Heartbust: (Plato’s Allegory of the Cave)

Someone is taking a photo
at a wedding
of their baby
at a celebration.

There’s a roar of a truck
the hiss of a missile
the boom of a dumb bomb.

The prodigal sun casts shadows in your cave
of
someone taking a photo
at a wedding
of their baby
at a celebration.

There’s a roar of a truck
the hiss of a missile
the boom of a dumb bomb –

breaking            your shackles.

You leave the cave blinded
scrambling over
broken lines … broken bones … broken dreams.

Your eyes switch channels.
There’s a dread it’s real.

You swipe up.
There’s a dread it’s real.

There’s a feeling beyond helpless
which you can’t stop:       Heartbust.

You gasp for air
like you’re the one trapped

in the rubble
dying to get out.

You return to your shackles
in the cave watching

someone taking a photo
at a wedding
of their baby
at a celebration.

Ashia Mirza is a writer from Bolton. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Aurora Prize and highly commended by the University of Greater Manchester. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the HG Wells Prize and published in the anthology Motion and on CafeLit. Her novels have been longlisted and shortlisted in competitions run by The Times/Chicken House, Guppy, Northern Writers, and Commonword. Alongside her writing, she works as an informatics pharmacist.