Solitary Reflections by Nibras Malik

‘Solitary confinement is too terrible a punishment to inflict on any
human being, no matter what his crime. Hardened criminals in the
men's prisons, it is said, often beg for the lash instead’.
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928)
 
I am a prisoner to ceaseless night,
A torment without end or beginning,
Everything is suffused with pain,
 
My heart is a bare hinterland,
Utterly empty and vacuous,
As my mind splinters like glass,
 
There is no consolation,
Silence is my only witness,
It offers no companionship,
 
I pray for sweet oblivion,
The cold comfort of death,
Signals an end to my misery.

Nibras Malik is a second year Politics & IR student at Cardiff University. Two of her poems have been published in the Acumen Poetry Journal. More recently, she has been long-listed for the Felix Dennis Young Poets Competition 2020 and published in an associated anthology. In her spare time, she enjoys bicycling, watching documentaries, reading and writing. Her long term goal is to publish a debut poetry collection.