Published in Issue 64.1: Winter 2025
You can purchase our Winter issue here
i make music to live longer
i live life to curl tongues
tongues with language are a God
God is a face i can only see with a pen
the pen is an echo of the world
the world is a God we cannot see
i do not see prayer so i am a sinner
the greatest sin is witness without reaction
i am so reactive my body is a clock
the clock is a message firing into thought
every thought has potential to make potential
change is potential in motion
motion is how i know i am alive
i am best at living when i make
to make you need ingredient & fire
the fire of fear
fear is set off in me with the branches of history
history makes me small & hot
what is small starts a fire
large enough to burn the world
i have enough stories to fill the world
the world is not big enough for all our worlds
& so we write anyway
anyway moves like the word again
again is a wheelbarrow carrying water
water is the word that puts out the fire
we are all elemental
nothing is stronger than hunger
Purchase our Winter 2025 issue, available in print and digital forms.
Diya Abbas is a first-generation Pakistani poet from the Midwest. Her poems are featured or forthcoming in Poetry Daily, RHINO, Foglifter, diode, The Offing, and others. She is currently studying English and South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison through the First Wave program. Find more of their work at diyabbas.com.
