Ayesha Sachin Bindal
What doth define the soul?
A war of fervid woe and seething wrath?
The butchery of evanescing hope by void vexation?
What worth is this pyrrhic victory?
None but dust prevail.
Must we sear in our own ashes
For the world to salvage our echoes,
Our footprints, and approve this ephemeral tale?
Is the soul but a fragile ember,
Distinguished by the frailest wind?
Why, then, does the ember not succumb?
Why does Zephuros lie in chagrin?
Why does the glint still spark?
Is it desire that prevents its obsolescence?
It reveries the forbidden dream,
The hypnotic state of hope.
Yet the trance is crushed by their arms
The people, branches binding it to the earth,
Roots luring with deceiving charms.
Time slips away as it wakes from the illusion;
Fate creeps as a distant shadow.
It scuffles 'gainst the vines,
Thorns that pin it to the ground.
The wind drives deeper the thorns.
Once where lay the bleeding ember,
None but dust is found.
If dust we are, then dust shall rise.
Words shall form from muffled cries.
What doth define the soul?
The fight, the ache, the looming fears.
It shan't end—the fight
For I weep blood and bleed tears,
Till the earth is stained with crimson threads.
For the day will come; 'tis near.
The winds, the vines shall scram.
Blood's scent—'tis not my fear.
I bleed, therefore I am.