Poetry from the Afghan Mystic, Halah Khan
From: Triptych: Love Letter I, String of Fate, and The Lost Star
Love Letter I:
To all the words I am afraid to say, that twist and burn under my tongue; to all the wounds I am tired of reopening; to a love for hideous things, a love I keep nurturing with my own sinister hands. All language is lost on me; I am weaving old, abandoned dreams, bleeding out under a fallen moon. It all cracks softly like eggshells under my feet, I carry this hollowness in my womb, it is mine to keep, mine to love; the burden of a thousand centuries sprouting into my spine, splitting me from within.
There is a home for me… In another universe, another lifetime, it rains slowly, each drop seeping into our skin softly, healing the bruises that never got a chance to heal…but I was walking backward; I was writing love letters to death, I was born with this repulsive love, I was born a sinner, with moonlight, etched into my skin, darkness staining my palms like mehndi, I was casting spells before I knew her name… I was writing love letters across eternities, singing in forgotten languages. I was writing love letters before I could even speak; I was talking to ghosts; I was summoning demons and lovers.
The Lost Star:
I am impatient to be patient, exasperated to calm down; running through the nights longing for the softness of her embrace, weaving my agitation into rubble, grasping at the stale air in my room, where did I put my last hyper fixation? Already forgot… frantically searching for any movement, any sound to drown the ringing in my head; casting spells with trembling hands, the sages told me to never sleep, I break things softly, creating with an ancient rage.
All a farce, all to waste.
I want to turn to softer ways of existing, I want to turn my back to the world, to never know anything, forget all the names, faces and the times we carry, exist like the blooming of a daisy atop a mountain unknown, along a lost trail, smiling under the sun, dying with the sweet scent of earth, my purpose unimportant, my existence unseen, yet soft, yet persistence, breathing unhurriedly under pouring rain, knitting old stories that demand to be told, sleeping in the arms of mother earth; a life unlived, a life wasted bravely.
That friend who got upset from us
every wall is covered in red now
From: Tapestry of the Unsaid
Everything becomes unimportant under this big bright moon
We smear our bodies with hope and sin
Calling out for wolves to eat our flesh while we pray to an unborn sun
These streets have cried for long enough
What does it matter if we are loved or not
The stars will still fall
And the sky will tear itself open
And the moons will always be bleeding
And I will lose my head again
I will sit quietly, I will perform my rituals, I will count my steps and I will claw my way back into the earth’s womb
The forest will accept me as its own
and that is my salvation
From: Love letter III
Bring a deeper color than this
A verdure grows from her papery fingertips
The scent of which enchants my dreams
Within a soft, innocent sunshine
The morning dew of her smile is shining through
Her name is like the moon
Her softness like moonlight
She’s there as well
Where I have been lost for centuries
Beyond the speed of light
Free from the constraints of existence and non-existence.