Zehwah Sheikh

because we cannot do this again.

we are tired of giving our lives up 

so you can play at governance. 

we are tired of pretending that war is a toy

you can wind up and watch. 28.5 million lives

I’ve had pomegranates twice in my 17 years.

Each time, I was awed at how 

something with such a mysterious foreign air

 could hold so many intricate bursts of joy. 

All I’ve got is the shell:

Jerry looks out peacefully at his friend Marky drowning again. He’s in the water. The first time he was out there, it was when his mom got sick for good, and he stopped seeing his shrink.

I go through weeks like I do sheets of paper, or hair ties, or poems. 

I use them all up but I can't remember what I wrote. 

Years are like that too. Someone asks what I did last Monday 

If curiosity killed the cat, then homo sapiens sapiens is closer to felis catus than humanity would like to admit, which is all the more reason to reach for new frontiers.

Dear World, 

Remember 
that everything you know 
was learned 
from someone who once 
wondered, 

and everything you do not know 
will vanish