“Hiraeth” poem by Mahnoor Mustafa:

Tangled in the ceaseless knots of her intricate thoughts,

She sat on the rooftop of her domicile contemplating,

What an empyrean glimpse of the crepuscular sky had her eyes caught,

It ushered her to a memory so astray but very captivating:

Far-flung from all her bothers and stresses,

She pictured herself sprinting barefoot through the ruins of a castle grand like Edinburgh,

Adorned in spinel gems, wearing the most exquisite of dresses,

A land made of pure imagination, but the map eminently resided in her soul,

The eccentric feeling of unidentified nostalgia rushed through her veins,

Causing an eerie melancholic yearning directing shivers down her spine,

She resurrected back to the world, staggered by the light tinkling of the wind chime,

Despite this world feeling like an ordeal, like a temporary domain,

The appellation for her desire was hiraeth,

Like wistful longing for an inanimate dwelling,

An incurable sickness, in her heart which was spreading,

For she was on a ludicrous odyssey, oblivious of the trail towards which she was heading.