I left the house in a hurry, speed walking to my charger. I got into my orange-based car and drove off hitting a parked car in the process. I then decided to hit and run because why stop now? Kaifi Kuwaiti. I was heading towards the gas station, I needed gas, something not a lot of hit and runners want to do after an incident. Continue reading
Category Archives: Color
Color: This month we had the choice to write about either the word “color” or a specific color.
Color by Noragotcharisma
Who am I?
I can be found in nature, but cannot be made.
I am energy, passion, action.
I’m lovin’ it! Continue reading
Color by Osman Naeem
You feel like you met her the moment you were born, she is an open book to read and you are dyslexic
Her twitter bio says her favorite color is turquoise, her favorite number is six and she likes coffee bars
The skies are so bright and blue that even the sun is squinting, and you are holding a purple umbrella after you finally walk to her doorstep to face her Continue reading
Color by Toby Al-R
What color are you? She asked.
And there it started, the journey of the seven relics, there I immersed in an immense essence of nonsense. A chromatic voyage to the hidden land of a thousand lands, to the lands of crawling hands. Continue reading
Color by Fatma AlSumaiti
There is a chamber in the back of my mind. I lock my pain, delusions, hope and darkness away. I lock the brown of your eyes and black of your soul away.
The black of your soul.
The black of your soul.
I lock you away.
Color by Eva Al-Meshal
You’ve taken me to the absolute edge of
myself,
and led me back into my center.
You’ve freed me from my cages
and let me fly freely within yours.
You’ve emptied me and filled me,
always exquisitely, Continue reading
Color by Merriam AlFuhaid
Dear Rania,
You are such a sweet girl! Thank you so much for your kind words.
I can’t say the contents of your letter were a complete surprise to me. I’ve had a feeling ever since that day last month when I told you you looked nice in blue. I’m not blind. I’ve noticed you haven’t worn any other color since then. Continue reading
Color by Farah Al-Sultan
Even blindness has a color,
And you blinded me with yours.
You are all the colors combined.
I try to keep you in a category,
Yet I find you in every one of them.
You are everywhere,
I wish you aren’t.
But I guess I have to accept the fact that,
You are all the colors
I hate
I love.
You are all the colors
That are in me.
Color by Berlin
I rolled away from the arms of the stranger beside me.
I scanned the face I last saw before I blacked out last night.
“Not bad,” I thought. Continue reading
Color by Dina Al-Awadhi
Color by Batool Hasan
Connecting the Uterus
Tick
Tock
A collection of crème-colored hijabs, glittery turbans and blond ombre curls fills the room.
It seems that I have done the unthinkable.
I take another step inside the house.
Tick
Tock
What I have done is truly unforgivable.
Disbelief is drawn on their faces.
Tick
Tock
Everyone is staring at me like that time I burst out laughing in Uncle Jassim’s funeral.
I know it sounds horrible, but it’s not my fault they looked so pathetic crying over a man they barely spared 2 minutes a month for.
Tick
Tock
I admit. This was unwise of me.
I came to the family gathering wearing sweatpants.
What a disgrace! My 14 year old cousin in 300 KD Valentino heels probably thought.
Okay, here comes the part that I hate most.
I am 17 years old and I still don’t know how to perform the cheek-smacking-dignity-crushing-disease-spreading salaam ritual.
I brace myself for the horror that’s waiting for me, and walk toward the painted whores.
A particularly annoying aunt of mine decides that it’s funny to point out my obvious fondness of the color black.
“Ambai what’s with all the black all the time? Are you with those Shaytan worshibaars?”
Bitch please, Satan worships me.
I give her my best death stare and continue along the line of pouting creatures.
I silently trudge between them, quickly offering my head at each of their shoulders with a solemn expression. I ignore the dull murmur of “Howareyou?how’rethingsgoing?whenareyougraduating?”
I finish the ritual and move on to the next part: Food.
I stare at the banquet spread on the floor, decide to grab a plate of fries and happily rush out of the-
I bump into a wall of hipster overload.
“Whoa! A plate of fries? That’s like a calorie bomb!” cousin Jude loudly states.
Well, why don’t you slap me with a shovel while you’re at it?
I roll my eyes and defiantly move past her.
Entering the kids’ room, my eyes sweep across the area. Kids with expensive gadgets stay glued to their screens.
Kids these days suck.
What happened to the days of “the floor is lava” and “hide and seek”?
