(for Monira Qais) <br /> <br />I had just slipped straight from my mother’s womb <br />into this house where rumours breed like spawn, <br /> <br />and the grown-ups grinned as I stood like a torso; <br />my eyes blinked at the dazzle of their carnival lights. <br /> <br />And the lords of life told I’d just be freaking out; <br />like a trapped mouse, I stiffened with starlit fear. <br /> <br />Grappling with a lot of traumatic rumours at home, <br />I came of age and slumped as a column in the quake. <br /> <br />In all my autumns when the sky fell dripping blue, <br />I didn’t see ripples of rapture on pools ever spread, <br /> <br />suffered year after year a burn in the flames of fire, <br />long tortured by fabrications and lack of tears. <br /> <br />My life tells of the slow burn in the snaky flames; <br />and now there’s my body fills with blisters of grief.<br /><br />Sofiul Azam<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-house-of-rumours/
