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Change

CHANGE



What do you do when change falls on you 
Like a bolt of lightning?
When the world spins and spins,
Making you dizzy and insane,
And the blue roof above your head
Collapses and shatters into bits,
And within each shard you see yourself - 
Bloodied, broken.

You stand alone in a world
Suspended in empty chaos.
No life breathes. No leaf moves.
No breeze brushes against your skin.
Bodies lie dead like fallen dominoes.
Death prevails at center stage.


But the corpses rise once more
Pale as leper's skin,
The wind begins to howl -
Now cold and biting.
Leaves bleed their color
Setting fire to the trees,
While the moon smirks as she cloaks
The world with witchcraft.

Change ushers in a netherworld,
The mind snatched from the bower it holds on to,
Memories frozen into streams of ice,
Dreams burning away blinded eyes,
And with it, extinguished lies the soul.
A mere body, an empty vessel -
Awaiting judgement.


- Maryam Kaleem


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