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Peyton L Feb 2020
Trigger Warning* depictions of ****** assault

Beach sands
peeling off a swimsuit
a wet slap
not quite drenched to the bone
yet still a burden
how it sits heavy on the tongue
a humid storm
inside you
heaviness in the prison of my ******
I am trying to pull up my *******
after my friend ***** me
in December
and I'm thinking of how everyone I love
has once hurt me
'moist' is the sound
of his fingers slipping inside me
I am closing my eyes
as the cotton of his shirt clings to my bare legs
and I am thinking that all the wetness must have
teeth
especially the wetness that grows within
and spills out
or chews its way through the skin
and falls onto another's
the night I was *****
everyone laughed
until the walls were moist
until it rained indoors
I say moist
and first, think about two naked bodies
the sound their skin makes
when I try to fight him off
underneath a hungry moon
in a house of warm heat
I saw moist
and think of his tongue against me
the bullet in his brain as I curse him
on a cold December night
the room
my *******
a dark red
I say moist
as in
my own blood spilling in my white ******* moist
or
his fingers moist as he pounded into me
so hard I bled
or my eyes moist when
I told my Momma what that boy had done to me
it felt like winter for ten years.
I wrote this in creative writing as an imitation of Hanif Willis-Abdurraqid's "In Defense of Moist"
Nigel Morgan Mar 2014
This is a place that brings out the best in people, she said with confidence born of practice in convening such gatherings. It is a place apart, he thought, certainly. It was difficult not to look out of the window where the unleafed trees swayed and swayed in the wind. He had felt very solitary all day. Throughout his journey here he’d been on another journey, a little in the past, and its images had enveloped him. He had often returned to a moment during a stop on that journey in the beautiful gardens of Hestercombe where, in the seclusion of a tall shrubbery she had suddenly turned to him and kissed him with a need and a passion that was beyond anything he had ever known. And it had coloured everything that came to pass ever after.

Later, when he had brought her to this place apart they had lain on the spring grass amongst the daisies and read poetry about the river not half a mile away in the valley below them. It was all and more than he could ever have imagined.

But now there was the business of creativity to attend to, that relentless business of finding the right tone and subject for the reading public. He was amongst writers, people for whom words dominated thoughts and generated incomes and reputation. There was a confidence here, not only in those directing this seminar, but in the participants. It was written all over their body language and the way they dressed. The casual jacket, the well-cut blue jeans, the open-necked (but striped) shirt, a lot of black, bright tights (there was a striking turquoise set against a short black dress printed with white hearts), the women’s clothes mostly loose, the men’s clothes tighter fitting and more confining. And those all-important accessories, the bags, the tablets, the so-large diaries and notebooks, a bewilderment of scarves servings as emblems of their colourful selves. He had worn a simple black suit and dark green shirt and felt in such colourful company suitably anonymous.

Introductions were unnecessary (as everybody seemed to know everyone else) but the unnecessarily long CVs where prizes and awards, publishers and broadcast work, current projects and commissions were rolled out, variously. He was thankful that he was introduced as a new voice, a discovery from last summer’s festival and was here because his work embraced other creative journeys than those with words. He was here to share with these confident and successful writers a different viewpoint on the creative process where things rather than abstractions led narrative.

Although the directors of this seminar had their own agenda it was suggested that the assembled company might begin with an open discussion about the writing life. It was proposed that we should share not so much our own experiences at first, but what we considered was a necessary state from which to write. Inevitably and rightly this led to the role of reading, the necessity of reading, but reading in the new climate of the media storm, the instant access through technology, the over-saturation and stimulation of culture, the back-slapping banality of social media. Personal contact with one’s audience through readings and talks was a lively issue. The assembled were all proven writers, they all knew how to do it, but the publishing world and the media were changing the goal posts, rethinking the playing field and the game itself. There was a distinct feeling of unease about personal and financial futures. Just how does one sustain the creative way of things after the third book when the landscapes of literature seemed to change as for a traveller watching the scenery from a railway carriage? The romance of writing was being undermined and some writers felt soiled by the demand for public visibility. Some wanted to write books and be left in peace to do it.

