Vacation

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Vacation

Everyone wants to find a pink island

I alone seek the amber. In the sand

The seashells whisper: ‘Are you green or blue

Watching us bob on the foam? Is it true

The homes of the dead stay homes on the land?’

The mollusc-ghosts and the jeering sea strand

More than shells upon the shore. In the bland

Frothing waves, soap-rinsings, I see the hue

Everyone wants to find.

Isle of hiraeth in the palm of my hand,

Turn not your bitter neem-bark rose now. Stand

Firm in my fading memory. Your dew

And sulphur are alike dear on this new

Sea-leached ground lined with the pink seashell brand

Everyone wants to find.

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez 

Twitter X: @hibahshabkhez

Insta: @shabkhez_hibah

Marinated In Sepia

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Marinated In Sepia

The memory of innocence nags me

like lost keys and catchy headlines half-read,

wrenches me back like taps and stoves left on.

Bring back a sturdy, leafless tree, it cries

with branches like claws turned upward to catch

yourself as you fall from the sky.

Marinated in sepia, the three

intertwined demons of pain, shame, and dread

rake across my heart and pierce my soul. Born

whole but sliced by the unknown, child-me tries

once more to gather stray how-tos and match

its wits against the world; and I -

I must watch it fail again.

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez 

Twitter X: @hibahshabkhez

Insta: @shabkhez_hibah

Faits Divers

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Faits Divers

I scan each page for names

I do not wish to find;

Names of people,

Names of places,

Names of things.

I scroll each feed for names

I do not wish to find;

Asking of both,

Of all sides:

You are not coming for us next, are you?

Are you?

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez 

Twitter X: @hibahshabkhez

Insta: @shabkhez_hibah