When you’re neither the last on this damned land, no one to clamber on nor a last stand.
You’ll wish the demon’s soul to possess you again, a reoccurrence of the prowess in a single gun’s chambered vein.
The will of a single man shall overcome armies, for history is written by the victor’s hand.
Dear nephew,
My sister, your mother, your father’s wife has informed me of a terrible affliction that you have asked upon yourself recently. I hear you’ve injured your nose, dislocated a knee and will undergo spinal surgery this Tuesday. Continue reading
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
Who am I?
I can be found in nature, but cannot be made.
I am energy, passion, action.
I’m lovin’ it! Continue reading
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
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
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
Sound the alarm! I thought as I jogged outside my room into the hallway. Milo-Cesspool Grendoz is after me, a treacherous man that hacks hearts and tears the living beats out of them. Why am I being followed you ask?
It all started on a pleasant beautiful afternoon, where I was out for dinner with my beloved wife. We sat at the Rome de Tour restaurant, which was her favorite. I noticed that the Tobasco sauce was misplaced. It was set aside next to my wife, making her want a taste. My wife willingly picked up the bottle and started to dab her food. At that moment, I had suspicion that something might go wrong. “SALT!” I screeched as I knocked the spoon out of her hand, and with shock of my doings she got up. “I can’t do this anymore, I really can’t.” Tears came rushing out of her eyes as she left the restaurant. Three months have passed and I have been alone, without a wife, and Milo-Cesspool Grendoz the person responsible for all the tragedy. If it weren’t for that Tabasco sauce I would still be with my beloved wife, my cherub. Well, It’s over, for that I will fight in her honor, and win her heart back!
I ran into the hallway, gashing through people, trying to get to the reception hall where I will find my nemesis, M.S.Grendoz. I picked up a baseball bat from my room and was planning on using it, planning on getting my beloved back, determined to succeed. I walked into the reception, and there she was, standing next to Milo. Milo is that person who answers to no one, a person who could end lives with the lift of a finger. I walked slowly towards him and smiled at my wife in the process and she smiled back. It was nice to see her smile for mere seconds, before it went away with me whacking Milo with my baseball bat and knocking him down. I continued to beat on him until a crowd of people gathered among us as I was held down.
“Oh my god, GREG!” yelled my wife and grabbed his head, as blood was gushing out of his head. His head was busted open and bruised all over, I was still down, and wondered what I did wrong. “Who’s Greg?” I asked with a heavy tone still panting for air. I was dragged inside to my room, where I was locked in.
“Mrs. Peanisbreath, your ex-husband, Mie, is suffering from a term we like to call Sciamachy. He is in his own wor…” the conversation was broken because I struck the doctor’s head with my baseball bat aiming at his conscious. With what I have done to my wife, she is now terrified of me, and ran towards the exit doors as I saw her leave me, Mie Peanisbreath, all the time I have saved her while she ran away with other people. Maybe I am to blame, for hitting everyone she was with, but alas!! I know one thing for certain, SHE’S Milo-Cesspool Grendoz, and my job isn’t over. I hummed the tune of Game of Thrones as I could see her shadow through the glass doors still running, running for her life, my baseball bat still leaking blood. TAN TAN TANANA TAN TANANANA TAN TANA TAN….
Ahmed Al Rasheed
Sci·am·a·chy noun [sahy-am–uh-kee]: an act or instance of fighting a shadow or an imaginary enemy.
I wish I could walk on the veil between sunrise and dawn. I wonder what it would feel like if space was a hollow sphere trapping Earth inside it. If only I could hang myself upside down from the top of the inside, staring at Earth from above with tendrils of my inky hair merging with the clear blue of oceans.
I wonder what it would feel like if I could bungee jump from the top of the nothingness that’s above me, and lose myself between stars, constellations and billions of light years racing through celestial glory.
What if the meteors swimming in and out of sight are firestorms fueled by our empty wishes? What if the blinking stars are silver hearts pumping cosmic energy into our dying mortality?
Maybe the clusters of stardust and comets roaming around galaxies are lost phantoms, the only remnants of our short lives.
And if it’s true, that we’re all made up of stardust, then I can’t help but wonder: How could something so pure and divine turn into a sad, nasty excuse for a life?
Cassiopeia is shooting arrows at my armor.
Shadows scurry toward me, ready to fling me into galactic wheels.
Andromeda is tossing pangs of fury at my quasars.
The shadows wrap themselves around my limbs, stay glued to my muscles and seep into my veins.
I am paralyzed.
Supernovas vacuum the stray crumbs of my willpower.
I steal a glance at the guardians orbiting around Mars, letting the hypnotizing dance of phantoms swirling around their master soothe my nerves.
Cepheus smothers me with colossal clouds.
Light echoes, breaks and shatters in a downpour of starbursts.
Cryptic whispers find their way to my ears.
Maybe I should let them surrender me to a black hole.
The minutes keep rolling and tumbling and tripping over the threads connecting what’s left of me.
Sci·am·a·chy noun [sahy-am–uh-kee]: an act or instance of fighting a shadow or an imaginary enemy.
I keep my eyes closed because I know if I open them she’ll be there. I don’t want to deal with her. For once I want to enjoy the few minutes of perfect serenity that has washed over me, bathing me with warmth and a rare sense of peace. But she’s approaching. I know because its getting dark and the warmth is leaving my body with a bone-deep chill. The pool of tranquility I was swimming in is rippling with tension. And just like always, the rippling become waves and the waves turn into aggressive rip tides. No matter how much I resist, I end up being pulled down through whirl pools of tumultuous emotions.
Till inevitably, I fall through and end up on the floor of a dark realm. Her presence so strong I can feel it. I succumb and open my eyes. There she is, as always. Looking down at me, smug with triumph. She looks like me, She has my dark hair, brown eyes, and olive skin. What she doesn’t have are my flaws.
She lives her prim and proper existence down here, and expects me to live in the same immaculate way, brutally mocks me when I fail to reach HER standards. She won’t accept anything else.
Now she smiles, patronizing me. She looks like she almost pities me.
“You’re pathetic” she starts with a sneer.
The mind games start like they always do. She’s sitting on her throne, crossing her perfect legs, twirling her perfect hair around her well-manicured fingers, flawless skin glowing as she smirks at me.
“Look at you! You’re not thin enough! You’re not pretty enough! You’re not talented enough or smart enough!”
Each word hits me like a punch in the stomach. Fighting back doesn’t work here, my voice too insignificant to be heard in her glamorous realm.
And it goes on and on… All the while i try to concentrate on tuning out the viciousness of her voice, resisting the hurricane of rage that’s forming within me.
There are times where I’m strong enough to break the invisible binds she has on me. To throw my flaws in her face, making her shrivel as my voice resonates with the power i feel every time i come to terms with one of my flaws. Her vanity can’t handle that. She backs off enough for me to be able to make it back out. I reach the surface, and fill my lungs with air, clear my mind from the turmoil, and feel the sun hitting my face. Happy in my own world of perfect imperfections, for a little bit of time at least. Dreading and waiting till the next time she pulls me in.
But the other times, most times, her voice stays trapped in my head, it branches out through me, like roots sucking water out of the ground, it sucks out my enthusiasm, my optimism, and all my confidence. And I end up passing out from pure mental exhaustion on her realm’s floor, humiliated and depressed.
It is hard to remember that these encounters, the battles that manifest between me and her, are formed within the deepest corner of the dark abyss in my mind. It’s sciamachy between me and an alter ego that my subconscious conjured in its image of perfection.
She is me. I am her. And in my deluded search for perfection… I’ve managed to create a monster.
Kuwait Writing Club 