Category Archives: Shahd AlShammari

Glass by Shahd AlShammari

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By Shahd Al Shammari

They promised us that after death, the stage would be reset, and I would be reborn.

There would be no more suffering, no more of that that thing we had grown accustomed to: pain.

But first, they handed us a paper:

I, Patient Number 001, I, the undersigned, I, the Body. I hereby declare that I will not come at you, Doctors, with Knives. I will Not Protest. My ghost will not haunt you, under the circumstance of my possible death.

I gambled. I signed. I didn’t believe in Ghosts anyway.

They threw their heads back, laughed in triumph. The Experiment was on its way.

Darkness came, I lost all five senses. Except my sixth –the sense that you were still there.

And with each cry that escaped my lips, you cried louder: your gasps echoed the murder.

They said you shouldn’t be in the O.R. and shoved you behind glass doors.

And then slowly, precisely, they cut through my flesh, and you bled.

All I heard were muffled screams and you, outside, begging to be let in.

Secret by Shahd AlShammari

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By Shahd Al Shammari

When we first met, you told me that I was the reason all the others had never lasted. You told me that I was that one, the one, the one we all claim to know is that one one. You just knew. You said you had waited for me. You watched me from afar, and waited until I had fallen out of love with the one before you.

“I don’t take remains of a heart. I don’t like to put people back together,” you said. You claimed it wasn’t your favorite part of things, that it was up to me to be ready for you.

I was up for the challenge. I would resurrect whatever was left of me, for you. I would become whole again.

And so it was that you trusted me. You labeled me as trustworthy, and I thought I had won the lottery.

And then there was that moment. You lifted your shirt. You showed me the canvas of scars that was your body.

“How could anyone do this to someone they love?” I gasped, touching your skin, afraid of breaking it, and even more anxious of not giving it the attention it demanded.

“It’s just what people do to each other.”

My faith in humanity was lost.

But nothing could have prepared me for the worst part. I found out that you had imagined this pain was self-inflicted, you claimed you were a victim of abuse, and you rejoiced in making me believe your stories. Your secret was, your favorite part of things, the thrill for you, was breaking people, burying them in lies –and watching them fight to come up for air.

Socks by Shahd AlShammari

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By Shahd Al Shammari

You wake up one day, and suddenly, your feet do not belong to you. They are, most definitely, separated from your body. But no, that can’t be, because you look down, and yup, they’re still there.

You touch, and you sniff them. They feel like they have been suffocating under woolen socks for years on end.

Okay, time to wiggle my toes, before I actually attempt the impossible: getting out of bed.

Each toe feels plastered to the other. And, as if they have plotted to work against my brain’s insufficient commands, they decide not to move.

“Ugh.” Not again. I reach over, attempting to massage them. Nothing. They refuse to respond.

I drag myself out of bed, knowing exactly what this means. Today, my feet won’t be able to touch the ground without feeling like I am wearing an infinite amount of socks. Blood stops rushing to them. And each step towards the door feels as though I am walking through water, and my socks are drenched in mud –my feet are heavy.

I open the door, to call for my mother. I need to tell her that I need help putting on my socks and shoes, because this looks like just another Multiple Sclerosis relapse.

Birth by Shahd AlShammari

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By Shahd Alshammari

I remember our first firsts

And that day you said “I can’t love you” as easily as you said hello.

And I echoed that love was just another way teenagers labeled the bulges in their trousers and the spilled secrets under their t-shirts

I do not love you (because that’s what you need to hear)

But I fell in love with you with the same intensity I fell in love with Bronte and Plath.

Those two madwomen bled life through me (and others, I know)

Just like you, you with your Inconsistency, one day breathing and the other bleeding into me.

You have a way with perfecting the plot- just like my dead writers.

You build me up and that makes me want to travel halfway across the world, just to kiss your vocal chords.

But you break me when you say “I can’t love you, because there’s no life here, only Death.”

 

You say you are dead inside. That sentence stretches across my brain corners,

And I find the solution: that heart of yours must shed layers for me.

We put our hands together, my love and your patience, and sculpted you a new heart.

It beat slowly, tentatively at first.

I glued my head to your chest and heard it’s first rhythmless beats.

And as I looked up into your eyes, they held me in place and asked me to stay.

This time, a new you was born

I have missed this you since day one.

 

Ink by Shahd AlShammari

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By Shahd Al Shammari

There’s only one way to reach you

I attach syllables and letters,

Yet I stutter through my words

I tell you that I am articulate on paper

You ask me if people like that still exist,

In a time of sexual inflation,

When the spoken word beats the written word,

When sex forgets about foreplay,

When kisses become an inconvenience –

Yes, I still blush when you speak to me

I am flustered and dry-mouthed. I desperately need my ink.

I compose long messages and carefully penned paragraphs

I ask you a million and one Questions.

And I use that same ink to record your answers.

I keep a journal, so that I may carry you around in it, the folded pages embrace all you’ve told me, and the blank ones anticipate all you’ve yet to tell.

You’re wary, and afraid.

And I know we’ve both read more than we should, because there is such a thing as too ideal, as too delved in the world of words.

We lose track of the realm of possibility, of today.

So I pencil in our meeting date.

I wait to painstakingly inscribe my notes on your lips, on your hands, leave you stained with my ink.

And everyone knows how maddening it is to remove ink stains.

But I suspect you’ll want to keep me.

Lipstick by Shahd AlShammari

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by Shahd Al Shammari

My tongue stiffens

Plagued with numbness and dryness

forehead flooded with prickling, glistening sweat,

blood rushing to my face,

threatening to expose me.

Heart rate accelerating, pounding mercilessly

All the usual signs-

Panic.

One leg forwards, cross my legs.

Feet do the shuffling dance,

and we both know how that’s my area of expertise.Collar gets ruffled and transmission occurs.

Vibrations in the air as the space between us fades-

I’ve taken some of your lipstick off.

Nostalgia by Shahd AlShammari

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by Shahd Alshammari

Full of thoughts of you-

that second I felt my ribcage expanding

that second I couldn’t contain all of you in me

Your darkness surrounded me,

preyed on me,

fed on me.

Savored every last drop

you left me dehydrated.

Nothing but a carcass, a carcass to be probed.

And you came back,

fiercly demanding your red carpet.

Strolling across my ashes,

you yelled at me for crumbling, for decomposing.

I bowed my head.

The universe threw its head back and laughed.

You smiled.

And angel, how I miss that smile.