Author: M.A. Riaz
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A Lost Button
Off a cotton shirt, the shiny, lone button popped, stray threads frayed in place, reaching around the vacant space with wispy arms and fingers, palms lost and blending on fabric. Soulful bonds, whorled and weft from dyed thread, from soulless creatures of fabric, tied by their shared brotherhood—the taut, red…
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Night of Power
“The Night of Glory is better than a thousand months…it is peace until the break of dawn.” —The Holy Quran, 97:3-5 . . . Thick, feverish air swells in soft billows, falling like gossamer over soundless trees, a whisper lost between the minutiae of trembling grass shards. Their…
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Orange Bites
I sink my teeth into the skin of an orange child blossoming from the furtive beginnings of youth, hissing as ocherous juice spurts into my eyes, a vengeance siphoned from the soft muscle I pulled apart. In that moment of blindness, I can see Spring looming over my seated form,…
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A Daughter’s Take on Fatherhood
My father, vivacious— a mouth full of leaves and amrut, splurting and gushing between the crooks in his teeth, a call to the boy who punched him square in the face in a brawl on the streets of Gujranwala, the nuts he cracked while playing cards, while dealing empty cigarette…
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Gift
Featured Illustration: Rocío Montoya Mirrors bleed a blinding white, light fractured over fractured features. Wrapped across my body, I see white ribbon dyed into splotchy carmine, crisscrossing into makeshift thigh highs and babydoll lingerie. The slope of a neck and the fat of baby cheeks— curves are a tantalizing blessing,…
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Voices from Afghanistan
Featured Illustration: Shehzil Malik They call to us from under the Afghan Sun, their skin bright like amber kindled under flame, and their voices heavy with dripping characters, rough edges and beveled lines, black ink bursting over letters and journals, for they live by the pen, writing in an attempt…