Category: KuwaitWritingClub

Sycophant

December 21st, 2018

Slipping and slithering
in gratitude to her
addiction to
being incomparable.
With every
sway, swelter
up, down or tremble:
she succeeded.
With every
clamp, graze
twitch or clutch:
she did it.
With every
slip, break
hug, smile
she put between us:
she maliciously moved
beyond hills, valleys, mountains
beyond my love, loyalty
care and warmth.
Leaving me feeling lucky
to have her,
leaving me fighting
to keep her in my life.

As a last effort
to uplift her:
by cradling her chilly skin
in my tired claws,
she finally darted the skies she lusted.
I carried
her boneless spirals with
all the might I could muster
impelling my wings
to carry us both.
With that,
I became expendable:
I had offered all I had,
she turned to kiss me goodbye
and with the two small cuts
she forced into my skin,
I crashed:
unable to see.
I was numbed:
unable to feel neither
my broken heart beating or
my wounds bleeding.
Coming close to my last breath,
my blurry vision only
fixated on her betrayal.
I ceased to be,
to the sound of her cheerful rattles,
celebrating our parallel deaths,
falling in patience,
plunging
to our immediate demise.
Failing Anatomy

September 24th, 2018

You
are
so
deeply
missed.

They
say
a child
associates security with
their mother’s;
voice or heartbeat.
I long
to hear yours.

It’s hard to lose you.
How do you?
‘Get over’ someone
who hasn’t actually
left?
I feel lost
without you.
I feel
anchorless;
floating around waiting to hit land.

I’m married,
You know?
You would’ve loved him
had you met, before.
We want our own little family; I
can’t wait
but at the same time
there is a part of me;
this conflicting side to me;
who doesn’t want children
in this world.
In a world
where
the only thing they’ll know about you
is that you were sick
and how much that hurt me.

I want them to know
your strength,
your compassion,
your faith,
your trust,
but most of all; your love.
They
will never
know your love.
That hurts.
It hurts so much-
that if you ever met my children,
the picture
I’d have of you would be in a hospital room
surrounded by
machines continuously relentlessly
beeping; checking for pulse,
tubes inflating your lungs with life.

I want to name my daughter after you,
you know?
You didn’t live
the beautiful life you deserve, and
I guess some part of me
wishes you’d live
through her. I want her
to be as loved as you are.
As strong as you are, 28 years later
still fighting to stay here for your children.
I’ve forgotten so much of you,
Twelve years ago today,
you were standing
wilted spine
gleaming smile
at my high school graduation,
telling me how proud you are. You
always made sure I was happy. You
always made me feel like
my struggles as a woman
were only temporary. I’d give
anything
to go back to the days
I could have a conversation with you. I’d ask
everything I could
and write it all down. I wish
I could relive all those moments with you. I was
always
tangled up in my own feelings about your malady. I wish
I supported you. I wish
I talked to you more.

Yesterday, I realized
I can’t remember so much about you.
Forgetting was
my coping mechanism; it helped me
take care of you.
I’m so disappointed in myself. I
should have been stronger. I keep
flexing memories
flipping through them
trying to remember something new;
trying to remember something,
anything.
I can’t. I am
afraid of days and years getting the best of me. I am
afraid of my memories being haunted
by the ghost of the weak you, the helpless you. I am afraid
of failing to remember
the loving mother
the fearless woman
the devoted wife
I am afraid of forgetting you.
I am afraid your dementia got me, too.
I spent most of my adult life
fearing your death.
Answering every phone call from dad,
with brace to mourn.
Years of tearful pillows later,
I’m still destroyed again and again
with every relapse you go through
again and again. I’d be
left slouching from the weight of a world without you,
needle and thread in hand,
sewing myself back together. I still
search for some of those pieces of me, never having found some.
They’re the root of
the gaping holes within.

I don’t want to live in a world
where you don’t exist,
but if I’m being realistic,
do you even exist now?
Without your memory of even us,
without your
arms, legs,
back, mind. What
are you holding on to? Why
are you even here?
I am so torn
between needing
the warmth of your hugs and kisses,
needing
you to fight for me one last time,
and
needing you to
let
go
of
everything
including us.
I want your freedom
even though it will be the one
last
destructive blow,
burning pieces of me
that I will never be able to reassemble.

