking

Etched poems are sung in forgotten tunes

Coffins buried quick and carelessly,

exposing skeletal remorse and rotten memories

Its grotesque smell calls a swarm of vermin’s

Feasting like anxiety dancing on open wounds

Like buzzing of flies on fecal matter

Dead bodies and decaying figures dig and crawl

Roaming are remnants of mistakes on infertile spoil

Stomping and crushing any sign of life, gnawing on any waking soul

Defiled roses and scattered petals, like sickly dreams

Dreams oppressed under the weight of self-loathing

Footsteps on snow patches are bright red

Perfect impressions of cut up feet from glassy grass

Sharp are bites of spineless lies from hissing snakes

Swollen is flesh from remembrance of scorpion stings

Wine red footsteps, limping footsteps, waning footsteps

An eternal journey, a cancerous trail to waiting graves

By Omar Jawed Shaikh