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By Umera Riyaz

In the fields, I held my hands.
The echoes of your voice;
plays reels of the past.
Numbness shrinks my hunger,
kissing the wounds of yesterday.
My knees ache;
my cracked heels are swollen
from the weight of my thoughts.
Barefoot, I walk like a lost sovereign.
To the mainland I must return,
But my feet remain still on concrete.
A burnt bridge stands before me,
once tall and strong.
I called it home,
spent my nights crying into its arms.
Now it groans, yet prides.
I dug a grave for its ashes;
I swallow the dust.
I feel a pit I can never fill.
I must go home,
But it's been laid to rest.

Umera Riyaz is an emerging poet based in Texas, whose work explores the intersections of grief, third culture, and relationships. Her writing has appeared in the Contemporary Literary Review India. When not writing, she can be found reading a crime thriller.