Slipping from a dream into a dream
and waking up to a dream,
The painter and I shrugged off
our blanket of cherry blossoms.

The tree was asleep; its song sung
The sun peered from among the clouds
careful not to disturb that pink slumber.
And we walked down the hill.

We ambled sans destination or purpose
going where whim or wonder steered our feet
We ate in the shade of broken monoliths
and rested in the halls of ruined castles

Fellow travellers we met a few
each walking in their own reverie.
Some shared a song, some bread
some offered their soul, some a bed

We came in time to the edge of the plain;
Below us was a wide valley
A road ran along its centre
stretching from one end to the other

And though we saw people
on the plain and in the valley,
not a soul ventured onto the road,
walking instead on the bare earth

"The Road of fates," said the painter,
"A road for the impatient..or the despondent."
We sat at the edge and watched;
We were not the only ones.

Presently, there came along a man
holding a pen and a book.
With an agonised look in his eyes
he stood in the valley, pondering.

With a sigh he stepped onto the road.
He started writing in his book,
his hand flitted from page to page.
Feverishly he wrote as he walked

A slab of the road came loose
and landed on the man's back
weighing him down like an ideal.
And the man walked bowed

Dogs came running up the road
and without knowing how
we knew what they were,
what they embodied.

As Responsibility clung to a calf,
Loneliness and Sickness took turns
and bit and clawed the man's legs
causing him to stumble and weep

He picked up a stick of Faith
and tried to fend off the dogs,
but soon the stick was lost
and the man started running

The dogs chased and harried
and took away chunks from the man.
Not scraps of the flesh,
but pieces of his soul.

Still the man wrote in his book;
bowed and in pain,
losing strength and vigor,
still he wrote.

Rain started to fall on the road
and the dogs scampered away.
The man sighed and sat down
and started writing again.

The clouds poured out their balm
and his pains melted away.
The man started walking again.
But it was a short respite.

A scream filled the valley
and we stopped our ears.
But the man fell down
as Loss struck his heart.

The sound of barking far away
as the dogs gathered again.
The man sat up and wept
and picked up his pen and book

Buffeted by the echoes of loss,
dreading the jaws of woe,
weighed down by his ideals,
the writer sat and wrote

The mongrels came into sight.
The man started walking again.
A snake slithered between his feet
and sank its fangs into his being

The man stumbled, stopped
and writhed as in torment
as if the poison of Regret
burned his life blood

Onto the road he fell once more,
his pen flying away from his hand.
The dogs kept drawing near.
Giving in to despair, the man cried

He lifted up his head and yelled.
And brought his face down hard.
He kept smashing his head
until he rended it open

And as his blood flowed across,
the book was soaked red.
Silver figures rose from the red -
the man's fictions, his dreams.

All along the stream of blood
stories from his travails came to life;
And looking at his creations
the writer smiled and died.

The carcass would be dragged away
The blood would be washed away
But the shimmering silver stories
Would remain floating on the Road.

the tide always has to go back,
It's a force of nature.
The sun always has to set
its how the world works .
Balance
Equality
Fairness
all things we thrive off.
Things we crave
but yet as a world
We can't even achieve it,
we cant even see others for what they are
humans.
flesh and bone
all one blood.

blackbirds rise
to grey october as they have
and will, gathering in

worshiping flocks
growing in number, moving
with one thought, as one
body.

they are in numbers
such that the sound of wing
and caw, blankets me
below

in the mystery that lies
beneath the beauty,
above both,
the precision.

and i stand struck with no question,
mixed fear and gratitude,
praising as them,
the same god.

How deep the cross has sunken,
burrowed in ground, blood sodden.
Tarnished idols, silver wrought,
Pittance price for heaven bought.

None now kneel, on rotten pews,
flock of many, gone like dew,
candles flicker, dimming light.
Mother church, ravaged with blight.

Beyond the gilded marshlands,
Here where waves meet darkened sands,
the ground bones of gods long gone,
made these dunes we orphans roam.

Prowling barefoot, starless nights
eyes accustomed, free of lights,
gone the shadows, safe from sin,
our shame, banished from within.

When the Darkness Comes Quietly

When the shadows press against my chest,
and my breath feels borrowed,
I remind myself:
I have been here before
and still, I rose.

Anxiety whispers,
depression lingers,
but neither has ever stolen
the quiet flame inside me.

I am not the storm,
I am the girl who survives it.
I am not the silence,
I am the breath that breaks it.

Even here, even now,
when the night feels endless,
I am still here,
still breathing,
still held by God.

And that is enough.

— Sela 🌙

You created me, right?
A soul scattered,
Thrown aside.

Why—
Just answer this **** question—
Why plant the dream
When I could never be the sun?

Why stage the warmth
When light was never meant to dance?
Why is the faded dazzle there,
Carrying hope
Decorated by failed chance?

You hate me,
I know very well.
Then why
Do I still believe, still hold on,
While standing in the midst of hell?

And even now,
I still dare to dream,
Once again,
While waiting—
Maybe—for the final death beam.

I know.
But still, I believe.
How foolish of me—
But what else can I do?
All that's left is my faithful grief.

Yes,
angels, I still believe in you.
Because even today,
I am the same child
Playing in the fantasy castle you drew.

Divyanshi Solanki

prologue:

i see the footprint
here, placed to follow
into

the dwelling of the
Maker of outside
and beyond,

not of mortar and joist.
a craftsman's eye
reveals to me

the love of the labor,
the infinite plan
for each small part.

i am small before the story
a single tiny piece
beloved as if no other.

*
waiting for the morning star in this dark place,
as from the window a lamp shines.
they wait through long night,
by it, to be first to see morning star.

as night lifts cold edged,
an old softness returns unseen settling like dust.
lowing moan from witness to a truth born anew
in a stable in bethlehem.

did thunder roll that evening
herald to the event, or was it
silent, just a wind to mix
the smell of fodder and animal and human birth.

was there simple bread and wine
to feed hungry man and mother.
give to the provision of her *******, food to
a helpless salvation.

cold then morning sky returned,
and those that knew came
to see.  saw little more than
a point of growing life,
a light at the end of a long night.

*
the path by which he went is
clay and brick and worn by feet uncounted.
to go that way now is slow work,
for the atmosphere is filled with the cowering of light,
the walls of surrounding buildings covered in dust, defeated.

thin voices rise from the market,
the odors of food and waste and body,
each language foreign as all others,
i would trade my wages to step where god descended thrice,
once of honor
once in body
once to walk in sun bright garden
pray the night,  and retire, leaving us grateful and confused.

forgive me my desire to feel smooth stone
still warm from the day's sun and warm in memory of his foot fall here.
i know what i must and will know,
standing beside him, my face wet with his bleeding.