Throughout all this open-ended discussion he had stayed silent, observing, word gathering, filling pages of his notebook with word-bites from these wordsmiths.  It was interesting how the assembled represented several common styles within new writing: poetry, but not as we know it poetry, the performance stuff; science fiction (those taking part were careful to use the Attwood distinction of possible SF and completely impossible SF); new nature was in attendance; fiction-verité, the stuff of raw truth and seemingly possible lives; the fictional biography was popular, regarded as a useful fall-back (there’s usually one hiding amongst most authors’ oeuvres); teenage fiction seemed a flourishing and free from angst genre (I don’t think very hard about what I write, said a 20-something with a four book contract, I read what’s out there already, and search the internet ).  

This definitely wasn’t in any sense of the word an academic seminar. Aesthetics and technical jargon were gently ridiculed by the directors who had had plenty of practice in sending up the stuff of creative writing courses. Hanif Kureishi’s recent declarations on such university degrees being ‘a waste of time’ were largely welcomed, though there was some defence evident (probably from those who had benefitted from such programmed and often supportive study).

Talk generally, not personally was the message. What are the general observations we can gather? You’re out there working in this volatile world of the written word, where are we at, and where are we going? Is there a developing vision? It was time to get off the fence, he thought, and bring something to bear on the discussion, which he could tell was reaching a necessary conclusion – time for a break. He suggested we might be mindful of those books and writing in any medium, which had and did enrich us. Imagine, he said, you’re about to leave home for this seminar and before the taxi arrives to take you to the railway station you have 3 minutes to find a book (and maybe it is of your own making) that you hold like you hold in your heart the imagined life of a dear friend you seldom if ever see. What comes into your mind right this minute? This book you choose you’ll hide from us all. You’ll put it at the bottom of the bag. It’s a secret word-gift, wherever it came from. It’s not there to impress us but to keep its owner warm at night when sleep is difficult (as he admitted he did not sleep well the previous night). I see writers, he said, as part of a community of the imagination, and this community through our various abilities and experiences fashions word-gifts. We do the best we can to make them well and good, to have a reality albeit an imagined reality, and if we think of our work as gifts containing the lives and experiences of even partially imagined others, no matter what we craft will have a right quality and purpose, and maybe a true presence.
Maryam Hanif Jun 2018
When the skies are gray and
The aches play with emotions
The universe couldn't understand me, and neither could you.

When you go quiet and Won't let the calmness touch us
My throat starts aching but My voice can't obverse the fear
The universe couldn't understand me, neither could you

Through the cracks of wilderness
The rose never bloomed under the circumstances
While the grey storm clouds are forming
We may break but won't stay broken
The universe couldn't understand me, neither could you..

See my eyes are getting blurry and
The soul separates from the body
But promises are never kept
Yet your smile is bright.. completely blind to the world
The universe couldn't understand me, neither could you..


(C)2018 Maryam Hanif. All Rights Reserved.
to my dear friend that broke up the friendship tho it was not my mistake..

#gray #shades #sky #emotions #play #voice #calmness #fear #universe #wild #storm #break #blurry #promises #bright
Maryam Hanif Jun 2018
I can't remember myself well... words are escaping me.
Depression has gotten hold of me, it's not exactly what you think. It's just missing words and mixed-up emotions.
Am I alive? or am I just a white soul?
I feel time moving slowly, I'm hearing voices hush, but the soul is taken away harsher...
I'm frustrated.
I wonder why?

(C)2018 Maryam Hanif. All Rights Reserved.
#depression #remembrance #escape #emotions #soul #time #frustrated
Maryam Hanif Jun 2018
Tell me you love me, you trust me
The heartache left me with the warmth of stillness
When love melted away from my heart

Tell me you won't hide, or leave me
I need your reassurance
This distance seems to be endless

Tell me what the facts are
My thoughts are dancing with your death chords
I see faces glow but none of them shine as yours

Tell me


(C)2018 Maryam Hanif. All Rights Reserved.
#love #trust #heartache #warmth #stillness #hidden #distance #dance #death #shine
Maryam Hanif Jun 2018
With my head against your chest

I never knew how much would your heart beat say

Its beats have no end as my thoughts get messier

Time has stopped since I synched into your beats

Silence took over the moment without begging calmness to prevail

While the pages are turning to escape the present,

And forget the vows of our silent love for tomorrow

By closing my eyes, I was engulfed by the songs of your heart beats and their fear of the perfect imperfection

While your warm tear falls over my forehead

I drown in the tale of your beats

I was speechless


(C)2018 Maryam Hanif. All Rights Reserved.
I have published my first book, it is all about my dad who got cancer..
and this is one of the poem i have written for him

#BEATS #cancer #heart #time #calmness #vows #love #tomorrow #engulf #imperfection #warm #tears #tale

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