Be In This World Like A Stranger

By Hala Qamar

I wander the world with no direction

But the Ka’bah.

I wonder what it is that has turned my presence

Into prey, and I am either meat

Or a predator’s game to play.

My hollow steps echo

In the striking fracture

Between ‘us’     and     ‘them’.

I’m the phantom of who I was

When I walked with no head

And now I’m hunted for my head without death.

My voice has always dissipated

As soon as I open my half-tangible mouth–

 

And I’m transparent

When I linger on the earth as a stranger

Roaming restless to find rest.

And I’m fully visible–

When it turns out I must be hunted

For the apparent sin of certainty.

 

Hala Qamar is a British Pakistani writer from Birmingham who specializes in fiction and poetry.