MEMORIES

in

If the grains of sand in the hourglass stopped falling, will you be able to tell the time?
Will you be able to count the seconds passing by without recording them?
Will you be sure if every moment you spent was real?
Or will you try to follow the tic tocs of the clock relying on something to tell you that your presence is actually happening in front of you?
Do you need a pen?
A notepad?
A phone perhaps?
Something to help you write down all of the memories, all of the details of your day

But you know what they say
Memories don't live like people do
they always remember you
whether things are good or bad, it's just the memories
memories don't live like people do

But they sure die like them

A Stab by a knife to a heart linked to a mind
a burnt notepad
a broken phone's screen
and everything you went through becomes an illusion
leaving no trace of your memory behind as you get taken away

History is nothing more than the collected memories of the people before us
containing as many lies as truth hidden between its chapters

Memories don't live like people do

But they sure die like them

As you walk down your memory lane realizing what you used to believe in doesn't exist anymore
As your mind and heart walk holding hands listening to the reverse sound of the clock
Your mind recalling and rebuilding events
Your heart cringing and bleeding emotions you once resented
As you recall the memories you once killed
Your heart cringing and bleeding emotions you once resented
As you recall the memories you once killed

Memories don't live like people do

But they sure die like them

As we are nothing but fragile creatures
As fragile as glass
We are made of sand after all

So
If the grains of sand in the hourglass stopped falling
Will you be a human with no memories?
Will you break?

------
TEXT: AHMED HAMAD
ART: ZENA ADHAMI 

MEMORY

in
 

When i speak of memory, i speak of;
i aim and shoot
an arrow
into the oblivion (vast
dimensions of space of
the time)
                I draw
it towards that still ocean; tea pot
of age old, rotting cold, forgotten/forgetting flow.

It is the reminiscence
of the struggle
of man against power, is the struggle
of memory against
forgetting.
                   And you see this ritual
is actually a perpetual
struggle of defiance.

As of defiance
as you may listen
now:
        slowly grows in pestilence.

Thus rotten
as it were some fungus grown on breads of silence
or maybe memories unspoken in
resistance
 of fallacies, fiction
and lost relevance:
unbaked dough in oven
resisting heat.
                      Statutory Warning: Contagious Defiance!

 

ARTIFICIAL MEMORIES

in

Exploring the personal spaces where history took place. I find passport photos in wallets, in drawers, in photo albums. I find, 1, then 4, then stacks of them. Images of my mother, my father, some with dates written on the back and short messages they would send to each other when they lived apart. I find more with a 1 month old girl, it’s me, my mother’s hands under my dress lifting me up to the camera. I find sets of two, my sisters; duplicate dresses, duplicate photos. 

The passport photos are everywhere, yet the memories are distant of the lives I have lived, the places I have dreamt, the stories that are being told. 

The constant travels and the various identities I have lived, have led to artificial memories. 

Where is home? And who am I? My identity has been across the world and formed in front of the eyes of others and I cannot recall it. I am the product of the collision between the many cultures that exist in my family and how does a piece of paper, a document define who I am? Should it define anyone? 

The Artificial memories take place of the memories that should be.



------
ART & TEXT: SARA FORYAME

LIFE'S LITTLE WONDERS #3: KILI - ON MOUNTAIN SICKNESS

The locals call it Mountain Sickness. I knew it by the name Altitude Sickness. I thought it comprised of prolonged headache, nausea, insomnia, and loss of appetite. What I didn't know is that if you do not suffer from any, or all, of the above you might still suffer from lack of energy. In other words, you'd be drained from all power to lift one foot and place it on the ground again. What I also didn't know is that many days after your successful ascent and descent to and from the summit you might suffer from a sickness akin to homesickness.

You may call it mountain sickness.