The Twilight Zone

By Misha Raj

I’m here again. In this space between the pages. Watching ashen flames devour parchment like it’s skin. Floating like a ripple on a crestless wave. This is the part where your life flashes before your eyes. Trembling hands pluck moments like they’re stars. Knead them into eternal galaxies. Here, in the brilliant darkness of this twilight, the sky is soft. Ambivalent. Dotted with cotton candy and molten gold. Here, the panic rises up like a roiling sea. Formless hands are clasped upwards in supplication. Tidal waves worship a moonless night. Dusk meets dawn like orange tang on a summer afternoon. Days blur together like old

friends talking about familiar deaths. Blunt blades dig frantically at wounds that won’t bleed anymore. Every sunrise I miss is a new wave of nostalgia. Like the terrifying comfort of a recurrent nightmare. I can't find the smokescreen anymore. It’s transparent. Like the vapour of cotton candy clouds. I’m in between dreams. Like a soap bubble in the endless spin cycle of a washing machine with no power. The monotony is a frayed lifeline, so I don’t stop in the long silences between texts. Get lost. In the rich baritone beneath the unrelenting soprano. Look over my shoulder, though hindsight is blinding. I find my way like a piece of writing. Cover the rips in the galaxy with pretty words. Stack the metaphors into a maze. Till the clouds are cotton candy and the sky is molten gold. Walk. Till I find the twilight again.

By Misha Raj