OF MARTYRS WHOSE BLOOD CEMENTED MY DNA // NOUF ALHIMIARY

you are a product
of all the bravery your ancestors
harbored at the south, carrying
the mass of ancient prejudice
upon the twists of the ropes of
their DNA. singing in the nilo saharan
to the melancholy of the african diaspora
of the indigenous people, songs of
the maxim of justice and liberty.
don’t you dare apologize for your
unrelenting pursuit of justice. don’t
you dare apologize for basking in
the liberty your ancestors shed
the nucleus of their souls fighting for.
you, are not an apology

2. // LALA TEVFIK

المجد
لمن
مجّد
المجانين
دون
العاقلين

DOWN THE WRITING BLISS // SHAIMA ALSSLALI

It’s empty stares all over again. Your hollow eyes take leave as the breaking dots of every word in every dictionary chain themselves to your neck, and you caress the markings because masochism is creativity. So you plead to your ears: “anything that doesn’t wreck me,” and your ears, sensitive and selective, cast your words away.

What is your destination? What are you left with?

Weights of words that nestle themselves on your left shoulder, taking refuge in the back of your neck, straining every last nerve with the possibility of an idea, or at least an ending.

The words string themselves to your hair, adorning your face with every little failure at eloquence, or just basic wording.

The letters, the weld themselves to your skin, reiterating every thought of self-doubt that takes the midnight train to your mind with black circles and favourite lyrics as side-notes.

Writing is a parade of self-mockery you’re the stunt-double in.

Writing is the bruises you photograph for memory.

Writing is your skin inside out.

فتاة // ALI ALGHAMDI

بدأت القصة بأنها فتاة، قُدِّر لها أن تكون فتاة، لم تقرر ذلك. احفظ هذا السطر. كبرت تلعب، كانوا دائمًا مايفضلون الذكور عنها وكأنها مواطنة من الدرجة الثانية. بدأ الحشو وغسيل الدماغ، أنتِ فتاة، أنتِ ناقصة، أنتِ عورة، أنتِ وإن كنتِ أفضل من ذكر فهو لا يزال أفضل منك.
ليس لكِ حقوق، قالوا لها. صدقت، وعاشت حياة عبد. قراراتك ليست لك، فكما ذُكِر آنفًا فأنتِ ليس إلا عبد ومواطن درجة ثانية. عُنِّفت، ضُرِبت، ضُحِك عليها… وكله كان خطأها. وحين أتى ذكر وتحرش بها، قالوا لابد من أنه خطأها. لا بد من أنه خطأها. لا بد أنه من خطأها أن ولدت فتاة.

A STUDY IN WAR // NOUF ALHIMIARY

* war in definition is the violent contact of distinct but similar entities.

* war was in the violent contact of our truths, our last words, our silence thereafter.

* (war) in the collision of our bodies, violent, overwhelmingly so.

* you felt your heart burst at the tip of your tongue, and the world not blur but crumble at the sides, leaving only the urgency of the moment demanding your gaze to be directed at it. war; the crash of our fears at the realization of the inevitability of absorbing the taste of another human’s divinity in an exchange of souls.

* war in our creation, the collision of stars. in the frailty of our ability to withhold our essence when it comes pouring out of our fingertips, our fists opening to clasp, unclasping to let go.

* when we were no more, war was. still in the disposition during all the time there was no assurance of our contrary.

* our war no longer is.

more of nouf's photography // writing

1. // JOUBRAN

We’ve distanced ourselves from our conscious and we called it God, and we’ve distanced ourselves from our instincts and we called it Satan.

HERE // MESHAEL

Here’s to leaving words till the very end.
To never really gauging our reactions to what’s happening.
To evolution giving me up to stasis.
To the winter that will some day justify the idleness.
To the drowning; to the disassociation that makes the water colder and the surface farther.
To wrapping yourself with enough double entendres to make you blue.
To truly realizing what he had meant by “Morals are simply a matter of time.”
To all the times I had my heart on my sleeve only to end up with broken arms.
To the word “envelop” and how you did just that.
To your forever, to never letting it show.
To that spot that makes the buildings look like tombstones.
To just growing older, not “coming of age”.
But most of all, here’s to never writing things down.

ARRIVALS // NOUF ALHIMIARY

-i-

i write endlessly about things i could
care less about like the recurring
themes of obedience and rebellion in
Shakespearean plays, but i’m anxious
and fidgety and restless and on the edge
in my attempts to write about how you
only smiled with your mouth shut.

-ii-

the first time we spoke you said it’s
ridiculous people cared i gave myself
a bad haircut, that i flow like water and
my external body is nothing but a
container, a juice box. 
what truths would i have been let into
if i hadn’t cut you off every time you
looked so sour like you’re choking on
words? 

-iii-

yesterday 
i laid down on a rooftop and stargazed,
pearls receding the navy sky tinged
with grey dim shapes and a half 
visceral memory of feeling small around 
you, when you said my container
sometimes gets in the way when you
try to get closer to the fluid.

-iv-

lately i’ve been tracing the recollections
i hid within my sinew out of fear.
i rolled the fright and agitation and
the remnant of your essence along with 
tobacco’s pink sweet honey scented flowers
and smoked them, but the aftertaste was
still bitter.

more of nouf's photography // writing

SERENDIPITY // HALA ABDULLA

1

You tell me you find god in the
way Sunflowers shift towards
the sun, but I find him in the
way my eyes and hands always
turn to you.

2

It took you twenty-three years to
finally find me and there are days
when I resent you for this.

I’m 
sorry.

3

I do not recall any of the versions
of myself that existed before I first met
you.

I do not want to fill in the blanks
in my memory.

4

I have written love-letters to
every single hair on your head,
to every single skin cell on
your body. It is still not enough
to show you what I feel for you.

I know nothing ever will be.

5

In a world where eyes exist,
you say I shouldn’t even have
to speak. But there is so much
I want you to know that I don’t
trust my eyes to tell you.

I want you to know.
I want you to know just how
much of me you’ve healed.

6

You and I, we made religions
out of tasting one another.

(Lover, mercy me.)

7

I want to scream “I love you!”
at the top of my lungs from
each and every one of this
godforsaken city’s rooftops

but instead,
I am writing this
poem.