I’ve lost the warmth of your voice, but I
I will always have your
heart
beat
inked into my skin,
above my own heart.
You will always be my security.
Freight

April 28th, 2018

I dream
of;
worlds
colliding,
hope
shattering,
goals
withering
away.
Of trailing
corpses and
phantom snakes.
Of lost voices and
unresolved pain.
Of monsters,
demons and
humans
in lust.
In wonder.
In apathy, and
and resolved to pain.
Defense Mechanism

March 31st, 2018

The power
I
want
over anything
over everything else
is to be able to
push myself to
get over her. To
push myself to kill her. Is it
murder if you’re doing it
for her?
Because you love her?

I’d explain that
she
is the biggest
heartbreak I’ve ever endured
the biggest weakness I have
the biggest source of strength I’ve gained
and the most draining thing in my life.

I’d explain that
she
is the strongest
woman I’ve ever met.
And it’s not fair for us to see her so frail and fragile;
that she’s incapable of even
breathing on her own.
It’s not fair that
her mother, sisters and brothers
have all given up.
But here we are, husband and kids.
Her true kin, watching her fading away slowly
unable to help her get to her destination.

I’d explain that
she
has given us the
superpower to
live with the weight of
her breathing carcass-
pulling us back
back
and back again
to that hospital
she’s existing in.

I’d also explain
we
can’t
keep gravitating to her because
our powers are fading.
We’re turning into shells.
We’ve been drained
of all the love
we could ever possibly have.
We’re losing.

I’d explain
that
it was
self-defense.
Speaking Scars

February 18th, 2018

Sacred
Secrets
Scarring
Deranged
Disarranged

Angels
Creating
Craters
Of
Pain
In the most holy
Of
people.
Unsaid; unlived

February 4th, 2018

It’s as if
I’m living in an alternate realm where
only I exist
and my comprehension of people
is the only truth behind their existence.

As if
I’m bred from the love I have for myself
and the love I have for the ones around me.
Yet I remain uncertain:
As if I’m misplaced.
As if I’m myself,
but not really.

As if my other self is in control sometimes,
and I’m standing in silhouette
demanding X or O keep me alive;
too late;
I’ve died again.
And again.
I’ve let myself down again.
I’ve disrupted the balance,
again:

My mind creates this
virtual reality and
relives my days
again and again,
whilst I dream.
Trying
to maintain
that I do good;
speak good;
be good.

You see,
unsaid words are not invisible,
they just reside in me until
my mind recreates
the night,
the day, and
the people:
what they’d say and
what they’d laugh at.

Then
it reminds itself
to say that thing it was longing to,
to laugh at that joke it lacked to,
to hug that person it ached to.

The parallel separation of
my thoughts and my self grows.
As if I’m playing
a videogame
where I’m
watching myself do something I’ve already done;
or say the thing I wanted to
but didn’t.
Flesh

December 25th, 2017

But it’s;
the gossip,
the lies,
the deceit,
the arguments,
the tears,
the broken friendships,
the heartache.

It’s
the trouble of picking up
all the pieces
of all those experiences
and
reshuffling your meat into place.

It’s
the angst of trying to sew together
a muscle
that’s supposed to beat
as long as you’re alive.

It’s
the sincerity in your pain
the innocence in your darkness
the anchoring of your freedom
the tongue thrashing your flesh.

It’s the beauty of the deficiency
the attraction to longing.
It’s the callousness of
your beating hearts
to be pumping blood
through the veins of living cadavers.

For what is
a heartbeat
without a soul?

Where is the beauty in suicide?
Past; present; future

November 28th, 2017

They ask.
They always ask:
what your drive is:
what your aim is:
what your lifelong goal is.

They ask
you
where your sympathies lie;
where your heart flutters;
why your heart flutters?
how you want to live;
who you strive to be like;
who makes you who you are?

They take all those answers from you
about
your-
self:
future;
present.

But they fail:
to ask about your past;
your demons;
your weaknesses;
your unexplained fears;

They-
don’t-
care-
about all the things
that held you up
to be this
version of yourself that
they find interesting.

