Literary Orphans

TEEN SPIRIT: Armistice by Farah Ghafoor

soft baby skin clasped by the hospital,

shivers from its loneliness. unbalanced by light,

it puckers and wells up. fear-peeled irises

scream into empty space, into an onerous

future looming and absorbing and spitting them

back out like bullets.

 

baby does not cry anymore.

 

baby swallows its words instead of milk

and feeds on rocks instead of mush.

baby breaks new teeth on igneous

to be strong like earth, like brick, like cold,

not cloud. baby pounds feelings into bone,

into stone. baby dreams of towers of steel

and hardens itself to soldier.

 

but future arrives and tears through baby’s armour.

 

it lies. it lies about the strength

of flesh and blood and brain. it whispers of

the chemical of human conscience. it convinces

baby that it can be tender like sunlight,

like warmth. baby believes future when it warns

that weapons of unknown, hurt.

 

but future can love, too.

 

it loves with rainbows after rain

and food after hunger and baby swears

it is hungry.

baby and future sign an armistice

and merge until

they are one.

O Typekey Divider

Farah Ghafoor is a fifteen-year-old poet and a founding editor at Sugar Rascals. She believes that she deserves a cat and/or outrageously expensive perfumes, and can’t bring herself to spend pretty coins. Her work is published in places like alien mouth, Really System and Synaesthesia, and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Find her online at fghafoor.tumblr.com

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Art by Marja van den Hurk and Stephanie Ann

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