by Anam Tariq
In princess white, unfurled
to dance, the damsel,
seeing (oh!) so far as
the ambit of the newly earned spotlight.
Unaware of the vengeful darkness
where that light doesn’t fall.
So clustered by sooty impressions,
as with light dance the shadows,
she danced, celebrated, among
happy faces and masked faces,
supportive faces and delusive faces.
Expected to be secure,
wrapped within gritty, spiky chateau
walls, the damsel unearthed
its ominous earth
standing on a smudgy, solitary,
rocky precipice (ironical!).
With light come shadows too,
a planet’s own satellite can bilk it too.
She sits now alongside Seclusion, the wench,
on the precipice
dangling slim feet in the cold, empty air.
[Note: Inspired by Cruella, Shadow and Bone, Taylor Swift’s life and Cinderella.]
© Anam Tariq
Anam Tariq (she/her) is a poet and writer from India with an MA in English and a poetry collection A Leaf upon a Book (Leadstart, 2022). She runs The Wordsridge Newsletter on Substack and writes for Writers’ Cafeteria, and others. She is also a poetry and prose reader at Culinary Origami Journal. Anam’s poems appear in The Punch Magazine, The Chakkar, Swim Press, Spill Words, The Shallot, Verse of Silence, coalitionworks and elsewhere. In her free time Anam loves immersing herself in books and a lot of series/movies.
You can find out more on her website or Instagram @anam.tariq_.
Share the love and wonder by making sure to respect the copyrights! Everything we publish belongs to the authors. You can share their texts via the official link. If you quote them, please credit them. If you wish to republish their work, you can always write to us and we will put you in direct contact with them. Supporting creativity starts with respecting those who create, so we thank you in advance for doing your part!
The Amazine Community 