samar-almont
Malaysia
I'm a Yemeni - an Arab - a Muslim - Struggling to create a life by patching up the bits and pieces of me from the many countries I grew up in. / / I come from a non-educated family background, my mother was married at 16 and wasn't educated, neither were her sisters allowed to go to school. Since it was difficult communicating with my parents or relatives about my experiences, i wrote to myself. / / The need to write had much to do with my internal struggle of how I was brought up and how I needed to change that, and it wasn't easy. / / I never realised my writing was of worth, until my professor did 3 years ago. Since then I stopped throwing away the pieces I wrote, now I have close to 200 poems. I've compiled them, but never published as there is no english reading community where i live, so I decided to engage in this community.
So I've heard
There’s nothing like grandpas
There’s nothing like grandmas
There’s nothing like aunts, uncles
So I've heard
But I've only heard.
That there’s nothing like brothers,
There’s nothing like feathers
of a bird that ***** it’s wings together
Nothing…
There is nothing
So I’ve heard.
So I’ll tell you what nothing is like
Nothing is like death
Nothing is like the breathe
you take from the dead
Nothing is like the the mould you see
on a rotten bread
I’m not intending to rhyme
It’s the nothing that draws me to write and paint
It’s the nothing that keeps me up at night so late
Less clutter and clamour
Less issues and matters
Less talk and blabber
Nothing is what it’s like
Nothing is nothing to be frank
So the next time you say there’s nothing like…
Consider for a moment those who have lived without.
May 13, 2017
May 13, 2017 at 12:26 AM UTC
I’ve spent minutes and hours of time
Avoiding home
Avoiding blame
Avoiding what brought them shame
I’ve spent days and nights listening to talks of what is and what is not right
I’ve spent years figuring out
What I am
And what I should
And shouldn't be like
I've spent a lifetime understanding the path I see
And if I am able to see what i see
I was blind you see
I couldn't see I was blind
That there was something to see
It was me
And now on this road I walk
With a clear view of what’s underneath
I never want to go blind again
I am determined
Stubborn
But this time with eyes
So let me be
Don't blind me
May 12, 2017
May 12, 2017 at 11:45 PM UTC
Her pink cheeks
Flushed out of blood,
Her lips a cold blue
Her neck slanting forward sitting on the cold wooden floor
Shivering hands tremble to touch her and wake her
Tears too many to dry
Calling her name
Her children quickly surround her
Each distressed with fear
Their voices trembling too
Is it too late to save her
Have we neglected her suffering
Have we been too blind to see
The life she gave to us with love so gracefully
Mar 31, 2017
Mar 31, 2017 at 10:09 AM UTC
You speak of death
As if it were
Not flesh disfigured
And soul skinned
From human bones
But a past fact
A present reality
And a future dream
Mar 31, 2017
Mar 31, 2017 at 10:08 AM UTC
And i worry
I won't find the words to write
What i saw, heard and felt
And i worry
That others haven't a clue of what is to see, hear and feel
And i worry
With my pencil lying across my bedside table
About what i should fill these white pages with
And i worry
While others only wish for
A pencil
A table
Or white pages
To fill
With their worry
And i worry
Mar 31, 2017
Mar 31, 2017 at 10:05 AM UTC
I'm torn between celebrating and grieving
Eid has come but so have the dead
Happiness is struggling to rise
From the density of sadness
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 10:54 PM UTC
The night runs out
Colourful dreams wash away
While sleepless horrors commence
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 10:53 PM UTC
Speak of love and missing no more
What is love
But a possession
A chance to devour a soul
Speak of death and a need to rest
For love is but a mirage of the mind
A weakness
We fight
In the name of love
For a religion, a country,
We fight
In the name of love
For honour, for shame,
We fight
In the name of love
For family, money, and fame,
We fight
So speak of love and missing no more
For what is love
But a dead man walking
A chance for him to devour your soul
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 10:47 PM UTC
Like the reign of blood in veins
Blood rains over Yemen
A place I was neither born in nor raised
But grew to know about and praised
With words
That could not earn a dime
Still
For every worth of dirt your hands touched
I announced a crime
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 10:40 PM UTC
I wonder if we care
Does it actually matter
When a child is broken in two
When his entrails splatter
and there is no glue
I wonder if we care
Does it actually matter
What we view
What we think, feel or do
I wonder if we care
Does it actually matter
Because we turn around
look at ourselves
and forget
you
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 10:39 PM UTC