Because ten words poems are way too mainstream for my taste

Because I am a badass rule breaker, that's why.

i'm stirred by our rhythm
we talk, and my heart starts to beat faster
or maybe slower…
i can't tell
i stumble across my counts
i fall off of time
i forget how to exist outside of this presence.
our conversation is my favorite dance
i savor each of your words, each of your pauses, each of your murmers
i save them in music boxes that i decorate with my favorite treasures. 
i replay them later in my solitude
like comfort food
like warm blankets
and scented candles
and i find myself gently tracing them in other talks
just like when you hear your favorite song
playing in the distance.

Dear me,

I hope this letter finds you kind, I hope it finds you at ease,
I hope it finds you as you were born.. a soft spring breeze.

I am writing this letter to inform you that you still have space to unfold, that you are a continuum that doesn’t have to settle for the broken uni-verse where you were unraveled.

You, love, are not limited to your synonyms.

You can develop into a sandstorm speaking the names of the Saharas to your left and to your right.
a sandstorm that does not blind the sufi midnight traveler.
a sandstorm that travels beyond the desert.
a sandstorm carrying a water-well for the thirsty.

You can develop into an ocean that doesn’t stand in arrogance where there is land.
an ocean that waxes and wanes to the rhythm of the moonlight caressing you.
an ocean that doesn’t erode the rocks standing on its shore.

You can develop into a soft spring breeze that makes a home of all the other seasons.
a soft spring breeze that gently ****** through a baobab tree trunk.
a soft spring breeze that playfully tickles the arms of a nesma on her university bus writing this.

Kindly find attached to this letter the love your father has tucked in bed a long time ago and never double checked on it.
Kindly find attached to this letter the understanding your mother stored in the kitchen cabinet she is too short to reach.
Kindly find attached to this letter the forgiveness you have tried to grow out of sunflowers seed every winter.

Always sincerely,

Forever yours.

It is hard writing you down…
Metaphors hide behind my ribcage and imagery curbs into the ridges of my brain.
But I’m a writer so I cannot allow my love to turn into a language I cannot speak,
and I’m a warrior so I cannot allow my writing to be conquered by my feelings.
I try to remind myself not to confuse love for war…
I try to think of analogues of us that do not reek of passionate bloodshed.
But it's impossible because I have found the shield of Achilles buried under my tongue the first time we kissed,
and it's futile because your voice echoes the battle cry god screamed when he created love.

“I remember the bed just floating there” is how Phil Kaye started his ‘repetition’ poem.  
I remember pausing the youtube video after the poem ended.
I remember burying my feelings under 3 blankets and 4 hours of binge watching spoken word poetry.
I do not remember the dreams I could have had.

I remember the set of nightmares that visited religiously like the downstairs neighbor tired of how loud my heart pounds at late evenings.
I remember, very clearly, how they went.
I do not remember if I have written them down.

Dream one: he peels my freckles off my skin; he says he needs them because his coffee is too light. I scream while he calmly adds pints of the cheeks to his cup. He says I can never be as quiet as the girl who managed to sneak into his ribcage and build herself a bedroom.

Dream two: We are standing in the great library of Alexandria. He pulls the sea from underneath my feet and stuffs it into his back pocket. He says he needs it because he is tired of drowning himself in uncertainty. I start to cry and he says: Aries is the god of war, and women born under this sign confuse war for love.

I remember the mole on his left ear growing bigger in my nightmares without me ever watering it.
I remember he smelled of tangerine trees and broken records.
I do not remember if his face looked like the man I almost fell in love with last winter, or my father.

I remember the first time I saw my father after he came back from Ukraine.
I remember his brown leather shoes that oozed of old spice cologne and neat scotch.
I remember his hardly worn pair of glasses and the pieces of me they never cared to read.
I remember the wrinkles that seemed newer than his glasses slowly colonizing his hands... the hands that never held me as tight as the dress I wore to my school prom hoping it would catch my ex’s attention.

I remember that dress.
I remember it had a floral print reminiscent of the season that I was named after hoping maybe it would remind him I’m part him.
I remember realizing he will never remember.
And now, I sit on a carpet of autumnal leafs as crisp as my tied tongue and as dead as my fears, trying to turn my love for him into more than just a memory.

