They come in the newspapers everyday
My morning starts by looking
At their hollow expressions
And then those nameless faces
Haunt me at night
The newspaper tells me
Everything about them
And yet I feel like
I know nothing
I could tell you
Their age, height or physical appearance
But I don’t know
What their laughter sounds like
I don’t know
What sorrow could have
Made their heart so heavy
That the light was sucked
Out of their eyes
And they ended up dead
On a park bench
In the middle of the night.
Maliha Iqbal is a student and writer based in Aligarh, India. Many of her short stories, write-ups, letters and poems have been published on platforms like Creativity Webzine, Countercurrents, Café Dissensus, Cerebration and Borderless Journal. She can be reached at malihaiqbal327@gmail.com.
Featured image illustration by Pariplab Chakraborty.