I retreat to a corner, place the plate of fries next to me and take out my phone.
Just when I was about to read some Loki fanfiction, a hurricane of James Hetfield’s photos attacks my Whatsapp, along with very precise details of the things my friend Salmatallica would like to do to him.
Salmatallica: My panties dropped and made a hole in the floor.
Rainbowdash: I feel your pain. Tom Hiddleston is an ovaries destroyer.
I almost drop my phone as I hear my name being called from the local circle of hell.
I slowly walk out of the room.
“Heeeey! Come sit with me! Long time no see!” cousin Reem nags.
I loudly grunt while slumping on the couch next to her.
People write horror stories about demons like you is what I wanted to say.
“Um didn’t I see you wearing that on Instagram?” she asks.
Yes, muggle, we own this amazing thing called a washing machine. You obviously need one for your brain.
Or maybe just a new brain since I doubt you were ever born with one.
I shrug and stare at an invisible spot on the wall.
Laughter fills the room, but it’s not natural. It sounds more like tires screeching.
Small talk about who wore what, who did what and how, different family names and meaningless nonsense spreads around.
I wonder if these people ever miss their brains.
You can drop my heart into a witch’s stew, but it sill won’t be as toxic as the mental epidemics you spread.
All you care about is makeup brands and overly priced pieces of fabric and spending all your wealth on bullshit, hoping to please wicked hypocrites in higher positions.
Go ahead, go spend your money on stupid shit like freaking machboos dyay macaroons or whatever ridiculous food trend everyone is into.
Go on, shave your eyebrows only to have them drawn on for 50 KD.
Please, pile on more eyeliner and fake eyelashes.
Keep your expensive chai in fancy estikanat for yourselves; it’s not my fault chai tastes – to me- the way gasoline smells like.
Oh, and um, Hasoon, in case you ever read this, I am not interested in seeing your rubber ducks boxers through your dishdasha!
Color by Nawar Bashir
The Colors of Reality
Floating…
Through clouds of pastel blue, pale yellow, and rose red.
Her mind abuzz with sweet nothings in her head.
So peaceful was she, in this colorful utopia.
Cotton candy fluff of purple, magenta, and pink.
So mesmerizing, she didn’t even want to blink
How long had she been here?
A year, a month, a week, a day?
Looking up, it didn’t matter, because it all turned gray.
Lightening flashed and all went astray.
Falling…
Through wind tunnels of jagged black
Till she felt the sharp slap of the water on her back.
Emerged in iciness, she couldn’t breathe.
But that soon passed, and beauty appeared.
Sparkling glittering waters of jade green,
Unlike anything she’d ever seen.
Corrals, the colors of the rainbow, so brilliantly vibrant.
Sea life swimming around them with excitement.
A florescent indigo turtle swimming around a sunken ship’s berth,
It reminded her of something that filled her with mirth.
The memory of a toy turtle in someone’s tiny hand,
the memory of little legs trying to stand.
She remembered: a smile, a laugh, a gurgle…oh what joy!
But wait…who was that little boy?
She started to feel a sense of worry so strong.
Something’s not right! Something is wrong!
Water tore its way into her chest in a surge,
Her soul and liquid misery began to converge.
It was coming in through a gaping hole where her heart used to be.
Suddenly understanding what her mind couldn’t see.
She remembered who she was, and suddenly awoke.
Screaming his name, it came out in a choke.
Her eyes registered the harsh white of the hospital bed.
The sickening green of the walls, the bandages on her arms soaked with a grotesque red.
They all looked at her, stunned with relief.
“Thank god, you’re up!” ….but on their faces, she saw grief.
“There was an accident,” they said,
“You’ve been in a coma, you took a big hit to the head.”
They saw the question in her eyes.
“He’s fine” they said weakly. But she could see through their lies.
She felt it in every fibre of her being, felt it in her soul’s throes.
You didn’t have to tell a mother, a mother already knows.
Her heart broke, her spirit shattered.
Her baby boy was gone…and nothing else mattered.
Color by Shayma’a Ahmed
Rosy tint on your cheeks
blooming like cherry blossoms
Your dark chocolate gaze
pierces my heart and melts my soul
A fair face and a kind smile
Irreplaceable
Color by Lucy Moore
50 Shades of Grey
Without me even realising you slipped back into my life.
I fall into your arms, I am comforted by your cold embrace as you drain from me my emotions.
I take sanctuary. I withdraw from my mind.