My mother asks me to buy her milk and I stand in line at the grocery store.
I hold the milk and I remember seeing our housekeeper's daughter yesterday, a 16 year old child,  breastfeeding her 1 year old son.
I feel sorry that when her culture sees a little girl playing with her dollhouse, it asks the little girl to be the doll.
I feel sorry that when her culture sees a little girl fixing the ribbons over her braids, it thinks of ways to tie her legs as tightly as her hair.
I feel sorry that when her culture sees a little girl, it doesn’t see a little girl.
I feel that I call it her culture when I was born in the same city.
I see the line was moving while I stood still.
The woman standing behind me holding a jar of coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and a pair of tired shoulders gives me a look for not paying attention.
I take a step forwards,
I look behind me;
I smile politely at her, and say “I’m sorry”.

The constellation that speaks my name is the opening line of the zodiac.
I am an Egyptian golden ram, and in ancient Egypt, Aries was the indicator of the reborn sun; I’m a never-ending fresh beginning of a mass of fire.
I am a self destructive flame, constantly setting myself on fire, and you caught on it.
So forgive me, and then admit the truth that we both know; Flames are the ultimate spring of warmth and light

I read in one of Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo, that one day people will look at his paintings and say “he felt things deeply and tenderly”.
I see one of his paintings and my body shakes in his short brush strokes. uncontrollably. I see one of his paintings and his suns twirl in my head’s ******.
I read that in the Middle Ages, they debated on whether or not to remove female seeds, so that the child does not suffer from excess of emotions.
Hysteria is born out of the womb, I look the etymology in the eye as I hold my pen to my womb
I stab it three times, but the words are still there. I see that I still am, so I stab my heart instead….
I bleed out Art ..  Art ..  Arteries, the etymology stares me back in the lungs. My pen drops dead.

My glass is no longer half full half empty.
My glass is broken.


Yet I hold it with both my hands. Wounded, I bleed to take one last sip of you.
And you slip between my fingers, mixed with my blood, intertwining with the wrinkles time carved on my skin like ancient rivers, drawing flowers and frowns.
I stare.. For the very first time I’m seeing myself. I am a work of art.
And the room thinks I’ve gone mad. But I’m only growing sanity like tangerine trees.

My glass IS broken
But I’m already drunken of the truth
So awake, so aware, so-ber
Sharp, like the shatters of us scattered on the floor
And they are unraveling before my third eye.
They’re not beautiful, but they’re sincere
Serene and tranquil
But not stale and not still.

My glass is broken
and its cracks, the pattern of the universe,
are holy, shimmering, dark, and pure.
These cracks, are my glass’s core.

I suffer from/am blessed with synesthesia, I smell, taste, and feel color. Blue has always been vital to my being, whether it is the color of pajama sets and bed sheets, or speech bubbles on Facebook Messenger, I have grown too attached to blue that the blank whiteness of this document loses its neutrality and starts to hurt.

They say blue is a cold color, then they associate it with a feeling so strong that it has the same symptoms of a heart attack, they turn it into a synonym for heartbreak, and make it the sponsoring color of music meant for heartaches. I associate blue with hearts because I have a list of life elements and they are all blue: writing ink, oceans water, night skies, and I recently added to that list the sanctuary I made of your-my conversation. It is 3:57 pm and I am having the blues, listening to blues, thinking of blues. It is 3:58 pm and my body is burning, no amount of tears my eyes shed can cool me down so no amount of colorologists can convince me that blue is a cold color.

Two months ago, I discovered that the poor human eye was not able to distinguish between green and blue until recently, the poor human mind could not read blue, and I wonder if that means we only recently started to know grief.

I have grown too attached to blue but they opted for green in traffic lights. They preferred green to blue when it takes blue to make green; Blue is the parent. They favored green over blue when blue is the third primary color and the other two family members, feisty red and powerful yellow, are already present in traffic lights; Blue is the parent that never came home. Green stands for progress. Green is a sacred color in Islam. Green is the color of every “environmentally-friendly” label when mother earth is more blue than green, and I wonder if that means this planet has seen more grief than peace.

I have unfolded the great blue starry napkin, I have held and beheld all the secrets of the universe.. all the love there is, all the beauty there is, all the warmth, all the art, all the truths.


