I drown myself in tasks,
pour coffee five times a day,
so even in those brief seconds,
my hands are not idle, my mind not still.
I raise the music to a scream,
to drown the voice that gnaws,
the voice that sounds like you.
I write and write and write,
so I do not reach for you,
so my fingers find ink instead of absence.
I do the things I do not wish to do,
fill the silence with motion,
but still
you slip into my sleep,
a ghost pressing its weight upon my chest.
Ariana Afrin Emu is a 21-year-old poet currently working on her debut collection, Doesn’t Make Any Sense. Her work has been featured in multiple online journals, including Poetry Potion, Cold Moon Journal, Screaming Cicadas, Mawbiz and others. Ariana’s writing explores love, loss, identity, and longing through emotionally raw, lyrical storytelling that blurs the line between memory and imagination.