Today is Paru's Marriage

Artwork by Amina

The city's youth, to whom are they going to at least
once declare: I love you
for whom would they buy tattooed t-shirts, for whom
burn their lips with cigarette toxins, Paru
For whom for whom, Paru, for whom these flowers to toss?

After eleven years, today, the city lights flickered out,
Paru
the old chessmaster's move foiled because of you
Paru, every youth poison in hand inside the clubhouse
.Tell me, are you off? Greedy for the garland your lovely neck
to extend?
Better come here instead, see how this grief
will wreck your marriage
today, how it'll smash it to smithereens.

Farhad Ahmed is a freelance writer/translator.