3. // REEM

lying in the dark listening to amy winehouse sing about a cat in battered jeans. everything with the world hurts deep into my skin tonight. there's this pierce attitude i can't shake anymore. i keep telling everyone about my strength, my poor naked fragile strength. i never thought twice about suicide notes (not mine) (those were love letters) because that kind of state makes so much sense to me, more than this "stability" ever will. i feel the fakest i've ever been in my life, smiling, hurting, going through first chapters with a yawn stapled across my face. i want my tranquilizers and my soapy baths, how can i find that road again, honey, i'm so scared and tired of being sober. i don't want to go too far, i just want back into my old habits- my little world of faith and disobedience. i know i'm scared of looking myself in the mirror and finding someone looking back, consciously tame and accomplished. give me back my decadence.

THE SUNSET MEANS REVIVAL FOR THE MOON // NOUF ALHIMIARY

by the sea, you watched the most beautiful
sunset of your infinitesimal life. it was
all shades of pink and blue and orange and red and god,
and as it progressed the colors hatched into prayers,
prayers that unraveled the product of a
metamorphosis you never realized you’ve undergone. 
relish in the holy spirits of resurrection inhabiting your very being.
butterflies, might grow by feeding on the nectar of flowers,
but rotting fruit, and decaying flesh are just as nourishing,
just as growth inducing. 

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.

DESPAIR // JALAL BINTHANEYA

instagram // vsco grid

LETTER // ENAS SISTANI

I did not start this with the typical letter form, it does not start with dear Caroline, it never will… in fear that it might restrain what I am about to pen down for you… maybe, and for the most part, I fail at truly portraying this into a neatly packaged form. So, while you attempt to read this, you can have the full freedom to tailor it to your liking, this could be my letter to you, it could be a torn page from my journal, or it could merely be you listening attentively to what my heart whispers upon paper.

You see, my mind has been gnawing at me to write…write something, anything, and maybe it isn’t just my mind, maybe it’s my soul, or maybe it’s the permutation of all of my senses. Whatever they may be, I had to set my fingers free, tips dancing on the keyboard as they choreographed a neatly written account in your honor. We both know, however, that the only thing that matters to you is that despite my fingers well refined rhythmic dance as it writes this, all you’ll care about is needing to polish my nails. They are a mess, they always will be even when trying to praise your worthiness to the world and by God I hope you will excuse me for it.

You see, maybe I know you too well, or maybe not at all, maybe your snoring while asleep or while even laughing is what adds up to your charm. I don’t know… I never will, but to me, it surely does the trick. Or, maybe the fact that you have myriad versions of laughter is your way of tackling monotony, maybe; perhaps, you are too genuine, too unique that you fail to keep at just merely one tone of laughter, maybe you are too good to an extent that when you break into laughter, you break everyone’s world with it into a realm of surrealism, maybe when you do that, they no longer are captive to this mundane world, maybe you set them free and make them realize that only a Goddess like you can truly open their eyes to such beauty and splendor… and maybe I say this, because this is exactly what you have done to me.

I know you too well, or do I? I know that I can see gleaming innocence in your eyes and smile when you come across culinary shows, and your heart prances with sheer joy when you speak of delicately refining your nails. You speak of them, as an artist would of summer’s haze. I know that you and cooking are too inseparable, that every time you would step into the kitchen as if on a lovers date, you would leave with burn marks on your arm and if that isn’t true love, then I don’t know what is. I know that like your very bad driving skills, having no sense of proportion when it comes to parking, you fail miserably at expressing your feelings. But you see, that’s perfectly okay, Da Vinci did not trace a smile on Mona Lisa’a face, there is no sense of evident expression, yet somehow she manages to capture everyone’s heart. I know that despite your undying love for cooking, you manage to swiftly carry out an affair with your bed, you love sleeping more than anything. Maybe I know that you give out the best hugs in the world and you balance things out by exhibiting horrible grammar and punctuation, maybe I know that it’s all really okay, because despite it all, you still manage to admit that.

Maybe you can ignore my every word, like how I am having difficulties wrapping my head around you, like how I know for a fact that God perfected you, your dimple –You have one, I know… I still think you have two but the other isn’t as visible- your smile, your eyes, your honeycomb skin or even your scent… Maybe you can ignore the fact that despite your mystique, you still manage to be nothing short of a breathtaking person akin to something personified in fairytales, that when you space out, you tear up and that you tear up almost all the time.

So yes, maybe I know you too well, or maybe none at all… maybe I choose to pretend that I do, because voyagers take pride in knowing unexplored realms, and I take pride in knowing you…

Dear Caroline, I end this in such a manner.

Yours truly,
Edward

1. // LALA TEVFIK

شجرة كرز،
تاهت،
بين أضلعه.

UTENSILS // SARA W.

You'll learn more from that crack of light at the birth of dawn, than you ever will during second period. And these soulless compounds of human bodies, maybe they work around the same way a muddy puddle on the side of the road could hug the reflection of tonight's full moon.

Maybe their eyes shine with so much gleam because they carry your picture in their pupils. I see you in the midst of that gleam; I see your coffee stained shirt and the traces of sunshine on your flushed cheeks.

You go to sleep with trees growing in your arms, veins turning into branches thick enough to carry six birds and all of their nests. You're every season of the year, your fingertips are enough to hold up all the planets in outer space. You are the riches of the universe, in all of earth's bridges and specks of stars.

The streets between me and you shall break me apart, for I cannot stroke the palms of your hands and gossip to your lungs about the man they're keeping alive.

***
cover image

GAUZE AND ICE // SHAIMA ALSSLALI

Gauze:

I’ll wrap you around firmly, with haste to stop the gushing. I’ll rush through you with vehemence, and you’ll soak me up with keenness to deliver. The miles you stretch yourself for me are met by a double-digit circumference in centimetre; you run in circles around me. I never catch you, but you seem to hold the tadpoles down- for a while; a while much shorter than anticipated or desired. I seep through  you with ease of flow. A drop of silken water off a bottle’s lip can’t compare, because the force of anticipation reclines against that of failure and disintegration. You give way.

Ice:

You’re a temporary calming effect I was willing to fall into intervals for. Your touch complemented my sedentary state with surprising elegance, but in fashion nothing lasts that long. I can claim it’s my heat and ferocity that shot through you, and I can claim that your interim nature brought your dismay. I claim none- the blame game lost its charm minutes after you have, and if grace were to be mine, I’d need something on the rocks, not the rocks standing alone.

Have you ever tried to wrap ice with gauze? An ice pack neat and ready for use.

Have you ever tried to unwrap ice from gauze? The gauze rips apart like skin off ice, and you can almost feel how the ice is burning.

Thoughts of people I once loved dearly, and who are soon to be forgot.