Category Archives: Fatma AlSumaiti

Voiceless by Fatma AlSumaiti

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1
It’s cold today.
Yesterday was cold, too.
Splinters are a daily ritual.
Blisters always come through.

2
The nice lady always comes around.
Tuesdays were her days.
She was sad today, but we smiled at each other.
My children are starving, I was sad too.

3
I told my 2 year old to stop crying.
I gently stroked his hair,
as the sweet doctor removed shrapnel from his left thigh.
Syria is crying, too. Shrapnel is what we call her now.

4
Father told me to act like a man.
Brother told me to stop wearing skinny jeans.
Clothes should be stitched not ripped, he said.
What about my soul? Who’s going to stich it back together?

5
In a tornado my thoughts are whirling.
Pills help keep me grounded.
Colors slowly seep their way out,
and I can’t seem to pull through.

6
Frag-
-ments of souls dissolve in silence.
They tried crying,
they tried bleeding, too.
The red was too loud,
the cries were bright.
They dissolved in silence,
and we said nothing, too.

Jay by Fatma AlSumaiti

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It was a night of silent darkness.  I closed up the café and headed towards the bar where he’s waiting for me.  The full moon looked suspiciously bright that night.  I didn’t know if it’s because of the overwhelming darkness that surrounded my aura, or if it’s shining bright to juxtapose the reality of my intentions. My senses were heightened.  Surroundings amplified.  My sure stride seemed to lose its balance. Then again, maybe it’s all in my head.

 

It took what seemed like years for me to get there.  He was sitting by the exit, as if knowing he’d need to run.  I sat across from him and said nothing.  He looked at me with infatuation.  With fear.  With certainty.  The past 6 months were a splendor of good food and intoxicating euphoria.  All of which have been in preparation for that night.  I extended my hand to him in a gesture to leave that place.  Hand in hand we walked hungry with anticipation.

 

The sun shone the next morning with incredible warmth.  I was satisfied.  I drank my coffee as I examined the room with amused eyes.  Maybe next time I won’t use a saw.

Terminal by Fatma AlSumaiti

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You were limbo

I knew you but I didn’t

Our kisses were glimpses of an unforeseen death

Oh, by I saw it

I smelled it on your sweat as it dried up on ny chest

I touched it on your face just before I scratched it bloody

You were a terminal

Known but so unknown

A gateway to hell

And passage to my own distruction

You killed me

I killed me

I held your neck and sucked you dry

Oh, but it was me who was bleeding

Blood drops slowly made their way out of every patch of skin you kissed

Out of my eyes that you looked so deeply into

Out of the words you tigtly sheathed and held close to your heart

Were they my eyes that you were looking into?

Was my blood laced with memories of her?

Were my claws too sharp for your skin to bare?

You and your armor

Me and my naked heart

I screamed for you to listen

Bit your ears off for they might have been faulty

Banged my fists against the walls, the floors the ceiling, YOUR ARMOR

Only to find bloody pieces of me hanging from every corner of this cell

My skin, my eyes, my lungs and my fingertips

Have them them for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Savor my blood

And i hope to some existing god that I will be that stubborn piece of flesh stuck between your teeth

And then tell me, how your armor protected you from the inebriation of my love

Book by Fatma AlSumaiti

By Posted in Book, Fatma AlSumaiti, Poetry 2 Comments

You tell me to cover up my skin.
That my laugh should stay coy and my words measured.
You want me to carry myself gracefully for I should be a lady.
My ripped jeans and expressive wardrobe offend your ideals. Continue reading →

Seeds by Fatma AlSumaiti

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There’s a certain type of numbness that possesses you often. You feel exhilarated. Your insides are twisting in a raging war that you have signed up for voluntarily. Yet, your surroundings.. they feel blurred. Continue reading →

Color by Fatma AlSumaiti

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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.

 

Sciamachy by Fatma AlSumaiti

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Sci·am·a·chy noun [sahy-am–uh-kee]: an act or instance of fighting a shadow or an imaginary enemy.

Anger

Tightening grip

Shattering pulse

Suffocating heart

Emotion

Silhouettes

Soldiers

War

A fist

Ironclad

Her face

Scars

Her face

Bruises

Her face

Blood

Death

Waves by Fatma AlSumaiti

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I have this urge to cry endless tears. It starts at my center. I feel it churn within this gap of infinite emptiness that is my heart. You broke my heart even though you tip toed around it. For years you just put your life jacket on and floated in the vicinity of my consciousness. I let you float at first because indifference was my state of mind. I let you float until I gulped in your waters and started drowning in feelings.  Feelings that made me notice your eyes. They were always brown, weren’t they? Were they always this deep? This talkative?  And your skin, it is the kind of white that does not amuse my eyes. Yet somehow, the way red creeps into your face whenever you laugh too hard or struggle to articulate a thought simply cripples my lungs.

I don’t know what’s happened to me. To my heart. To my mind that was always in command.