I have unfolded the great blue starry napkin and I have seen it stretch and stretch beyond my hands, my arms, and the full length of my body to form an ocean.

Then the gods above sent a storm and so have begun the whirlpool, and I have seen it stretch and stretch beyond the ocean, beyond the skies, and beyond the gods that dwell within them to form an eye.

I have seen your beautiful blue starry eyes, and I have unfolded them.

I'd go to the airport an hour before the arrival time of your plane even though I know it'll arrive an hour late.
I'd go an hour early because I want us to share your first experience of Egyptian timing.
Egypt is not bound to the pace in which Earth loops her way around the sun like the lake swan, because Egypt has always preferred belly dances to ballet and it shows well in weddings.

I'd take you to your first Egyptian street wedding.. Show you how we set it up using khayameya, the same khayameya we use for funerals.

I'd grab a handful of Cairo's juxtaposition, and have you stick your tongue out and taste it.
I'd take you to the poorest neighborhood in Cairo, and let you see how rich it is.
dirt in abundance
azans in abundance
smiles in abundance
and colloquial namecalling in abundance.

I'd grab a handful of Cairo's juxtaposition, and have you stick your tongue out and taste it.
I'd take you to khan El Khalili, where you'd get lost between the smell of kebab and the scent of musk.
I'd take you to each silver shop there and count with you Hamsas as if we're counting stars and looking for the little prince.
I'd hold your hand each time we see a Hamsa.
I'd grab you by the hand and take you to the palm reader in the old ahwa that smells of antiquity yet serves fresh minted tea.
I'd  grab you by the hand because that's where your heart line is.
I'd take you to the Nile afterwards because that's where my heart line is.

I'd grab a handful of Cairo's juxtaposition, and have you stick your tongue out and taste it.
I'd take you at evening on a Feluka louder in sound and light than one of your nightclubs, and let you see how it shatters the night as if it’s made of glass.
I'd take you at morning on a Feluka where the glass towers are, and let you see how arrogantly they stand on the river bank.
I'd love you until noon on a Feluka where our view would be the clean cold glass towers' reflection on the ***** warm Nile.
I'd name that Feluka "clean sheets are not the warmest"

I'd grab a handful of Cairo's juxtaposition, and have you stick your tongue out and taste it.
I'd take you on a journey on the 6th of October bridge, and let you see how the cars walk hand in hand like lovers, but keep on honking, breaking, leaking, like it's the end of their relationship.
I'd take you to downtown where street vendors are screaming their lungs out so loud that, due to the physical laws of the universe, their vigorous voices are no longer heard

I'd grab a handful of Cairo's juxtaposition, and have you stick your tongue out and taste it.
I'd take you to the wall protecting the Israeli embassy, but I won't get you too close so that you won't smell the scent of accumulated
****, **** that smells of pollution, salt, and sorrow.
I'd take you to the wall protecting the Israeli embassy but I won't let you stand too far away.
I'd take you the wall protecting the Israeli embassy and I'd take a step forwards with you, just one step so that we'd be close enough to see the rumble, and then I'll show you no more.
I'd take you to the wall protecting the Israeli embassy and let the rumble show you Egypt...
let the rumble show you the revolution...
let the rumble show you the sting of
عيش
حرية
عدالة اجتماعية
كرامة انسانية
carved as graffiti to be rewritten no matter how many times the government washes it away.

I'd grab a handful of Cairo's juxtaposition, and have you stick your tongue out and taste it.
I'd take you to the pyramids at night.
I'd buy us lemonade and tell you why I prefer using stones to metaphors.

I'll take you to my home and show you why this city is so worthy of love..
Why this city is so grey..
so loud..
so cruel..
and so beautiful.

When I was 12, I got food poisoning...
the fourth time I threw up, my neighbor said “that’s sickness leaving your body to live somewhere else”..
So today, I wrote your name 4 more times.

People say …. beauty will always find its way
like a plant …. cracking out of concrete land

As if concrete with all its shades of black
is nothing but ugliness holding beauty back.



Well ******* all!!


Do you know how dark sun’s core is?
Dense, and burning, hell on fire.

This is not poetry, these are facts..

The ultimate beauty symbol, the moon, is nothing but rocks and dirt.
The only organic way to nurture an infertile land into fruitfulness is through ****.


