When you went to the waters
(for Ophelia, Ahsan, and others who went to the waters)
by Naima Rashid
When you gave up on earth and
went to the waters, what was
that grief so large
that no human heart could hear, could
bear?
How long was the journey from
your last familiar step to your
first unknown one?
The element that welcomed you,
was it kinder than the one
that betrayed you?
Were the waters warm, pale blue, speckled
with sunlight,
or cold and dark
like a motherless world?
Your pain unprisoned,
when it fled the trappings
of your last human breaths,
did it glide fish-like into the tide?
Are you lighter now?
Naima Rashid is an author, poet and literary translator between Urdu, English, French and Punjabi. Her work was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition and Best Small Fictions. Her published and forthcoming books include Sum of Worlds (Yoda Press, 2023-2024), Naulakhi Kothi (Penguin Random House India 2023), Chicanes (Les Fugitives, 2023), Defiance of the Rose (Oxford University Press, 2019), and her own fiction. Her writings have been widely published in Asymptote, The Scores, Wild Court, Poetry Birmingham, RIC Journal and Litro, among others. She is a collaborator with the UK-based translation collective, Shadow Heroes, which teaches young people to embrace all aspects of their linguistic and cultural heritage.