We are thrilled to welcome a brand new writer with us on the site, please welcome Maryam Ahmad Kamalboor and her debut piece titled “Midnight thoughts”

She’s munching down on a lame piece of bread, saliva escaping her glands, aiming to make this small piece of wheat more swallow-able.

A black curtain closes in on her vision.

Her feet are bare and pale, her toenails painted black. They are situated on grayish rocks, motionless.

Her heart is pumping blood as fast as a maniac horse; she’s losing control.

Fear grapples her head, as if it had two thumbs pressed on her temples, until they grew yellow and dead, and she doesn’t apprehend it.

She looks ahead and realizes that she is standing at the edge of a cliff, with silent black waters swaying under.

She is tempted to jump; she almost feels that it’s inevitable.

She has to leap over this wall of apprehension, and she does, her body slapping the water chest first, which sent tingles down her spine and across her lungs.

She gasps, almost breathless from that nightmare, and sits up on her bed. Her palms are clammy, and the hairs stuck at the back of her neck; moist and humid.

Taking a deep breath, she lies again on her back, her vision a blur. Her pupils spread out as the darkness settles in.

Things haven’t been alright for a while. she thinks, running her fingers through her wavy, burgundy hair.

All around her she saw people laughing, dancing and painting their worlds with the brushes of their dreams. Friendships are formed, relationships collapse, new loves are discovered and hearts are mended.

And then there is me.

She felt out of this world, stuck in a foreign land. Her colorless soul lost its identity as it found ways to alter with the flow; her thoughts are becoming contradictory, and among this swirl of people and life’s events, she feels untouched.

Unchangeable.

Forever stuck in the dungeons of which their walls she have constructed with the fear of oblivion; of living eternally with a void in her heart, her mind.

Anxiety rises, and acidity fills her throat.

Yet again her cravings return, as she imagines twirls of nicotine pirouetting above her head where smoke met the ceiling, the taste of wet paper on her heart-shaped lips.

Things haven’t been alright for a while.”

Author: Maryam Ahmad Kamalboor