December 16 – a spectral mist of melancholy,
a lost voice like powder glass on a matchbox,
a sensation so dominating your heart quivers,
a spectacle so distressing and bloodcurdling
it leaves you in tears, disbelief, concussion.
December 16 – a dark dark day in our history,
a day when over100 students were killed
while they were studying, in the school,
a day when we witnessed yet another event
added to the chronicle of inhumanity,
a day when innocent souls were obliterated
to death, shot to death, blasted to death,
a day when parents buried their young kids
whom they dreamed to flourish into beauty.
December 16 – a haunting gloom,
a blur memory in the pages of my diary,
a howling scream of lost souls in the void,
a day we try to forget, a day we can never forget…
Hafsa Mumtaz, aged 22, is an emerging Muslim writer from Pakistan, with a bachelor in English Language and Literature. Her poetry has been published in Visual Verse, The Rising Phoenix Review, Women’s Spiritual Poetry, The New Verse News, Poetry Potion, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Terror House Magazine, Ravi Magazine, The Sandy River Review, and has appeared or is forthcoming in Couplet Poetry, and Corvus Review. Her short story that she wrote back in 2020 is available on Reedsy Prompts.