Sorrows of Her Paper Heart

By Mariyam Qurayshi

A shadow of me learned to fly.

Drifting through dusk with ink-stained wings,

She makes her way to me in whispered nothings.

She tells me,

In another world, I exist unseen,

A shadow between time and dream.

Where sorrow is ink, and silence my quill,

I write in words the heart cannot still.

I wander with verses in hand,

Tracing the spirits that understand.

For in that realm, I am divine,

And every wound bleeds away as a rhyme.

Her paper heart beats soft and slow,

Each tear she sheds, a verse to sow.

Yet though she writes in grief’s embrace,

Her words leave beauty in their place.

She lives where sorrow turns to art.

A world apart, yet not apart.

For when my heart begins to ache,

Her voice is what my hands create.

So when I smile in this world of light,

Another me writes in endless night.

By Mariyam Qurayshi