Through doors of hell

Ambreen Mashadi

$A wide, panoramic digital painting illustrating the poem "Through doors of hell" by Ambreen Mashadi. On the far left, a massive, ornate, and skeletal gothic gateway—the doors of hell—stands slightly ajar, bursting with bright orange flames and thick, billowing black smoke that twists into the shapes of agonizing, screaming spirits. The sky is a chaotic swirl of dark, fuming ash clouds, torn apart by jagged streaks of red and white lightning. The ground is a barren, post-catastrophic wasteland littered with a scattered mess of crushed skeletal remains, decaying bodies, and fractured stone. In the distance, rivers of molten lava carve through the dark terrain. On the right side, a lone, cloaked wanderer stands frozen on a rocky ledge, their back to the viewer, looking out over the horrific landscape at ghostly, hooded look-alikes emerging from the shadows.$

Through doors of hell,

Silent shrieks fuming up

To strike and burn the skies

By roars of thunder,

Exhibiting blood stains,

Upon rough dry flashes

A scattered mess,

Decaying eyes on crushed faces

Uplanted dreams, rotting inside

Burned sockets

Consumed bodies here and there,

Wisdom waiting to be transcribed

In words or gestures,

Being wasted through

Molten brains, and me

As a lost wanderer,

Frozen and locked

At the damage

Of some past

And recovered catastrophe,

I can't be a native of there!

I'm an outsider, for sure

My brain cells begging,

Wondering about those been consumed here

My look-alikes,

Imprinting the same shadow

Somewhere in the midst of life and death

Distracted to find heaven

Entered through doors of hell..