By Qaiser Abbas Zaidi

Don’t Send Me To That Town

Where waves of unsaid words

crash against the banks,

of frozen, muted, lips 

Where parched tongues dance

to the music of thirst,

where roses have wilted,

in the cheeks 

When a dying impulse

cries out in pain,

red flames of rebuke

leap from the skies 

Where lashes of tyranny,

bloom like flowers,

on the bare back,

of emotion 

Where fragrance squirms, where colour burns

where voice fails, and carbuncle grows 

Wipe out my body, pluck out my eyes,

please don’t send me to that town

 Dr Zaidi is a psychiatrist, currently working in the UK