The Konfessioner's word:

Karma's prodigal daughter graces the walls of the Konfession Korner this week. Welcome Mekhala Chaubal, the invisible msn friend I've had for over two years.... At 20, "The Biskoot Smuggler" as she calls herself, is the quintessential writer...

Forever in love, muse and moon and shine doter, creator of beauty in verse and prose, sinfully sweet and true...The girl brings it all across in her doggerel and her short stories. It's never been so hard to select work for the Korner, we finally zeroed in on "Opium",

"The poem is meant to be from the point of view of Afghani women forced to live under the Taliban regime and what I see as their only means of escape."--Mekhala.

Currently a columnist with "The Gulf News", you can visit the author's column archive at:--

http://archive.gulfnews.com/search/result.jsp?query=mekhala%20chaubal&filters=all&page=1&RadChoice=all

Thanks 'Chorni' for the treat!

- Shinjini Singh

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Author Intro:

Hello All,

My name's Mekhala and I'm a Creative Writing and Global Studies major at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Virginia in the USA. To me, writing's not a hobby, a passion or even a way of life- it's my reason to wake up everyday. If anyone were to ask me why I write, my reply would be, 'Because, really,what else is there?' Oh, that, and the fact that I want to start a new revolution of the soul.

Laughs, hope, peace everyone.

Mekhala.

In the picture: Mekhala to the right, with a friend at Central Park, New York.
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Opium

Sweet poppies drifting in the wind,

and I taste their charm.

Bittersweet, like love lost,

time and motion mould into one.

Let’s pick some, brew them,

lose ourselves in them.

And maybe, feel free,

if only for a moment.

Tears of Aphrodite,

Ambrosia to our souls,

enchantment in a seed,

we’ll die young, you say

but we say, “We’ve kissed God.”

Veils hide all,

sins are but truths twisted,

Crush the body,

but the spirit soars even now!

Fabric transforms into wings,

like birds we fly,

until at last

sorrow seeps in,

reality rushes back.

And like a bolt from the blue,

fabric weighs me down.

My chador, my Afghanistan,

my poppies, my opium.