You provide an emptiness which I can fill.
Taking in every inch of me, I fall deep and hard, hitting the bottom with such severity everything numbs.
I carry on like nothing has changed, tricking myself into the delusion that I am still ok.
Tricking you into my illusion that I am still ok.
But you entice confusion, lying just beneath the surface and I’m so scared because I don’t notice that you have come.
I don’t notice that every little thing suddenly feels numb.
But that is how you control me, like a marionette I am enchanted by your command,
Moving to the somber beat of your rhythm sleep, eat, repeat.
Nothing is exciting anymore
Nothing is appealing when you’re here
Nothing is everything I feel
The blues play with my skin, hopelessness smooths itself over my contours,
Anxiety creeps into the crevasses of my limbs,
Leaving me vulnerable to the vultures of my own thoughts.
Skulking in the shadows, selfishly you deny me any pleasure as you pull me closer, you shut my mind off and my eyes cease to see how anything can bring happiness to me.
What a dangerous place I am in when I fall.
I beg to feel something right now, lust, anger, pain, just something small would be so much better than this… nothing at all.
But by the time I realise you are here you are almost gone. Halfway out the door you are slipping away and I try to drag you back. I want to confront you. I want answers as to why you come. I demand to know why you make everything numb.
But as quietly as you come you vanish. And I am left in the dark to banish the mess you left behind.
Slowly light returns and I can unwind. Over whelmed with emotion life starts to shift back to normal and you are replaced by love and laughter. By people who remind me to live.
Warm hearts embrace me
Warm hearts lead me
Warm hearts let me feel again
But I am always waiting for you to return, and when the sun in shining at full strength, that’s when I know it’s only for so long I can keep you at arm’s length.
Color by Kamanha
Baby, let me tell you a story about my life and the dawn of my years
Maybe even stab a verbal dagger in your heart through your eyes and ears
The story of a psycho in the making, who was driven crazy by the wheel he never steers
And it almost seems like those years deprived him of his right to dream, he fears
You see, he had no time to dream because he was busy getting beaten up and prohibited to scream
And yell for help, but what help would reach when tears vaporize before falling off this blood stream
Incalculable pain measured only in years wasted and tears tasted but he faced it and stood up to prove
That he’s not what they told him he was…yet, one word he knows is not true…but, for the fuckin love of god, it won’t move
“You’re a waste of space”…”You’re a waste of space”…yeah…SUCH a waste
You didn’t want your hand facing an obstacle while you’re waving it and wished there wasn’t an accidental face?
“A waste of space…and resources…”
So is that why you tried burning my back and shoulder? To cook me and put me on copper plates?
But you failed! You didn’t devour me, bro. Which is ironic judging by how much I am in your face
So how the fuck does it taste?
Who’s the fucking waste of space?
I rolled the papers I wrote my poetry on, placed a condom on them and made them suck my words
They’re shaking their heads on them, but there’ll come a day when it all make sense and final thoughts emerge
When they venture into this legendary mind, put their mouths on my pipe, take a drag and call me a myth head
Red with anger, green with envy…But to me they’re just black…and as a kid I read the word “live” misspelled
Now I get why they call me Jesus…I had my own filicidal father, but he died on a boat
And I dreamed that that boat floated on the sea of blood I made when I slit my brother’s throat
Hell, I remember all of them when I swallow my tears and follow them with my pride and when I choke
This vicious circle was too wide and heavy for me to sever, so I wore it as a collar until my collarbones broke
But, baby, I got carried away…allow me to tell you what happened after the dawn went away and came midday
I turned off the jam on the radio of madness, got radio-activated, addicted to happiness and addiction-infective to harmony and grace
I just took a long nap and learned how to dream, how to color my faith in tomorrow and how to smile when I say
I have risen from those ashes…to host you in my arms with a rash, allergic to midday’s hot sunray
And now the sun is setting, my collarbones are healing and I’m rising
I gaze upon the sunset’s harmless rays and colors in the vast horizon
The sun will set and it’s just minutes till nightfall
But it won’t be my darkest hours, I have already forgot how to weep and crawl
So hold this brush and color this painting with me
Or grab an axe and let’s chop down this Oak of hatred, for no one is there to hear
And hold my hand…no, not this one…not the hand I was dealt, and then you’ll see
That somehow, somewhere along the road I lost all, but losing you is the worst I fear.
Kuwait Writing Club 