REPRESSED

 

 

i.

I remember it well…
The curve of your mouth,
Breathing syllables and unspoken
Rhythms soothing angst
Buried in trauma and self-deprecation.

 

iii.

I remember it well…
Two lovers in an unholy war
a mother’s indignation
Words flailing
To and from her/him/them
In storms of resentment
Tight-lipped reconciliation
And melodic rhapsody
In limbs intertwined.

 

ii.

I remember it well…
Fleeting moments of anger
And the crash of a finjan
Creating coffee stained fortunes on
Whitewashed walls
Shattering safety nets
Because who knew pain from kin
Could pierce you that way.

iv.

I remember it well…
The moment you uttered
‘I love you’
Only to end us
Three weeks,
Five days,
And three hours later.

 

 

 

------
TEXT: NOUR SALMAN
ART: SANDRA

ROOMS

There's history
In the rooms
In scattered cutlery

A memory's projection
With every stain
With every imperfection

We're tiny dots
On an endless time-line
On endless thoughts 

Just like the ruins
We're frail
We're frail 

We will surrender
To our skeletons
To everything we remember

The walls didn't discriminate
Who was there or
Who felt hate

Relationships revocable
Is our past valid?
Is our past disposable? 

We lay sleeping
Under lost promises
Under the crumbling ceiling

My dear
We shall depart
We shall disappear

For dwelling on the past
Is for fools and
Is for poets who never last

------
TEXT & PHOTOGRAPH:
MOHAMMED J. BELHOUL
INSPIRED BY:
LA DISPUTE'S ALBUM
ROOMS OF THE HOUSE

Lozenge of Love

تُثقل كاهلي

 

People of prose, rage and passion,
Longing for the agitation of a kiss,
Rather than the one of a sleepless murk.
People of sonnets, ruination and doting,
Longing for the warmth of a lover’s hand,
Rather than the one of a lit cigarette.
People of old tales, humdrums and solitude,
Longing for the purloined souls,
Rather than the ones enclosing them.
People of roves, luminosity and clamour,
Longing for the tranquility of a home,
Rather than the rush of cities.
And all you are is burnt up, and forgotten.

 

 

INCUBATOR TALK

 

We held the newborns in winter
us boys instrumentalized
with the heat
of our unchanneled metabolisms
wafting from brown skins like
frustrated dreams taking leave
to torment some other innocence
ours too young yet to be dangerous
they sat us in circles
to catch the warmth
and in the forcefields of our
trammeled  futures
we kept the village babies alive. 

by now
My battered body is worth less
than the GE incubators
Finally brought in as was promised
In a developmentalist litany ages repeated
By the unsmiling functionaries
Of the state, after
They, at last, ran out of ways
to waste money on their houses. 

Idols of modernity
mechanical and efficient
that didn’t dissipate heat as despair--
whose warmth sustained
without whispering into
protean little ears
that it’s frozen beyond the circle
that you’d be better off dead
like us?
Before you are rendered obsolete
By the next generation of
Metals mined from the denuded fields
that feed nothing anymore
but the appetites of our visionary rulers.

*****

that was then. these days--
I walk fast at night
like a solitary woman scouring the mental maps
calculating distances to the least dangerous bus stop
I am always fleeing those
demons of the mind and metros
who
emergent
approach with their neon scepters
demanding the nine-digit number
that proves I deserve to exist, same
as the angels of the grave who
challenge newly dead to prove their steadfastness
on the pain of suffocation/
a deportation to purgatory 

Did you escape certain death or an unbearable life?
there is a weight
a value hidden in the difference
that dictates between the parceling out
of mercy packages or baton-beaten concussions
now I know.
To normalize anew this--
still, a bearable life.

------
TEXT: NOOREEN REZA

 

MEMORIES OF FADING

3:15PM
I walk with my hands around my body,
my lungs giving up, my heart is sinking too.
I walk with my hands clutching a book,
a ghost running around;
scaring off the lovely thoughts
in my head.

3:00AM
I lay on my floor, hands covering my face-
ripping apart my body,
ripping apart my skin,
ripping apart my soul.
I trace lines-
on my carpet,
on my hands,
on my wrists.

