POSTCARD #6

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Namaskaram,

We’re at my aunt Malika’s house today. Her kids are here, we’re gonna dance all day. So much feelings that I wish to share with you, colours can only help you understand. My brain is melting from all the unknown delicacy we had and a nostalgia from a land, a home, I’ve only visited once. 

Anything is possible, ente snehitne. 

I miss your aura, I miss you, njan ninne prmikkunnu.

How are you?

I run out of words to write, so goodbye for now

LIFE'S LITTLE WONDERS #2: IF MY HEART HAD EYES

in

I asked Ketut, the driver who accompanied me on my sightseeing tours, why the Balinese cover the lower parts of statues. He answered (in an acquired Australian accent):

Because they have a spirit. I have a spirit, I cover my body. They have a spirit too, why shouldn't they be covered like me?

There is a god in everything. There is a god in this statue. There is a god in this ant. There is a god in me. There is a god in you.

When I take a flower from this tree, for my offering, I take it and thank the tree for the flower. When I take a banana from a tree, I thank the tree for the banana.

SPILLED QAHWA #2: FLORA

in ,
 

I swear you’re made of flowers.
I swear if I cut you open,
inside you’d be chrysanthemums.
I swear you’ve got roses on your tongue.
I swear you’ve got daisies for ribs
and tulips instead of lips.
You have orchids where ears were.

And you’ve got me made of flowers too.
Yesterday, I found carnations in my collarbones
and baby’s breath between my fingers.
Took a look at my thighs
and to my surprise, found
lavender.

You make me feel like Mother Nature herself,
like you awoke her inside of me
and now I’m raging with lust for the Earth.
I’ve got grass instead of hair, and
hibiscus for hips.
There are
morning glories in my morning coffee
and daffodils in my daydreams.

I was always one for florals,
but you’ve got me gazing at gardens now,
because there's something there that I recognize.
Because there’s something there that looks like my insides:
gardenias instead of gums,
lilac in my lungs,
stomach filled with butterflies.

I know we'll thrive together.
Our vines’ve already intertwined
and you say the thorns in my mind
don’t bother you.
I know we’ll grow like weeds do.

And when the precipitation comes, don’t worry about it, love.
We can always make a desert flower or two
and cacti always seemed to me like pretty growth.
And when the sun comes up,
we’ll bask in its glow.
Let the sunflowers in our chests
open wide with electric yellow.
We’ll bloom like roses after winter.
Shy in the light, a shade of red so bright
passerby’s eyes would go fuzzy
if they looked at us too long.
And the rain and snow will all seem like a fever dream
'cause we grew a love that’s evergreen.

***
text // rawa majdi
art // norah aljassar

 

 

DECOLONIZE YOUR MIND #1

in ,
 
 

A plot for a movie that has never been made.

One early morning, a yellow taxi pulls up by the famous ‘Souq al-Madina’ in Aleppo, where an elegantly dressed Zayneb Hallaq emerges from. Standing in front of a jewelery shop, she eats some of her kibbeh with pomegranate syrup while sipping the black tea she brought with her, before she hops into the taxi that will take her home. Upon arriving at the door of her apartment’s building, she sees a man who is ringing her apartment’s bell in hopes for any of the building’s tenants to buzz him in. After conversing with him she discovers that he is her new neighbor-tenant Ali al-Falaji.

Zayneb is very passionate about voicing people’s opinions and mustering the truth and displaying it to the public in her writing. Consequently she becomes heavily affiliated with Hamdi the Hidden, a very controversial writer in an underground newspaper in Aleppo. Through the movie’s build up, Zayneb finds out that Ali, her new neighbor, is also a writer, a very good one too, who wrote a book about a young Syrian soldier titled ‘Nine Lives five years’, but has not published anything else since then. The two new friends confide in each other what they both want to achieve while they live in Aleppo. To Ali, it was to publish another book, where Zayneb explains in turn that her purpose in Aleppo is to save up money in order to support her brother, Ayman, once he gets out of the Army.

With the progress of time, Zayneb and Ali’s relationship develops and the days bring them closer and closer. Until one day, Ali could hear a stern deep voice coming from Zayneb’s apartment that could not be her voice. Intrigued and driven by suspicion, he nears her apartment in an attempt to catch something that would make sense to him. He starts hearing Zayneb’s voice which sounds faint and feeble, as if pleading in despair for mercy. Ali could no longer uphold the confusion and anger that are eating his heart while hearing the voices in a discourse that he could not comprehend, and decides to intervene and bursts into the apartment.

Still caught in the haste of an adrenaline rush, Ali rushes through the entrance to be confronted with Zayneb and a big man in the living room. Standing there, his sole presence in the silent room demands an urgent explanation from Zayneb at once. Zayneb quickly and nervously introduces the two men to each other, Ali as merely the next door neighbor, and the big man as Hussain Al Hallaq, her husband. She carries on the introduction by saying that she has been wedded to Hussain since she was 13 years of age, in her hometown, a small village not very far from Aleppo. Ali, pale as a sheet of paper, bleakly explains his thoughtless action of barging in by saying that the noise coming from the apartment worried him, and excuses himself.

Zayneb mumbles something quickly to Hussain, and rushes after Ali to catch him by the door. In high hopes to justify herself, she explains that her marriage to Hussain was arranged and she had fled to start a new life in Aleppo, leaving her husband, family and the life she hated all behind. She quietly cries that he only came today to take her back because her brother Ayman is returning from the army.

At that moment, and in the surge of all the mixed feelings expressed in that little corridor by the door, the police raid Zeyanb’s apartment, pushing the door wide open, they recognize and arrest Zayneb for her disputable political activities in the Oppositional Underground movement with Hamdi the Hidden. And it is in that moment in particular that Ali realizes that he has fallen in love with her.

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TEXT & ART:
MOSHTARI HILAL

 

POSTCARD #5

in

Namaskar,

My skin has never been darker, my heart warmer, my smile wider and my happiness most genuine. I always thought the motherland would make me feel a certain way, but never that deep.

I don’t miss my jeans, I don’t miss my European comfort and lifestyle and the cold, distant attitude I perceive from acquaintances and other people back there. I have tears in my eyes, I have never felt more complete than now. Next time, you’re coming with me, jaanu.

Waiting for your letter, I love you.

Alvida.

MICRO POETRY // SHAHD FADLALMOULA & EMAN ALEGHFELI

in , ,
 
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What was it like before I got here?
Before I cracked the doorway
In your ribcage & set free your heart? -Eve to Adam

***

Don't spit my name.
The only reason
You need to carry a
Man's name on your own
Is because,
The land that
Bore you,
Let you live,
9 months, rent-free under its roof
Does not need a reminder
To love you.
Or forgive you
When you plant hate in your new home. -Eve to Cain

***

You claim I took the first bite
And you,
Poor and infatuated as you were
Misguidedly followed
So why is it
You say I am half-witted?
Why is it you break my spirit,
Put a sock in your heart's mouth
Then claim,
God made me to follow,
And you, to lead? -Eve to Adam; Apple Side-r

***

At least when I do something
I do not wear God
Or religion, or Patriotism,
On my tongue
To carry the guilt
That would stain my conscience. -Lucifer/ابليس

***
text // shahd fadlalmoula
art // eman aleghfeli