A Poem by Sophia Rubina Charalambous

To the Boy Next Door Who Left for Jihad

In the sweet shop I pick out pink sherbet pips
you scramble on all-fours when someone drops a coin.

It is a day where eyes thirst for clouds your skateboard
rests on the bubble gum machine the sun finds shelter in your skin.

I ask if you liked being brown and black
your pupils roll like hay bales you say you’ve never thought about it

pivot your head in every direction but mine this Saturday the only day I ever see you
which always has the odour of hot parathas fried curry leaves

and I notice how quickly the nose adjusts to strong smells
and how little we speak about our nose when it is a superpower

the way predators sniff out the weak. Behind my bedroom wall you sing
Michael Jackson in the shower  as if the droplets crave entertainment.

I never even ask you your first name. Next Saturday your mum is sobbing
on the front steps your dad tips CDs into a skip.

You disappear from Saturdays from all days.
Then I forget about you the triangle in the orchestra.

Sophia Rubina Charalambous is a Cypriot-Kashmiri journalist, writer, director and poet, born and raised in London. Her poetry appears in Mslexia, streetcake magazine, Visual Verse, Tentacular, Ink Sweat & Tears, South Bank Poetry Magazine, and NURTURE among others. She has been Broadway Baby’s Spoken Word Editor for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival since 2017. Sophia is currently working on her first pamphlet.