IN ENGLISH
i’ve stargazed strictly at jupiter
nearly every night this week
while i rolled cigarettes to smoke
on a rooftop.
the brightest star in the night sky
is a dull planet.
but dull is my wall, yet it lights
up quite well with a flashlight
directed at it.
and so do you, with the flashlight
of my utmost melancholic
romanticism; you shine so bright
like a truth.
but in truth you’re dim, whilst
in darkness, you’re a flipping spotlight.
***
more of nouf's photography // writing
Obo was a mountain.
He did not choose to be a mountain. He did not like being a mountain. He did not even know why his name was Obo. Sometimes, Obo wished he was not a mountain. Yet, there stood Obo; a broad, gigantic pinnacle of rock. Unmoving, unimpressed.
Upon Obo’s mountainsides grew a forest. Obo did not like trees, as their roots rudely dug into his soil and their leaves hid a great part of him away from the sun’s warmth.
Read MoreHer mother was making iftar in the kitchen, she sneaked her hips next to the phone and checked if Moustafa was around.
In seconds she lowered her head fearing God would see her wide smile because he wasn’t, and she can click his numbers.
Her mother called her name, but she was too busy counting the spaces between each ghazal word she’ll mutter to the boy who sold her salt, a smile and a number for more.
She clicked, clicked, clicke- What if he thinks the way she wears her head scarf is funny? What if she’s just another costumer? What if he gave her his number just so she’d tell him she tasted the shore when the salt met her tongue?
She didn’t click the last number, put the phone back on the table, hid the number between her young breasts and went to help her mother.
Maybe god saw my smile and didn’t want me to fall in love before I bleed after all, she thought.
***
cover photo // stills from caramel (2007)
King Godfrey the 9th died on the wintery night of an eclipse. Word of his demise spread faster than a colony of ants upon a fresh horse’s corpse.
Hundreds of horsemen roamed the vast kingdom of Somnenia, rushing through every crowded town square and marketplace. They yelled one phrase and one phrase only.
“The King is dead!”
The shouts repeated so often, the words stuck to people’s minds like honey.
The King is dead!
The King is dead!
Read MoreYour mind speaks stuff that makes irony laugh at times, like today when you told me to go for a walk, like ordinary people, and enjoy heat and smile because today we’re together like yesterday and that is a good reason to celebrate.
Let’s brush our fingertips like they’re used to it and let’s follow each others’ shadows like we’ve known them for our whole lives.
Let’s pretend we’re each others’ future.
Let’s point at people and say they’re the insane ones.
You make me happy, your mother told me you were born in mornings in a dream of mine.
You’re the son of a sun that decided to take its place on an October sky.
There once was a girl,
as plain as can be.
With a green dress,
as blue as the sea.
Who woke up one morning,
needing a wee.
Except her bladder wouldn’t go,
not even a pea.
So she went to a doctor,
sympathetic was he.
“I have looked up your thing,
and all I could see
You have a fly in that hole,
a crab and a flea.”
“Oh dear! Dear doctor!
Will I need surgery?”
“At once! We must!
Tis quite an emergency!”
And so the story ends.
Except he
wasn’t a doctor
But a witch.
And so
she died.
A being originated from nothingness, aiming at nothingness, but still full of life.
As a sword forged from the strongest nonexistent metals to strike the anvil it was forged on with all its might, then vanishes.
Humans, whom had tamed the Kalahari and the Arctic weathers; mighty, O’so mighty, yet vulnerable to a measly drop of poison.
Beings marked by their omniscience, knowing so much, beginning from just axioms, yet pride themselves in knowing nothing.
Such strange beings, running as fast as the wind (even faster), towards glowing points, but if asked about their direction, slow down to a halt.
Always progressing, always heightening. But as they say: The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
So significant we are, yet so insignificant. We are everything to us, but nothing to anything else.
you call close to midnight offering vague friendship and songs that you say you can’t listen to unless some girls are grinding up against you. me, i don’t even know what grinding is. you say you just broke up with someone and don’t feel broken in the slightest, what an asshole. whenever i get phone calls like that i strut around the house like a hooker on speed, faking attitude, promising myself to never share my diaries with diseased souls again.
You know inside; we’re regulated. We are. See in this evolutionary mass we call our brain, there’s these many little circuits. Synapsing about. No one knows why they’re there though, some of us just speculate, guess and whatnot using the logic of ones before us. But that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t, really. See what matters is, that these circuits are driven. Supercharged but only to be then inhibited. They essentially make us who we are, and they’re regulated. Driven. It’s true. Some are already aware of this, yeah. They try and go about controlling what’s controlling them. Actual individuals, that is. Which is silly, don’t you think? You know it’s because in this struggle, humans always end up being miserable. Drives can fuck you up.
They love fucking you up.
Read Moreyou don’t understand so many things, you pull away, and while you do so, he pulls back in, seducing me with motorcycles and a sideways smile. i’m a sucker for both of you - just inside my coffee cup - i am a freak of nature, i found out, i don’t know how to talk.
