“Glass” by Chariklia Martalas

Did they tell you Inferno was made from glass?

Clear as truth turned upside down 

You can see through to the bottom of the world 

An everywhere that exists below your feet 

Inferno is suspended like a glass cage

Moving with the swirl of the earth 

A honeyed place for those happy to escape death 

By looking down at eternity turning into emptiness

Some go mad because of the transparency 

The secrets of the core should not be known 

To those that can’t comprehend it 

But some find the punishment of Inferno

Better than life itself where glass is more like mirrors 

Now there is no need to pretend meaning

Inferno has opened up the endless, the beginningless

All to understand that if the glass cracks you are finally free


Chariklia Martalas is a Philosophy, Politics, English and History graduate from the University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is currently pursuing a post-graduate degree in philosophy. Her work has been featured in Rigwelter Press, The Raw Art Review, Loch Raven Review, Drunk Monkeys, Dear Damsels, Bewildering Stories and the undergraduate literary journal The Foundationalist, among others.

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