Kashmir
By Muqaddas Rafique

Where must I put

this borrowed grief,

when yours

has names,

ruins,

and graves?

Where must I shelter

this stillborn hope,

when yours

is flayed

letter by letter

and left bleeding?

Where must I rinse

this rotten tongue

before my shame

washes away

the taste of

a prayer,

a language,

a whole childhood

in which

you are home

before

any home,

Kashmir.

Muqaddas Rafique is an undergraduate student of English Literature and Language who likes to draw, photograph, and write her way through things. Of all the ways she finds to express herself, poetry is the one she returns to most. Still finding her way around writing, with her work in poetry and creative nonfiction appearing in literary publications, she continues to learn what it means to write.