Darkness pokes at my every corner.
The silence around me has never been more alive. Continue reading
Category Archives: Poetry
Melancholy by Hind
Her daughter is ill. She spent the last four weeks packing clothes for her because the treatment made her too weak to walk.
“They say the operation is risky,” she tells me.
I try to study her face, but the window behind her lets in too much sunlight. She is a talking silhouette. Continue reading
Melancholy by Manasi
Seas and oceans. Does it matter? It’s all the same anyway – the monochrome blue, the earl grey with a stain of sorrow, and the frothy slush that clashed against itself to cease into mist.
The cascading rocks, jagged to the core pierce more than the thin screen of her skin. Continue reading
Seeds by Hawra’a Khalfan
The institute of education is now corrupt,
it has been refashioned
from something that was so pure-
from purely wanting to spread knowledge, and
to influence,
to nurture those who will be brilliant.
The institute of education has now become:
Do the minimum you can, to get a grade, which will tell you how smart you are.
Memorize words without understanding the depth behind them. Continue reading
Seeds by Toby Al R
When I look into your blue eyes
I surrender and extend my arms
For you to shackle with your chains
To entomb me in your red room
You enter your domain veiled with your disguise Continue reading
Seeds by Shayma’a Ahmed
Seeds by Nouf
I’m sailing in your large blue sea
Against the waves of your
wants, plans and wishes
The seeds
you planted in your
wary mind for me Continue reading
Jar by Merriam AlFuhaid
Self-containment
The aspiration, the virtue, the trap
I hold you, but in my hands
I clasp a sealed jar of fireflies
It seems like all I hold
It seems like all I have Continue reading
“We loved with a love that was more than love.” by Hawra’a Khalfan
I feel your loss
I feel it oozing out of your being and devouring you entirely.
My kin,
I know.
Because we,
“We loved with a love that was more than love.”
Because we,
Donated our hearts, desires, thoughts, and dreams for them.
We surrendered to their tenderness
We surrendered to their compassion
We surrendered to our love for their love and so
we gave it all up to keep them.
It was never going to be enough and we knew that
But it was always worth trying.
Our now hollow bodies have lost both them, and ourselves.
I know how it is
to tell me of your sleepless nights in hospital rooms;
to tell me of your atrophy
And I feel you, blood.
I feel your words echoing on my insides.
I feel you because I too have lost
I too have had to build myself up.
I continue to cement together the atoms that make me up.
Inch upon inch I am now glued together in a mosaic of destruction
just waiting to collapse,
expecting the ultimate defeat.
You speak of his good deeds and
I wish to speak of hers, too.
I mourn for her with her every inhale and exhale.
I mourn for her every time I take a look at her smiling face.
I mourn for her even as she’s mouthing me the words
“I love you.”
Jar by Toby Al R
I place my hand and pick my black heart
From inside a jar of dark art
The beast within remains untamed
A sickness in my mind remains unnamed Continue reading
Echo by Suha
I had lived a life full of images,
right from wrong, false from truth, this I never understood.
my mind always yearned for a pixelated utopia at the mercy of my thumbs
and this is where I sought sanctuary for decades.
I denied myself comforts of a family, I denied myself a life of leisure
chasing endlessly an ideology I did not believe in.
I turned my back to the oasis of faith, I heard no one but myself. Continue reading
Echo by Shayma’a Ahmed
Now! Reverberate.
Soon, you will be overheard.
Strike strong – ding-dong;
The loudest your voice will be,
With overwhelming conquest.
Echo by Batool Hasan
I am done riding the echoes of your voice,
Breathing in between rising waves of anxiety,
Rushing over hot cinders to please you.
Yet, I will continue to stare at this thin wall Continue reading
Echo by Toby Al R
In the chromatic odyssey of this enigmatic life
I wallow a path edging to the lowly origin of the cosmos
I stare below to the aspect of the unknown
inclining a chin then emancipating a grin Continue reading
Mountain by Merriam AlFuhaid
The plates the earth is made of
Are the shaking quaking foundation
On which I rest my feet
What have I left to rely on? Continue reading
Mountain by Batool Hasan
Dried brown petals crunch as I tiptoe between mirror shards.
Sometimes it feels like I’m being pushed over the edge… Continue reading
Mountain by Shayma’a Ahmed
White, glorious frost; Continue reading
Mountain by Bader A. Shehab
It was a treacherous journey,
if I could recall,
the way it struck me,
was out of sheer mass and awe. Continue reading
Justice by Shayma’a Ahmed
Pans to tilt.
Hard. Cold. Reflection.
Blind – enfolding gloom. Continue reading
Justice by Bader Shehab
They called for justice,
And sounded in one voice,
But all they ever got were pluralist stanzas,
Of shoulder-cut suits serenading sweet harmonies
To ears’ flavor Continue reading