So next time you are blessed enough to be in a dim hollow place
Remember the astronauts that died for a chance to explore outer space

Dear Donia,
I found myself writing your name because I have always preferred alliteration to rhyme.
I prefer alliteration because beginnings are always exciting, passionate, and full of life, and endings are always a brown shade of autumn.

Dear Donia,
Spring is a lover whose hands were cut in war but never fails to gently caress every skin inch of skin  
Spring is a lover who would build his tongue a hand, and leave me in awe because hands grab but tongues grasp.

Dear Donia,
I hope your lover never falls short of using her tongue the way a poet uses his.
I hope you find meaning between the folds of her body.
I hope her kisses taste like your favorite words.

Dear Donia,
I hope she helps you see the free verse that you are; full of alliteration, and with no rhyme.

trembling fingers, palpitating heart, and the corners of my lips shake as i say hi to you. i fear my feelings are looking for an exit. i am terrified that they’ll show you how much i long for you.

i say "hi, how are you today?"
but i mean hi, i want to take a swim in your eyes, i want to devour your very soul, your hair looks so soft today, is this how your embrace feels? did you see the moon yesterday? it reminds me of you, you know. the fullness, the coldness, the light, the madness, the distance. i dreamt of you yesterday. you drew henna on my hand, and that gentle hold is all i crave right now.

i say "hey, by the way, i think you might like this book."
but i mean can i read it to you? can we lay on the grass on a brisk morning as i do so? or maybe i can read it to you on an evening instead, in a warm living room that smells of musk and tenderness?

i say "here's my copy, give it a read, i left some notes in it though"
but i mean maybe it's better that i can't read it to you. maybe it's better that you'd read it alone. i like that you'll carry pieces of me home.

i say "let me know what you think"
but i mean your voice soothes me. i want to take a calm stroll down your thoughts. i like the way your dark eyes twinkle when you make a witty remark.

i say "enough of you today. see you later"
but i mean time is a spiral, and i feel like i explored some of its folds with you before. i carry you with me everywhere i go nowadays. i'm not sure i like it, i'm positive i cant help it. i'm always both scared of and grateful for my feelings.

i say "salam"
i mean salam. i send it you as i’m driving home. i send it to you as i'm looking at the lake at night. i send it to you as i write this.

beautiful; blue hair,
ripped jeans, and a shirt that says
****** the goverment

I'm sorry I left...
But dear, I loved you so much,
you smelled like my death.

I'm a writer, love...
I survive on wine, moonlight,
and burning heartbreaks.

Sometimes, i forget to capitalize my "I"s.
i wonder if it's because English is not my first language,
or because colonialism forgot to teach me to capitalize "I" but remembered to teach me to capitalize "English"

I am a wanderluster. My cells are incapable of remaining intact. Every single atom in me is constantly roaming the uni-verse and conflating with all its beauty, constantly becoming it, and constantly providing it with the chance to become through myself.

I am not carefree. I am not balanced. I feel intensely, and I like it.
I am. And my beingness is a gravitational field, pulling the everythingness of everything into me.

Suicidal tendencies are condemned infinity worth of light years in insanity, but the bloodlust shown in children's palm imprints on stale walls after every Adha Eid is righteousness: sanity in all its glory.

Flashbacks in action:
1-It's sunny, it's 3 pm, July 1st 1750, a man murders another. The first is a landowner, the latter is a slave who tried to stop his master from ****** his wife, the woman is also one of his master's slaves and that reads: he owns her womb. It's starry, it's 10 pm, July 1st 1750, two slaves discuss the the incident that occurred earlier in agonized whispers, one of them says "he declared his head ripen and ready for plucking when he tried to say no", the other replies "he must have been insane".
2-It's  raining, it's 8 pm, January 1st 1950, a man kisses another. The first is the second's lover, they meet in secrecy twice a week in an abandoned meadow, their footsteps echo the two aforementioned slaves' whispers. It's raining, it's 8:05 pm, January 1st 1950, a third man announces his presence by stepping out of a nearby bush, a step so loud it could be confused for thunder in such a weather, "I only followed you here because you're my friend, and It's because I'm your friend that I will tell you this" he tells his fellow scholar "I won't tell on you if you try to seek help, we now have treatment for homosexuality, you don't have to spend the rest of your life mentally ill".

