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Immortals
by Sheikha A.

He knew what they were, apex crawlers
of the high domains – mobius chains –

fire-follicles erupting like lava from skin
pores; they would come steel-taloned

looking for their children, those he had
fed until he killed. They donned masks,

eyes mesmerising pits of shadows –
altered realities – mirrors of untapped

souls – unspoken desires pervading
human minds. He would have to gouge

out his eyes, but he would wait until
they arrived. The walls are thick on

shadows of caretakers like himself
as he waits between them – green

neon blazes of the children’s dead flesh
burn against his palms. The crawlers

are slow and precise, their talons cleave
with deliberate pleasure; yet he waits on

the sound of their slithering bellies,
his fingers positioned like pluckers

over his eyes; this time no illusions
will manipulate what they know of

his unspoken dreaming – the woman
he loves, the children he had wanted –

this time he will face them soulless.
He hears them coming as he braces,

his  hollow eyes resembling theirs,
dark like ghosts, discarded and dead.

Fiction © Copyright Sheikha A.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Sheikha A.:

Nyctophiliac Confessions:
Poems by Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee

“The night is cold enough to inspire poetry,” says Sheikha A. in her poem, “Reading My Bones.” This is the basis of Nyctophiliac Confessions – poems that are introspective and luminal, poems that require a certain amount of silence and space to be fully formed and appreciated. Reading these poems, I imagined that they were the kind of poems that assert themselves unbidden during a bout of insomnia. (A nyctophiliac being someone who loves the night or loves darkness).

Nyctophiliac Confessions is the 17th installment of Praxis’ chapbook series and contains twenty-six poems written by two poets, Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee, interspersed with abstract paintings by Robert Rhodes.

Available Here!