Pumpkin Like Me. Poem by Mahfooz Ali

I haunt this stage both day and night,
no alien within this realm.
Languishing in my loneliness,
ripped from self
but not by family,
forsaken by friends,
never again to see the cradle of my birth.

A hairless vagrant, I survive
with orchestrated teeth,
by wanton larceny, my fortitude is gone,
I am an abandoned shell in patterned scheme
thrilling eyes of tawdry gnomes.

Chilling winds whip my skin,
while surrendering leaves mischievously scurry
in huddled mass of accompaniment.
I am October's neglected,
outdoors and looking in.

The foreboding days of cold sting, bitter,
while I coddle my candle near,
savouring such warming fragile light,
where superstitious travellers illuminate
... and pumpkins like me.