Only those who show no sign of imprisonment in their desire to be a continuous flow of living generations further are mentally ill. Those who rob others' time,  space, and energy are only trying to live. We feast on mountains, sunlight, water, plants, and other animals. We claim consciousness as our bride. We claim reign as our fate. We claim superiority. Cannons as either angry battle cries or smiles fired in the face of any other, cannibalism shows as we shake hands. We're constantly on the hunt, as both preys and hunters. But that's the way life goes isn't it? Tigers hunt ghazals, ghazals hunt grass, and earth hunts us all the moment we fall or die. We even have a name for this hierarchy of sacred hunting: the life cycle. Such an inappropriate name for a process fueled on constant deaths.

But this juxtaposition is the ultimate definition of all there is. We have also been throughout time told by doctors, by the ever changing science, that in order to be the most active during the day, we need to sleep well during the night; to get eight hours of oceans-deep sleep every time sixteen hours pass on. We say pass on to mean die but the same two syllables have two more meanings; all hail semiotics. To pass on means to die, to give, and to evolve. this I was taught by my mother, and although I don't trust her judgment when it comes to people she remains an exquisite cook, and an exquisite writer. She distinguishes the different spices and synonymous on first sniffs and I will always be grateful for her trial to pass on her nose, high and proud, to me.

Van Gogh passed on his seven sunflowers and twirl-spiral Suns to the humanity whose tongue doesn't always speak in haikus. Van Gogh's second sunflowers burned in Hiroshima. Van Gogh had been rumored to eat yellow paint: as yellow as his sunflowers and twirl spiral Suns, because he couldn't eat the yellow land, the yellow skin, the yellow Japanese utopia. Van Gogh believed that there is a Japanese utopia, Van Gogh believed in the existence of a utopia, Van Gogh believed in the no place, Van Gogh passed his no place on to this humanity.

I inherited paintings in public museums, and paintings on tree leafs. I inherited orchestras in far away operas through the Interwebs, and I inherited movies and dances and all the beauty that this humanity managed to produce. I inherited life, and its deaths, and I can see how in the very root of its injustice there is also grace growing, that clean sheets are not the warmest. I inherited mental illness, and I inherited stale stability. I inherited love, love, and more love. I inherited preys and hunters and I inherited the ability to see the beauty of the accuracy, the run, and the play on capabilities. I  inherited prey and hunters and I inherited the ability to see how preys are hunters and how hunters are preys.

My father never laid his hand on me....
Not with a slap on the face, and not with a pat on the back.

My father doesn’t yell at me. In fact, the only time in which I get to hear his voice is when we have small talk every couple of days.

My father never broke my heart. I do not think he is aware that we are anatomally wired to have hearts.

I saw my father’s blood on the bathroom tile after him coughing in there for two hours straight. I pretended I saw nothing. I wonder if he too pretends he doesn’t see me bleeding myself to sleep every night.

My father looks noble from a distance.
My father is kind, with an air of stale waters.
My father says I wouldn’t understand.
My father says, but not out loud, that it’s out of love.
My father builds me smaller, and I hand him the shovel.
My father drives me to the edge of the cliff, then he drives back home alone playing his favorite classical music on the radio.
My father says happy birthday on the wrong day, and he smiles ever so graciously handing me money as a gift.
My father’s scent doesn’t feel like home, he smells like the hospital.

I saw death before. It isn’t still. It’s intense.

So yesterday when my stomach built itself into a sinking ship,

And my fingers were colonized by earthquakes,

I realized what you meant by “love hurts”.

My strong sea, my sweet spring,

I now know the ashy taste of your kisses, The salty reek of your definitions,

You read love poems just to read their ends.

My mother taught me to count each of my prayers on my fingers, so here we go...

The first time I fell in love with you was on a spring day. I was lying on the grass and you were lying on the back of my mind.

The second time I fell in love with you was last summer. Your deserted skin glistened a dune in the sunlight, and your hair danced to a breeze that was not yet quite there.

The third time I fell in love with you was this autumn. I unfolded piles and piles of myself trying to connect the weight of the word that is me to this season; each fall I fall for you.