They
don’t care about
all those skeletons in closets;
all those days spent mourning;
the sad moments that gave you
this strength that
they applaud.

They
don’t ask;
how many times you’ve been defeated
how many times you’ve had your heart broken.

The truth;
they don’t want to know
about what’s lurking within those
shadows of yours;

They
don’t need to know what it is;
what you are.

They
just need to know:
you’re
less beautiful than them.
Captivity breeds resilience

September 18th, 2017

Standing
side by side-
covered
top to tip
sweating.
Longingly wishing
to free our
pale skin to the sun.
Walking,
hand in hand,
smothered:
thought to breath
in lust for impulse.
Searching
without meaning.
Roasting
Our skin,
Our blood,
Our bones,
Our veins.
Slowly, roasting but
cycling.
Aimlessly.
Shoulder to shoulder.
Trying to understand
the world;
Touching everything but
getting burned and
moving on.
Daring to question once,
but facing loud voices shouting to
shut
up. To
stop
thinking. To
follow.
Follow.
Follow
the rules.
“SHUT UP.”
We’re repeating to
our wandering thoughts.
“Follow.”
We’re repeating to our damp skin.
They say.
They said.
They’re always repeating
that if you
place your lips
on wounds and suck-
you’ll remove the infiltrating poison.
But what they’re not telling you is
the hardest of all the poisons is
the stagnancy
that is continuing
to fill our veins;
simplifying our minds.
Daily,
we’re striding
silently.
Wearing our layers of silk gracefully
masking our impurities.
Side by side.
Hand in hand.
Shoulder to shoulder;
Afraid to let go of each other
seeking that physical reminder
that;

captivity breeds resilience.
A Cataclysmal Path

May 15th, 2017

She was faced with a choice;

To shout
Off the top of her lungs
Off the edge of a cliff
Off for the whole world to hear
That this isn’t it
That this is not what she wants
This is not how she sees her life going
This isn’t right

A choice to yell
At her family
At her friends
At her society
At her life
At herself
That this isn’t it
This is not what she wants
This is not how she sees her life going
This isn’t right

A choice to scream
Out every bit of air within her lungs
Out every honest thought shes ever had of him
Out a description of exactly how disgusted she is from all of this
Out that this isn’t it
This is not what she wants
This is not how she sees her life going
This isn’t right
It can’t be right.
He isn’t right
He can’t be;
How can he be right when his touch sends shudders of indifference down her spine
How can he be right when his choice of perfume is a freshly smoked cigarette
How can he be right when he embodies everything she is against
How can he be right when all she feels when their eyes meet is nervousness, frustration, anger
How can he be right when her eyes do not look at him with love
or curiosity,
but fear.
How can he be right when the very thought of him feeling her skin repulses her.

Or, to choose
To remain quiet for the sake of all the burdens they’ve placed on her beaten shoulders;
Burdens of honor
Of righteousness
Of propriety
Of diligence
Burdens of norms
Of purity
Of family name
Burdens that drag her body down with the weight of an anchor meant only to position her into their cold fingertips, without exception
Burdens that she cannot argue with or voice
Burdens that she has to live with,
lovingly accepting.

The angst that she needs to unleash is vibrating every fiber of her being
The power of her thoughts is going to war with
The power of her heart
Of the love she has no idea why she feels for them
And the supposed love she’ll grow for him, for them.
The powerlessness she feels
And the acceptance she’s telling herself she will have.
She finally convinced herself that
Their will matters more than her own.
So, she decided to get away from them-
That this is a new door that’s opening for all the freedoms she’s been telling herself she doesn’t need for years.
She’s decided
this
is her only escape.

She clutched the dead flowers in her hands and walked as appropriately slow as she could.
As her mind was fighting the trembling ankles that wanted with all their might to carry her towards the door.
She walked with her head slouched low, as she couldn’t look at the faces that were celebrating the end of her life.
She wanted to shout again, to yell that they look like grimacing prison guards.
She looked down to keep her mind quiet and try to embrace the decision they made for her.
That didn’t stop the tears streaming down her face when it came down to her trembling lips whispering the one word that destroyed her life,
“نعم”