WRECKED
WRECKED
WRECKED
WRECKED


Noora Shamsi Bahar

poetry, nov 24











They loot and vandalize me,
rob me of human dignity.
Their invasion of me has left
chronic wounds—open, festering.
My lacerated flesh a haven for maggots.
Rivers of pain, rivulets of tears
have gushed out for millennia.
Too fatigued to stitch myself up,
too burned out to rebuild
my desecrated temple, my being.

In wait, I lay on these blood-soaked grounds
for you to pick up my forgotten bones,
to breathe into me the sweet fragrance of life,
and pour through my parched lips
an elixir of sweet nothings.
Undead, barely breathing, I hope.

I’ve been lying on acidic, cracked soil
long enough for the roots of my vehement rage
to spread downwards and outwards
amassing energy from the earth’s searing core.
And I fear that I will not be the phoenix
that will rise above and beyond
the ashes of vengeance and destruction,
but rather, metamorphose into an all-consuming fire,
the blood-lusty tongues of which
shall ravish my ravagers, in mindless delight.








AUTHOR BIO
AUTHOR BIO
AUTHOR BIO
AUTHOR BIO



Noora Shamsi Bahar is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of English and Modern Languages, North South University, Bangladesh. She completed her MA in English from Western University, Canada, and has been teaching undergraduate classes since 2010, being the youngest lecturer in Bangladesh when she began her career. She has presented papers at academic conferences in Oxford, Prague, and Dhaka, which have been published as book chapters and journal articles. Ms. Bahar finds pleasure in reading short fiction in Bengali (her third language) and translating them into English. Her translations have appeared in dailies, literary journals, and anthologies, at home and abroad. She won the Tagore Award for Translated Fiction (2021), organized by the literary magazine, The Antonym. She used her translation skills to work as the subtitler of a critically-acclaimed, award winning independent film, The Golden Wings of Watercocks (2022). Ms. Bahar is an occasional poet; she also writes essays and op-eds that voice her outcry against societal ills.































WRECKED
WRECKED
WRECKED
WRECKED


Noora Shamsi Bahar

poetry, nov 24





They loot and vandalize me,
rob me of human dignity.
Their invasion of me has left
chronic wounds—open, festering.
My lacerated flesh a haven for maggots.
Rivers of pain, rivulets of tears
have gushed out for millennia.
Too fatigued to stitch myself up,
too burned out to rebuild
my desecrated temple, my being.

In wait, I lay on these blood-soaked grounds
for you to pick up my forgotten bones,
to breathe into me the sweet fragrance of life,
and pour through my parched lips
an elixir of sweet nothings.
Undead, barely breathing, I hope.

I’ve been lying on acidic, cracked soil
long enough for the roots of my vehement rage
to spread downwards and outwards
amassing energy from the earth’s searing core.
And I fear that I will not be the phoenix
that will rise above and beyond
the ashes of vengeance and destruction,
but rather, metamorphose into an all-consuming fire,
the blood-lusty tongues of which
shall ravish my ravagers, in mindless delight.






AUTHOR BIO
AUTHOR BIO
AUTHOR BIO
AUTHOR BIO



Noora Shamsi Bahar is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of English and Modern Languages, North South University, Bangladesh. She completed her MA in English from Western University, Canada, and has been teaching undergraduate classes since 2010, being the youngest lecturer in Bangladesh when she began her career. She has presented papers at academic conferences in Oxford, Prague, and Dhaka, which have been published as book chapters and journal articles. Ms. Bahar finds pleasure in reading short fiction in Bengali (her third language) and translating them into English. Her translations have appeared in dailies, literary journals, and anthologies, at home and abroad. She won the Tagore Award for Translated Fiction (2021), organized by the literary magazine, The Antonym. She used her translation skills to work as the subtitler of a critically-acclaimed, award winning independent film, The Golden Wings of Watercocks (2022). Ms. Bahar is an occasional poet; she also writes essays and op-eds that voice her outcry against societal ills.
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