An Afflictive Life

By Shafiul Ansary

A cloudy day was a long life ago,

A group of bees hived in a beautiful rose.

Doomed the rose regrettably by occupiers,

Dwellers of all near, fainted with fear of state’s unstable.

An out-bursting is to desert a native land,

My heart so became a blithesome nature.

All confiscated by propaganda,

Me so had nothing to say my own.

I started a hysterical cry,

That I was gonna miss all.

It was a hapless day of my life,

The night was my brightness side of my life.

To relinquish my pastoral life on a windy May midnight,

I set off journey through a deep reed.

Though there were precipitous crosses,

I heard cruel voices of feral animals.

Being I was a scapegoat child,

Stray bruised all parts of my body.

Bleeding was uncared, nor for food,

Street Monks thugs were my fear.

Two dozen hrs of my life in jeopardy,

I came out to a bank of Naf River.

Though I was in unspeakable mood,

I had torn bag was snatched away by Mobs.

Stomach growling for being nothing around,

Sodden water I drank invisibly.

Seeing my (wayworn) uncontrolled morose,

An old paddler helped me cross the Naf River.

While I had seen many drowning boats,

Tears of terror plight were shedding down.

When, not sure, I started sleeping,

I was in Bangladesh when I woke up.

No one was besides me to wipe away my tear,

I was in an alien cage for being Rohingya.

Near two decades of my life in dilapidated limbo,

I luckily resettled in Canada.

On a lovely day of bitterness winter,

I landed down in Vancouver Int’l Airport.

It is though a most beautiful city in the world,

I was under the weather.

Strange everything and everyone,

Streets spread as the roots of tree.

Seeing people looked like machines,

It was reluctant to soothe my mind.

Seeing people on diverse talking,

I started to aspire at day time.

Being English was my third tongue,

I felt my heart imploded forlornly.

I today overcome through hysteria,

Where equal dignity everyone can share.

It’s neither for my nation nor for my entire family,

Those who have to face a slow silent genocide.

Leaving half under the threat of death,

A stranger here seemed like my happiness.

Life of somber made me feel in an emotional life,

An afflictive life is the credence of my life.