Maryam Chahine is an American Muslim woman living in Jordan. She formally met poetry at the age of 16 and has been breathing poetry ever since. Her work has been featured in Poetry Revolt, ken*again and Sacramento Poetry, Art and Music.

The Exit of Zeekoff

Zeekoff: fearless general, mass murderer.
Yield your soul, whether willing or unwilling. I will be the one to
X you out of the equation.
Wresting point by point, the
Very soul you deemed nonexistent
Until now. Standing on
The platform: an empire - you thought you were immortal.
Suddenly you realize your disguise. Your soul
Ranging up your throat
Questing for an exit that will not come. Because the
Partition is being removed slowly, torn, inch by inch, every fiber
Objecting to leave.
Nevertheless I twist and twist at the
Moldy fabric in the nail.
Lacerating the strings that were at play for so long.
Keen and precise as tweezers.
Jagged portions
In between last breaths.
He is clutching thornily at what is left.
Give up your soul Zeekoff. I storm between multiple wings.
Filleting now with exactness.
Erasure at the jugular
Detaching thread by thread
Clawing out the last remnants
Before he realizes that it is too late
As I throw his soul into the abyss.

_______________________________________________________________________________

I Erase into the Ocean

Into the monotony I relinquish,
sequences of wave after wave
invites me,
a kite sails to freedom,
between murmurs of where I've come,
grain by grain kidnapped -
finally free...soft imprints follow me
in sands, to swallow I no longer know,
its been so cold,
the tide rolls, rolls, folds away forgetting me,
then with a thirsty
plea it remembers, returning back,
accepting all that I lack,
there was never enough, but here is
eternity, water whispers between toes,
it knows how close I have come to understand
nothing
though I swallowed whole,
nothing
triumphed except
a dark hole, too small now to reach
into and confess
what a mess I have made,
the ink ran dry, there was too
much to retrace,
come, come it tells me,
the ocean sways and forgives,
it will erase.