The fourth time I fell in love with you was a couple of winters ago. The snow was up to my frozen tongue; but each time I would look into your eyes I would feel a burn in my chest.

My grandfather thought that we get clarity from the dew of dawn but I have always found my prophecies in my Isha prayers; The fifth time I fall in love with you will be on a spring day. I will be lying on the grass, and you will lie on the back of my mind...

I live in poetry
Even if I can't live off of it

She leaves a note in the morning after, signed with her name because he whispered the name of another woman while he was inside her.
She leaves a note written in her bright red lipstick because he said it made her lips look like cherries, and her mother had taught her that the fastest road to a man’s heart is a good meal.
She leaves the note in her lipstick because he didn’t compliment the dress she wore on her fragile body, the shoes she wore on her dainty feet, or the heart she wore on her sleeves;
He complimented the lipstick she wore as a note written on his mirror; an instrument of multiplication, she had to face it all, and face it twice. Twice the bed frame, twice the sheets, twice his sleeping body, and twice her face.
What she likes the most about the note is covering a part of the mirror, and a mirror is never a friend.

He takes a leap of faith and jumps headstrong into a relationship that he knows will drown him.
He was named a champion in the 2015 Olympiad for swimming;
he lost his golden medal but the whiplash on his heart when he delved into the waters will always remind him how salty it tasted.
He sinks into an abyss of intensity that he cannot dry out no matter how long he sits near the lonely candle next to Madonna’s portrait.
He soaks in the glistening sunlight; water was never his friend.

She brushes her hair every evening and every evening she reminds herself that she needs to brush off her family’s rejection.
He trains everyday and every day he reminds himself that his heart is also a muscle.
They do it in the dark because it’s easy to love another and scary to see yourself.

Whenever I fall out of harmony with the uni-verse, I cloister at my mother's home. It's full of three things; books, paintings, and kids, yet the walls have more to offer..
I can hear her opening doors

I still remember how she shortened every single one of her galabeyas, and how the space between her ankles and her feet is exactly what infinity looks like.

I still remember the six gold ghawayesh that turned into four then turned into two, and I still remember thinking maybe one day they covered her whole arm like a shiny armor but she kept on falling defenseless because time is a cruel thief. I also remember how she robbed time of its powers by keeping her ancient wise soul an adventurous young one until the very last day; the skill she wanted to learn at the age of seventy was driving, because knitting is obviously for the young.

I still remember her taking pride in her roots, like a baobab tree, and I still remember how it was this that taught to stand my ground, balanced and rooted.

I still remember how people called her house "the mother of Egyptians' house" because that's the name of the neighborhood where it was. I still remember learning at the age of nine that the neighborhood was named so in the honor of the revolutionary Safia Zaghloul, and I still remember thinking that they named Safia Zaghloul so in the honor of her, because she was 'the mother', the source, the one more push, the spring, the lens, the revolution and beyond.

I still remember how her hair looked like moonlight, and how her skin felt like flower petals.

She wasn't an angel; she wasn't made out of light. She was made of water and fertile soil; she was a complete human being in all its glory, molded by the hands of Atum, and Minerva.

And if she was not only in my memories, I'd make a pilgrimage to her; kneel under her feet so she can braid my hair, and offer warmth and bedtime stories in treasure boxes adorned with her favorite poetry lines. And I remind myself instead to take a good look at the night sky; those who follow the stars can never be lost.

“Two teaspoons of coffee, one teaspoon of sugar, and pour it right before it boils down”, my mother said smelling the coffee she is cooking to perfection. I stand there and wonder what scent Hamlet was smelling when he said “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark”, I’m guessing it’s the same scent colonizing this house. I look at the ***** ceiling and start sniffing the air. My mother looks at me and says “your nose is nearing the skyline, keep it where your feet are. Men don’t like prideful women”.

I looked around trying to see what smelled so repulsive. My grandmother lit incense, my sister baked a fresh orange cake for celebration, my other sister splashed a few drops of the musk that the Arab man gifted us all over the house, and father held a stack of 500 Riyal banknotes to his nose.  

The rich Arab that knocked on our door last week asking if we have an extra womb for sale is visiting again today. My mother prepared a hot bath for me an hour ago; she said I have to smell like freshly uprooted Baladi roses, so I soaked in the bathtub trying to figure out what is this repulsive scent I am smelling.

