DEAD MEN DIE TWICE
by Hamza Azhar
The dead man unropes himself
and holds his broken neck in his hands.
He sits on a yellow bench nearby,
extends his weary hands towards his torn pocket;
he pulls out
DEAD MEN DIE TWICE
by Hamza Azhar
The dead man unropes himself
and holds his broken neck in his hands.
He sits on a yellow bench nearby,
extends his weary hands towards his torn pocket;
he pulls out a piece of paper with an address written on it,
and stares at it with his unfortunate eyes – a tear trickles down
upon his cheek and falls onto the paper.
He memorizes the address briefly,
holds his desire and lights the paper on fire.
‘Now is the time to return home’
He thinks to himself and treads lightly with his tired legs.
He walks for two hundred and twenty days in scorching heat;
he finally reaches an abandoned house: his home.
As he stares upon the old wooden door,
he knocks as hard as his broken fingers let him;
but no one answers.
He must have forgotten:
sometimes the bridges burn,
the rivers flow backwards,
the moon does not shine,
people do not wait.
hamza.azhar