A voyage within, by Naheed, about despair, darkness, and a sliver of hope, exclusively for Different Truths.

Like a bird which has lost
Her way; in the night’s blind
Screaming, she does pray long
But afar from mankind
She looks towards the dark clouds and the Sky unkind

I sit alone in crowd;
What sheer solitude!
Harmonious but loud;
That yet does me exclude
Like a lender who gives up all his loans subdued 

Staring at the wide void
I count air particles;
My sight unemployed
That earns no articles
And I hear not humanly noises in this world

But I unlike the bird;
Secluded thus desired,
With all the senses purged
Of being’s mirth conspired
Listen from above, answers that I had enquired.

Picture design by Anumita Roy, exclusively for Different Truths

Naheed Akhtar

Naheed Akhtar is a lecturer, writer and poet based in the city of Hyderabad. She is a bibliophile and loves reading Philosophy, History, Psychology, Literature, and its glossary. She loves nature. With her fine imagination of being a wanderer, a lost, who longs and lingers for the unseen and remote for her own reasons. She has three poetry collections: ‘Phantasms of My Heart’, ‘The Earth’s Love’ and ‘The Morphine’.