EARTH

 

Rightfully, I am She
In her everything
I am her rage
When she storms
But her calm
When she rains
When she trembles
I am her faults
And her lines
And her fault lines
I am lands that engulf
And that bloom
To give back
I am the brilliance in her skies
The colors and the black
Her yearning for the Sun
And the Moon’s for her
I was born
From one fistful
Of Earth

———
TEXT:
MARYAM M.H.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

ART:
SAL
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

HOME IS

Home is an organ
A living thing
It breathes and pulses
And has a smell of its own;
A second womb

A museum of emotions
An anthology of fingerprints
With memory imprints on its walls
They echo back at its tenants
The invisible choir 

If Mother was matter,
She'd be home
Don't tear down the ageing home
Let it die dignified

 

Home is
The architecture of a soul
From the cave to the skyscraper
Home is one 

———
TEXT & ART:
DANA ALRASHID
KUWAIT

NEFSI

You mustn't beg for love.
Wave it down for the rush it gives
or the places you discover together.  

Don't look for neighbors in your silence
for that noise that distracts from the breathing of your own life
though it's sleepless as a nightingale.  

You shouldn't yearn for eight arms and longer breath underwater,
for the small silver smiles that expire tomorrow.
Never bow your head to loveless duties,
those mirages you were taught to chase alone
while others walked their path.

You mustn't pine for a love
you can nurse like a wound,
trace back the life in its scars,
confide in and still look after in your mind.  

You mustn't mine for love or petrol or diamonds;
tend to the wealth and splendor in your laughter,
be selfish with your love.
Stock, simmer and seal it in jars for winter, all year long. 

Keep your love.

Be thankful of its scent on walls and sheets,
in pantries lather in your love at home
before you decide someone else is more deserving.
Whisper "Nefsi" as you hang laundry,
feel love spread on your shoulders.

 

* Nefsi is an Arabic word which has a double meaning: Nefsi means ‘my soul’ and ‘my own self’.

———
TEXT:
K. ELTINAÉ
NUBIAN/SUDANESE

HOMESICK • DANDELIONS & FIREFLIES

HOMESICK

Can the mind grow so immune to pain 
That it constantly searches for wounds 
To rip 
So it can get some sense of consistency or feeling that it’s functioning properly?

Mine’s been too hazy for the past few days// if I’m not lying couple of years

I keep running back to the same old wound digging my nails deep within
Hoping maybe if I claw a little deeper than the previous time I’ll find a new way to cope with what I have been through already 

It’s nearly turned purple
as the night falls
And the trash can fills with bloodstained tissues
Which nearly aren’t red as the anger I have for myself

My fingers are tired and I’m thinking of leaving this incomplete 
But my brain wants to flush out the emotions my body isn’t capable of 
Storing/it knows my heart is tired just like my fingers 

And my arms long for a belonging in any form of recognition/ be it love/death/appreciation 

They want to belong somewhere not in pain/not in black and white/not in colors/words/ they are incompetent/ they can’t fight the yearning of my arms 

There a growing madness within my lungs grasping my throat like flames 
How can I say that I’m home when my body feels like it belongs elsewhere 
Home in form of another person 

How I have stained papers with ink describing what home feels like in countless metaphors 
Only to realize it’s a sense of belonging I have never had/ until I tasted it/& now my neurology is panting for more 

How do I tell it? Every time I try to make love/ his face is the only that plays on loop in mind 
How do I stop my fingers from trembling and stop lying to myself calling it love?

I’m homesick of a home
I have never lived in
Homesick of eyes those have
Never met mine
Reminiscent of a belonging
That I have never felt before.

DANDELIONS & FIREFLIES

It’s winter 
I want to write about 
The dandelions 
The fireflies
And the rusty fire escapes

The gloomy nights
Escaping into 
Rushing tail lights 
Into blithering smoke
Grey kisses 
And your raspy crimson tongue 

There’s a certain 
Sadness to the cold
That I have missed
And have somewhat 
A special bond with

It isn’t the hot chocolate
It’s the wind
Collusively talking 
Me into considering
Lies as memories

Like a deer pledging allegiance
For being hunted
Calling for his own death

I have missed the cold
Touching me beside my ribs
I have missed the smoke 
From burning wood
Making its way inside my body
Calling it home.   

Similarly I have missed
Your cold finger 
Entraining their way in circles
Behind my back 

It felt cold yet warm
a paradox

Your fingers unsure
And
My back
So certain 
Like they were
Awaiting for your arrival 
The winter has come
And the sadness too
But all I feel now
Is just

Absence

______
TEXT:
MOHAMMED HUSSNAIN
KUWAIT

CHASING THE LIGHTS OF AJLOUN

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There are cities,
In which the hills,
House illuminations,
Arguments and hushed secrets. 

There are no skyscrapers here,
Only open landscapes,
The houses,
Like golden stars,
Embedded in the stone. 

There is magic after twilight,
The moment where the galaxies,
In the sky,
Are projected,
Like a reflection of everything we ever were,
Onto the Earth.


From Ajloun,
Wars were fought. 

From Ajloun,
They say,
Once the clouds part,
Making way for our desires,
Nablus can be seen,
On a clear night.
From Jenin,
The lights of Nazareth.
From Ramallah,
Tel Aviv.
And from the other side of the Valley,
An impossible geography of longing,
Is traced.

 

———
TEXT:
SUJA SAWAFTA
PALESTINE/
UNITED STATES

ART:
ADNAN SAMMAN
SYRIA

TETE NAHLA

As I spent my final moments with my grandmother whom I was extremely close to, I developed a heightened sense of attachment around her domestic objects and routines, especially because I experienced them on a daily basis.

These sketches were quick tributes to phrases, objects, snacks, ephemeral flowers, and clothes of a person that no longer exists, and although the illustrations are whimsical, humorous and playful, the experience was more for me to preserve, heal and archive the many intimate moments of her life.

———
ART:
NAHLA TABBAA
JORDAN