There is a fracture within me. I think it’s called love. You know when they say love completes you? I think that is a notion created by people who mistook love for a cure rather than a fist that takes and breaks your core into endless scattering pieces.  A propelling force that pushes you to its farthest limits and pulls you back as it pleases.

There are days when distractions steal your silhouette away from my thoughts.  I forget you. Your voice. Your eyes.  Then I hear it.  The sound of a crawling beast ready to lunge at me.   But it doesn’t lunge.  It races the wind and drowns me with a shattering force.

Tonight, I sit down on the ground and feel as if I am sinking into the massive hole of nothingness within my chest. I feel the urge to reach in with my hand and try to close that endless gap. Maybe diminish it and try to fill it with any emotion that is not nothingness. It seems as if this world of nothingness is stretching further and further within the borders of myself. Taking over colonies of my being and trying to wither them away.  I’ll wake up tomorrow and bury myself with distractions.  But tonight, now, I’ll submerge myself in pain.  In nothingness.  Because for the life of me I cant seem to remember how it was before your soul took residence within mine.

 

Collaboration by Fatma AlSumaiti and Batool Hasan

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 FANGIRL VS. NORMAL PERSON    

Fangirl: So, umm, I kinda like this boy…I want to lick his eyeballs.

Normal person: Ooookay. That escalated quickly.

Fangirl: Dude, I want to drown in his beautiful blue eyes. I mean, his eyes are the color of shattered crystals swimming in lake water… I just want to keep them in a jar!

Normal person: And lick them? Chew on them? Ahh I get it. Think voodoo.

Fangirl: One day I’ll lose my virginity to him.

Normal person: How about NO.

Fangirl: It’s just so frustrating, I want to run my fingers through his silky hair….and keep some of it in my pocket.

Normal person: And keep pulling some more until you have enough to make a quilt. Or a jacket, right?

Fangirl: Well, his skin is so soft…I want to sleep in it.

Normal person: Uhh….sexy.

Fangirl: Actually, I want to make bed sheets out of his clothes. And I want to tie him up. In a bed.  With black sheets. In a motel.  

Normal person: How about 50 shades of fucked up?

Fangirl: And ERMAAAAAGAWWWWD DUDE, He has a rather lovely voice, but it’ll sound better when I make him scream.

Normal person: Hmmm gurl, now we talking.

Fangirl: And have you seen his hairflip? Like I can’t eveeeeen. It’s like a unicorn strutting in moonlight….freaking majestic!

Normal person: Yeah, yeah, yeah. McDreamy hair…..wait-what?! I bet he hasn’t showered in ages, muddy and greasy!

Fangirl: Well, I volunteer to bathe him, that perf alien.

Normal person: “I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!” sorry. Seriously though, eww.

Fangirl: And his cheekbones….I want to polish his cheekbones, they’re soo…..hard.

Normal person: Ooooooooooh, that’s what she said.

Fangirl: Listen you ignorant midgardian, if his body was a canvas, then I’d happily be his paintbrush. 

Normal person: That’s actually kinda hot. And dirty. And hawt.

Fangirl: His eyelashes are so delicate like snowflakes, I want to feel them brush against my cheeks. And when he laughs, it’s like the world around us brightens up.

Normal person: BARF.

Fangirl: His fingernails are perfect okay.

Normal person: So are mine.

Fangirl: I want to dirty talk to his seductive eyebrows.

Normal person: Would you like to French-kiss his nose too?

Fangirl: I can tell the difference between his right nostril and his left, okay, you mewling quim.

Normal person: Dude, you’re creeping me out.                           

Fangirl: Oh shut up, I bet you 20 KD that he snores gracefully.

 Normal person: What? Does he fart snowflakes too?

Fangirl: Ha haaa, very funny. But dude, lemme tell you about his ears. I have this urge to tug on them with my teeth.

Normal person: My god, would you just stop! Who the hell are you talking about?

Fangirl: Ughhhhh, haven’t you been listening? I’m talking about Loki. The sexiest alien in all 9 realms.

Noah by Fatma AlSumaiti

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In order to understand this, you must first learn who Noah really is.

Day: Tuesday, November 28th.

Time: Moments before daylight arrived.

Scene: Gypsy.

The stage was an entire universe when she stepped onto it. My heart cracked open when I saw those riotous thighs flirt with music.

Purple. Everything was purple. The lights, the air.. her skin. My green eyes turned into night as they danced on her body. 23 years I’d been in charge of that place. No creature had ever annihilated the crowds, and myself, like Gypsy.

The way her hands traced her body was treacherous.

The arch of her back screamed to be carved with kisses.

How her waist turned the music into art. Brush strokes plagued with insanity. Damn.

And those legs.. Oh honey, they spoke a language that liquefied your insides.

She wrapped herself around that pole like a vicious purple snake. Every night I yearned to be that metallic purple pole.