Right after I finished my bath I told my mother “something stinks”. Her reply was dragging me to the kitchen where she teaches me how to make coffee. I say “mother, nobody drinks coffee here”, she says “You need to learn how to properly make coffee to serve our sheikh some tonight. Remember, eyes on the ground”. I reply reciting the lesson she just taught me “Keep them where my feet are”.

I hear people in the city overlook what lies beneath their feet; a 16 year old city girl will never know what it means to have to walk 30 kilometers with a broken shoe in order to read one book. I guess farming taught me a thing or two about looking down. I remember reading before that African slaves were shipped to America to primarily work in farms, coffee and sugar farms to be exact. I realize now what this stink is. I look at my mother and tell her “I will not marry him. This ring reeks of slavery”. She looks at me in astonishment, and I reply reciting the lesson she just taught me “and pour it right before it boils down”.

_________________ Space
Between the time my flesh tastes our sheets and the time I drift into sleep is space; full, and in-finite.
I'm afraid I'll get lost on the journey one night.

_________________ Space
I stretch one last time elongating myself; even though I know that between every two atoms in my body is space; full, and in-finite.
I'm afraid my atoms will break free from one another one night.

_________________ Space
I yawn, and I hear it echo a sound wave going long and past the horizon making space for another yawn; full, and in-finite.
I'm afraid the wavelength will find its way to your end of the bed one night.

I'm afraid that if it does there will be, between us, no_________________

I get kicked to the ground so often

Because planet Earth, like any other passionate lover, is in constant need of my warm body embracing his.

Dear Sabah,
For the past forty-four days I have been waking up at dawn so I can reap sunlight the way an old peasant in a jasmine farm does.
My brother said he might have seen sunflowers but he never saw suns flowering; “the sunlight you reaped is useless” he said “why are you collecting it?"
My grandfather collects stamps, my mother collects china sets, my father collects rare books, my uncle collects money, and my grandmother collected hearts. “Because I want to be like Teta”, I answered him.

Dear Sabah,
I have been waking up at dawn, and I can assure you that they lied about dew being playful.
Dew doesn’t slide on a rose petal the way a child does in the park.
Dew sits still in an ungenuine grace the way an aristocratic woman does in a third cousin wedding; Dew is my aunt Fatima in her brother’s wedding.
However, they didn’t lie about how early birds get the worm..
This morning, I saw a bird eating two worms, and the eldest of my cousins cutting off his brothers’ allowances right after taking over his father’s company.

Dear Sabah,
I read in The Little Prince that people like watching sunsets when they are sad; that he watched the sunset forty-four times in one day when he had a fight with his rose.
So for the past forty-four days I have been waking up at dawn and morphing my notebook into a camera lens.
I now have 44 synonyms for your name, and each evening, I read the scribbles of morning I managed to pluck: fresh, fragile, blue and pink hues, childlike, clean grass, birds chipping, family…

Dear Sabah,
This morning, when my uncle told us how his son is now running his company, my 11 year old brother asked me if our family is a monarchy. “No, Hady” I said, “our family is an Arctic morning; for six months straight it is a cold dark environment, and for the other six, the sun doesn’t set.”

I've loved you for years,
and their seasons taught me that:
*all that spring must fall

It is 1826, and last time I heard from him was 7 years ago.
“I will be back, mother” he promised in his military attire.
The worst part about a broken promise is voiding a word of its meaning.
The rifle that killed my son murdered the word ‘back’;
I do not trust the milkman when he says he will be back with my change.
I do not trust the government when it says it has a back-up plan.
I do not trust my husband when he says he has my back.
It is 1826, and last time I felt good looking in the mirror was 25 years ago.
“You look beautiful”, my husband said but he wasn’t looking at me.
I saw his eyes escaping mine and drifting to the unknown lands of easy days .
a walk back home with shoes that fit,
a dinner table with bread that isn’t stale,
a bed with soft sheepskin that doesn’t scratch the wounds opened from the death of a loved one.