6:30AM
I pretend I am asleep,
my mother's lips speak-
words I can not comprehend;
I murmur words I do not understand.

8:07AM
The ghost invisible under my skin;
filling me with nightmares,
hair tied back, face painted,
a smile on my lips; not reaching my eyes,
I walk-
with my hands around my body.

------
TEXT: MOUZA SAEED

EVOCATION

after arriving on the shores of Greece (alhamdullilah), Ayham
counts days in scraps of pain,
thinks his dream of becoming
a break dancer will come true in Denmark

he says Denmark as if it is holy white ceilings
and shades of blue, whispers it over a 2 hour whatsapp call
begging pray for me, pray for me before
his wi-fi connection cuts off. In class,

I write essays on inaugural violence and nativism,
talk about universal ideals of human rights and liberty as if they were somehow
not coded European white and I don’t tell Ayham
we read articles about Danish legislators that fight for tighter borders
that would rather return him to a house with shrapnel for ceilings,

to the Mediterranean Sea,
to death itself

just so they would no longer have to be involved. Ayham doesn’t see
a difference between moral politicians and political morals
thinks of the streets of Copenhagen, of the girl he loves, of mama’s hands
the last time she walks him under the Quran before sobbing
ma’elsalama habibi
the news both full and empty, they say

not every eruption of violence is worth our remembrance.

------
TEXT: JOUMANA ALTALLAL

THE MAN WHO COULD SEE EVERYTHING

in

Some people say I’ve gone over the bend. Gone nuts, out of my mind, lost it, went bananas, rented the upper flat, flew off the handle, blew my top, dove in the deep end, popped my cork, went apeshit crazy crazy crazy crazy madinsanecrazylookinhiseyesthey’vegone darklikethedevilheisthedevilleavehimalonestayawaykidshouldbelockedupthrownawaykilled.

But they don’t know anything. They don’t know they don’t know they don’t know theydon’tknowthey do n’t k no w- Know. I’m not. I’m not any of those things. I’m not any of those things I’m more. I didn’t just dive into the deep end, I drank the whole ocean swam in it breathed lived threw it up again because the seabeds were looking so empty so sad and that wouldn’t do oh no it wouldn’t. Know. No. Now.

Now you’re looking at me inching away. I can see you. I can see your eyes wide big blank unblinking mask of politeness put on tight watching me wondering when it would be socially acceptable to leave leave me leave you leave us leave this mortal plane we are on that is nothing nothing nothing. You are nothing. I see you. I see your words too. I see your words too and I see mine, every where, ev er y w h er e in the sky in the air in your face written everywhere just words words yours mine theirs everyone’s words just floating that never go away so I can never stay because then I can’t breathe I can’t be it just gets so full with letters are you regretting you sat next to me? Regretting you asked? Remorse. Remiss. Renounce. Reimburse. Revenge. Rewrite. Your face is horrified. I don’t blame you. My face is horrified all the time too.

It’s like living in a thesaurus. A thesaurus mashed with dictionary mashed with an episode of Barney where the Cookie Monster spells things over and over and over and I never get to eat. Synonyms adjectives nouns verbs everywhere alive alive and I can’t escape. Not since I fell into the lab’s new invention. Not since I died and came back again this monster of literature that used to love reading but now can’t thinkbreatheeatlivesleep just words words everywhere everywhere EVERYWHERE. Everywhere when they say action speak louder than words and I just sit there shaking wondering hating loathing stop don’t open your mouth shut up shut up shut up shut up and listen.

Nothing’s sacred anymore. When you see I Love Yous where your loved ones once were after they left you because you couldn’t listen as they yelled at you in big block letters and cried in ugly bold ones love is just another word humans say like a bandaid to hide the other words they don’t. Lies big and fat dripping unlike the truth that flashes red in the black print of my universe. My universe my world my dimension that is just like yours but with the pages of your speech all over my eyeballs burned into my retina scrambling to find a place in my brain.

They say I am insane. I’ve gone over the bend, eaten bananas, fried the control centre, rented my soul, broken the handle, hit the ball too hard, knocked on the noggin.

I am so much more.

I am you.

------
TEXT: JOHARA ALMOGBEL
ART: AZIZ