She saw me haunting her with my gaze. She felt what I was feeling. I knew she did because those glistening dark eyes spoke to my desires.

I needed a plan.

Day: Tuesday, December 16th.

Time: Moments before daylight arrived.

Scene: Gypsy.

Fire ate its way through my insides. It was burning. It was suffocating. It was so purple. I couldn’t wait any longer. My darkness was wilder than ever.

My burning purple fire needed to be fed.

Day: Friday, December 19th.

Time: Daylight had just arrived.

Scene: Gypsy.

I walked barefoot that day. The stage had never looked so mesmerizing. So warm. My feet sunk into opaque RED that used to inhabit her veins. With every step I felt my soul come to life. The smell, so sweet it carried Gypsy with it into my pores.

I lay down next to Gypsy on that warm RED stage. Resting my cheek on that RED floor, I faced her RED eyes. She had never looked so alive. Laying there, bathed in RED. So still. So beautiful. So RED.

“But Daddy I Love Him” by Fatma AlSumaiti

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I am 27 years old now.  A single girl that is threatened by spinsterhood according to them.  And a part of a sub-society that denounces common ways. 
But daddy, I love him. I said it because I found the person who draws unbridled smiles on my face. I won’t say he is the person that completes me because I am a person of my own. I have never seen myself as a piece that needs to be whole. That’s off point, though.

But daddy, I love him. I love him. Love must be such a dirty and degrading notion for them to condemn it with such hatred. I must be bringing shame to my family name because I accidentally lost my grip on morality and let myself feel.  The horror.

Staring at my 27 burning birthday candles, I am more rebellious than ever. All the suitors who.. Who am I kidding. Not all, the few. I am practically a spinster now, remember?  My mother has this hope that I’ll give in. That I’ll lower my standards and compromise because I am almost out of options.

But daddy I love him.  Let that phrase resonate in their minds.  Because even if I refuse to admit that they decided my fate, they did.

I’ll march on my rebellious road.  I’ll march and march because this society will not force me into a box of its making.  They will not subvert my mind.  Not my mind.

A spinster, they said. Huh.  Call me a rebel.  A freedom fighter.  A maverick.  Because daddy, I do love him.  And you, you will not chain me down.

Smoke by Fatma AlSumaiti

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It creeps into compartments of my being.

It never stays.
Residue of what it felt like inflicts excruciating torture.
But it was never really there, was it?
Like smoke it danced within me for moments.
Seconds.
And left as the wind carried it away.

Revolution by Fatma AlSumaiti

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By Fatma Al Sumaiti

This is a revolution against the social system.

I am a girl. I am 23. I am a 23 year old girl, and I am a revolution.

This is a revolution against my society.

I don’t want to get married because I have to.

I don’t want to not smoke because a girl just shouldn’t.

I don’t want to cover my hair because good girls go to heaven.

I don’t want to regret feeling intimacy because I’ll go to hell if I did it out of wedlock.

This is a revolution against everything I know.

                                                                                                        Against everything I was.

I don’t want to care about what your looks mean. What your words mask.

I don’t want to act a certain way because it would please you.

Before Islam, they buried girls with dirt. Now, they let traditions do the burying.

Your traditions are a weak excuse for religion.

I am breaking out.

These chains you see on the floor are the strings I cut last November.

I cut those strings and I walked out the front door.

You call it rebellion. I call it freedom.

This is a revolution.

I don’t care who your ancestors are and when they came to this country.

I don’t care about how your family name paints a certain picture of who you are.

You drive a fancy car? Who paid for it?

Your daddy is rich and your mama good looking.

Who are you, though?

This is a revolution against everything you know.

                                                                                                                   Against everything you are.

Glass by Fatma AlSumaiti

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By Fatma Al Sumaiti

She walked to the end of the room and placed her palm on the window.   What happened last night scattered her already shattered pieces.  Lifting her hand off the glass, she curled her fingers and knocked slowly on the window.  So solid, she thought, so together.

If pieces of sand could come together when under pressure, why is it that humans fall apart?

She rested her forehead on the window and closed her eyes.  It was unbelievable how tremendous the void at her center was.  How her mind had suddenly lost touch with the rest of her being along with her surroundings.  It was absolutely numbing how her heart murmured so quietly.

She felt as if she’s floating into a realm of numb torment.  A state of overwhelming feeling and lack of it all together.

This cannot be the life she was meant to lead.  She dove into her thoughts wondering what it was that fractured her.  Was it an inevitable closure to years of emotional crusades?  Or was she supposed to break because people break all the time?

All this pain.  All this confusion.  This overwhelming feeling that she is alone twirled her into foreign and monstrous darkness.

She took nine excruciatingly slow steps away from the window.

She ran.

Crashed into the glass.  Felt every shred make its way into her skin.  Bleeding out all that pain.

All that confusion.

She flew into the darkness she chose, and away from the abyss that was pulling her deeper.