I forgot how Dylan Thomas taught me not to go gentle into that good night.
Few months ago I decided not to speak of, or in any way get involved in, the political life of this wretched state.
But the mere word "state" is a solid evidence of its impermanence.
This can not go by unnoticed.
This will not go by unnoticed.
We are not afraid of your guns, your prisons, your knives, your tasers, and your combat boots.
We have the internet, our voices, our pens, our brushes, and our cameras. And when you rob us of it all we will still have one another and our will to fight.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

You need space, so much space,
But I am an astronaut.
Your lens is dark, pitch black at times,
But I see things best
when my eyes are shut.
You are cold, so very cold,
But I love brisk winter mornings,
so fresh, and free of dust.

{chorus}
You are
You are
You are

{non instrumental}
Not for me,
But I love you.
Not for me,
But I love you.
Not for me,
But I love you.

I love your sensitive heart,
But not the way you bury it deep underground,
and hide it with with layers of dirt and debris.
I love your quick mind,
But not when it fails to understand that our connection
is just another synonym for poetry.
I love your perceptive eyes,
But not how they can’t keep contact with mine,
When you’re telling me in every way you can that you love me.

{chorus}
I love
I love
I love

{non instrumental}
I love you,
But not for me.
I love you,
But not for me.
I love you,
But not for me.

Burning souls, shredded hearts, and eyes swollen of intense crying and midnight reading; cosmic threads evolving into greener beings.

Rub that old wound over and over again; know that it is friction that creates heat, and know that heat is a synonym for warmth.

Set yourself on fire; know that you’re a phoenix made for a constant rebirth, and know that fire is your friend.

Tear your heart apart over lost causes and  pieces of art; know that the voids you make can turn into light wells if you let it.

Don't let wine, or poets, fool you; unroll beyond time and space.

I looked for love,

In high language novels read by men who always wear big glasses, and bigger intellectual endeavors.

In independent films with moody pianists for protagonists, or extravagant detectives, or mad prophets.

In the disappointments of post-12 AM conversations with strangers smoking outside an underground theater.



I looked for love,

In old photographs with brown spots, and wrinkled covers of vinyl records.

In candles with mysteriously inviting names, like “white musk” and “black forest".

In dictionaries that show how nostalgia and exoticism are alike: a longing for the imaginary.



I looked for love,

In between the lines, and tucked into metaphors.

In the closet where I used to hide as a child

In everywhere except for the coffee shop in plain sight where a 23 year old goes to have coffee, and write about how love is nowhere to be found.

Water has no color
Water has to scent
Water has no texture
Water has no taste

No color paste can be made without water
No aroma, perfume or sweat, can smell without water
Rough lands are soften into soil through water
All meals are cooked and all drinks are made through water

It's the most simple words
that create complex worlds

In plainness lies poetry.

I needed a piece of paper and a pen to write this down.

I needed to smell, and touch the words as they pour out of my soul through my numb thin long fingers.
I needed to see my thoughts, no, my emotions, transform into ink and sit there on paper still.
I can imagine the scripture, the outcome, with a shaky handwriting and words so stressed and stressful that the ink is visible on the other paper side.
Yet, what’s written is unreadable.
I can’t see my own words.

I close my eyes hard and my hands harder. My small palms form two fists in which my numb thin long fingers snuggle into one another and only then their numbness seizes to dissolve.
My frustration is eating my numbness alive, and I do not know which side to take.

The paper starts turning blue.
A teardrop mates with the deep blue ink and they make an ocean out of the small piece of paper, or perhaps, a night sky.
One of my thin long fingers, that are no longer numb, escapes the group hug and feels my left wet cheek.

I open my eyes. There is no ocean. There is no night sky. There is no paper. But I can see my own words.

Writing is a long walk down a dark alley without a pepper spray ...
It’s vulnerability, new to the ballet class, standing on the tip of its toes ..
It is an eye directly exposed to a solar eclipse.

Writing is a long dive down the Mariana Trench without an oxygen tank ...
It’s daggers cutting through lungs, and lungs cutting through ribcages ..
It is an inflamed heart.

Writing is a craft: building the inflamed heart a rocket, and flying it two constellations out of its comfort zone without a map ...
It’s a broken maze with the last name of a study guide ..
It is fingers stuttering.

Writing doesn’t feel good ...
but my best friend taught me that adrenaline rushes post working out ..
so I put up with it, and run an A4 paper.