The Sun by Mahnoor Shaheen

He cradled the Sun on his back,
ripe with lost songs, nestled to attack.
It was an old tune he kept harkening, 
an old anthem he kept murmuring. 

It was a poem burning him inside,
yet it was the one thing keeping him alive.

“Why must you carry this weight, this burden, this light?” they asked.
It’s the only thing binding me, he said.
Was it a song, a boulder, a passion or a tune he had to keep dragging upright?
Was it a pen bleeding out his insides?

Wasn’t he the only one who could hear, sing about the Sun’s symphony?
Wasn’t he the only one who could speak her name?
and yet, he could never see the red blisters on his hands, knuckles and ribs.

He would tell you the Sun gives him light 
when all he could feel was burning.