there is a certain joy in diving
diving into my ruin like noonday
swallowing the dazzling sun so it’s not too much
to scorch you to a crisp
i was on the threshold of movement when
you noticed me, you told me to stand still
so i froze like there was no eternity to spill,
a wretched muse
through music you wanted immortality but
there was agony when you sang, so i
disembodied my voice, rose cold like a
siren, and you engulfed it
when you could sing you saw but the traces
of immortality, so i suggested you sculpt
a face of god propped against your chest,
and sing in its mouth
so sculpt you did with the finest of clays
a head of god but you couldn’t get its face
right, i sliced off my face to offer you,
you looked hurt but took it
with the face of a woman, you sculpted not
a god but a goddess, you kissed its purple
mouth breathing psalms into it, when risen,
you told her she’d always looked like this
now that you had immortality, she told you
it pained her to see another woman in the
room, you told her that I was just a faceless
mortal but she, wondrous divinity
but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough, you
had to split the room, shift from east to west,
arm in arm with your wretched divinity,
while i stood still faceless, your forsaken muse
who forgot how to move
Ammara Younas comes from Gujranwala, Pakistan. Besides her regular job creating content, she enjoys writing imaginative stories infused with magical realism. She’s currently working on a collection of poems that weave together the tapestry of Greek myths and Pakistani folklore.