Today’s prompt is an oldie-but-a-goody: the ghazal. The form was originally developed in Arabic and Persian poetry, but has become increasingly used in English, after being popularized by poets including Agha Shahid Ali. A ghazal is formed of couplets, each of which is its own complete statement. Both lines of the first couplet end with the same phrase or end-word, and that end-word is also repeated at the end of each couplet.

There is no comfort inside a broken heart
no place to safely step in a shattered heart

There is no comfort where there is no power
stripped down to the bright red wounded heart

There were children walking that street, that field
now there’s only the bitter dust of mother’s heart

Every single day, all over this singular earth
we weaponize our minds against the heart

All the uniforms say ‘I will kill if I am told to’
Fingers taut, targeting anyone with freedom of the heart

Tell me, will you ever lose your acquired taste
for the raw flesh of a young and supple heart

And how long will we scream and beat our chests in anguish
Before we divest from all structures not rooted in the heart?

‍

there is no comfort