Poem

Ataraxia

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Even when the world burns,
and the chaos is inevitable,
and the scars do not heal
and there is no way to make the blood beautiful,
even when we cannot rewrite that part,
cannot erase the shattered stories,
we still must write
We will not let this book close

We must write to stitch back together our ripped pieces, sew up each frayed edge
to wear our pain like gossamer,
to search for an answer between the lines.
we write to unzip our hearts and carve the tainted parts away,
pin hope in their place
We write to become again, to undo and redo
to learn how to heal

Within these words we become limitless
we find our ataraxia, our perfect place:
a masterpiece woven of discarded dreams,
midnight tears and memories
A world crafted of glamorous half truths,
sprinkled with delicate stars and velvety light,
fostering dreams that know no limits

It is the only haven we have when
night litters shadows across our minds, drags us through ghost towns
Darkness is trying to steal us back from day and
we must write the sun back into our lives

Writing is the pretty and the ugly spread side by side,
the start and the end-
the breaking, and the piecing back together
It is so vital to living:
It is the reminder that,
you will live

Asiyah is a freshman in college, majoring in Informatics at UT Austin. She has been writing since she was 5, and has won awards for her writing at MIST Nationals and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. In her free time, she can be found reading poetry, practicing video editing, or drinking boba tea.

3 Comments

  1. So meticulously crafted, and a message very reflective of this burning need to write… I loved this!
    “We will not let this book close” — one of my favorite lines
    “It is the only haven we have when” — i like wordplay, especially in a free verse. thank you for sharing this!

  2. Aliya Nehal Reply

    Beautiful, complex, detailed. Each stanza reads like its own story and then is sewn together into a patchwork of images. I could read this over and over. Stunning.

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