Issue Forty-Four - Summer 2024

Amnesty

By Aaisha Umt Ur Rashid

I’m sure you’d spare my mistakes,
For I cannot help my heart,
If it’s wrong to want you with me,
Then I’m wrong, right from the start.

I’d flaunt it never mattered,
I’d fabricate I’m fine,
I’d show I wasn’t right when I
Thought that I’d make you mine.

I’d feign it’s all a dream and that
I never had you near,
I’d show myself the course of fate
And willingly then I’d bear.

But don’t assume I don’t love you
Don’t feel I never tried…
Don’t think that I am doing fine
Don’t think I never cried.

I know you have no place for me
Your life is filled with friends
I’d tell myself this fact and then
My wounds, I’d never mend.

I’d exhibit a happy life,
I’d hide all of my woes
I’d try to be so good to all
No matter friends or foes.

I’d show that all you said was right,
I’d show that I agreed
And that I sure can be a friend,
Just like the one you need.

Please do forgive all of my crimes,
And put me at a side,
Where I can see you laugh and cheer,
And add it to my pride!

Copyright 2024 Rashid

Aaisha Umt Ur Rashid is a poet, prose writer, editor and translator who is also Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the Lahore College for Women University, in Lahore Pakistan. She is also the initiator of The Bridge – a unique venture that aims to connect writers around the globe. Her third anthology as editor has been published by Fiction House Publishers in Lahore, Pakistan. Titled The Bridge Volume III, the anthology features writers from Pakistan and Nigeria, showcasing powerful stories and poems on the theme of RACE. Recently she hosted a creative writing workshop focused on short fiction, specially designed for teachers and students of creative writing at our university and its affiliated colleges. In November, she will be working as a focal person for an International Conference that we are organizing in our University on Narratives of Resilience: Exploring Resurgence in Global Literature with online sessions to engage scholars from various countries.

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