By: Harrison Cashmere

The Red Dust of April

You arrive like a held breath against the Zabarwan,
row upon row of silk cups catching the mountain sun.
But spring in the valley is a thief;
you offer your throat to the breeze,
knowing the heat is already sharpening its blade.
Your scent doesn’t just drift—it settles like a prayer
in the humid shade of the Chinars.
We walk the brick paths, praising your fragile glow,
while beneath the soil, the earth is already reaching
to pull your petals back into the dark.
Perhaps you are only perfect because you are leaving.
Like a moth’s wing, or a secret whispered near the Dal,
you prove that the brightest things
are those that refuse to stay.

Glass and Shadow

Your shadows never frightened me;
it was the hollow space where my own heart should beat.
I have looked into the Jhelum and seen a stranger’s face,
a silhouette defined by what it lacks.
They say people are vessels, full of noise and light,
but I am a room with the windows boarded up.
I can mimic their laughter, wear their heavy coats,
and walk through the marketplace as if I belong.
But the tragedy isn’t that I might become them—
it’s the quiet, cold reality
that I have forgotten how to be me.

The Gilded Cage

This world was once a tapestry of emerald and gold,
but the threads have frayed, exposing the lead beneath.
The soul used to find music in the rain;
now, it only hears the shutters slamming shut
against a street filled with hard eyes and jagged words.
We cover the rot with a thin veil of “faith,”
while cruelty is practiced like a casual sport in the square.
I am tired of digesting the polished lies
served on silver plates by men with hollow chests.
I do not ask for a kingdom or a long, storied life.
I only ask that when the wind finally exhales,
I may go quietly, slipping through the iron bars
of this beautiful, terrible prison,
into a grace that does not demand a mask.

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Haris Mashooq (writing as Harrison Cashmere) is a poet and writer from the heart of Kashmir. His work explores the delicate intersection of human introspection and the fleeting beauty of the natural world. Deeply rooted in the atmosphere of the valley—from the morning calls of the whistling thrush to the shifting colors of the Dal—his poetry seeks to ground philosophical ideas in the lived, sensory details of his homeland. Through his writing, he aims to connect the fragility of life with a universal search for peace and resonance.