Saudis under the Mask

I’m sorry that the tears in your eyes can never rain on the lands of your cheeks. That the skin On your hands Is as rough And dry As the leaves In autumn. I’m sorry For the many Times you wished Someone Would plant Flowers in the Dryness of your Skin and water Them everyday. And mostly, I’m sorry Myself For there Came a Time when I too Abandoned The soul Beneath the Skin.

Where do you go? When the whole world decides to break you instead of breaking its surface for air. When the weight of a million suns is balanced between your shoulder blades. When the darkness screeches the planet because you appear and the sun rises when you don’t. Who do you hold on to? When the people close to you cut the ropes and leave you falling over and over again. The people that once gave you hope that they’d sacrifice everything for you but then again, you were their only sacrifice. Where do you run? When all the great demons dance upon your skin and the hell fires come to get you from all parts of the world. You run to yourself, you hold on to your own dreams and faith. You’ve got fire much bigger than the fires of the whole planet and you can make it. Burn who seises to see that in you, burn them oh for the love of god don’t make them break into your soul trying to contain the flame that started it all, burn like a million suns. Make them wonder how you’re t...

What a strange thing. Skin. How it can quite literally define a persons worth. So many different types of skin. Black skin, white skin, tan skin, light skin. All only a melanin pigmentation, something that seems to be so simple and basic yet has a much more complex and intricate understanding for most. It is known to have cause multiple social imbalances in time. Tattooed skin, pierced skin, oh the amount of stereotypes they place on them. Scarred skin, flawed skin. How must they fear the laughter behind them or the stares in front of them. It’s funny how something as simple and as basic as skin can literally be the reason why someone didn’t get a job, or someone was being picked on. It could be the reason why skin-lightning creams are bought for seven year old “dark” girls. How some people refuse to sit next to a darker person just because of the melanin in their skin. How can something as simple as skin be the root of so many of our problems? I sit here, as I trace my grandmoth...

Shaken like a rug full of dust, I was moved by the murmur of your honey-filled words. They were sweet enough to attract the bees, and yet they crush my bones, so I had to make mosaics out of them. They crushed my teeth and scarred my skin so that I cannot do anything but collect all that damage and wear it like a diamond necklace. They intoxicate me—fill me with a venomous air that my blood freezes, even as it is hot like our August summers— even as I am warm-blooded. My skin, a tapestry of my ancestors, is traced with scars of honey-filled, poisonous, and sugar-glazed wounds of you. Words fill your mouth as if they were pomegranate molasses, and I should savor their sweetness, but I find them sour, instead. They send bullets to my skin, and I have no more air left— no more room left to scream. Instead, I wear my scars like a diamond necklace in the middle of a funeral, and yet you rip it off my neck and cr...

See how the hurricanes make the oceans rise to destroy me as I walk my way to you. Look at the stubbornness of the sands, the collision of the clouds, and how the thunders strike to shake my grounds and blur my vision. Although I believe that rain will wash all of this away, but did you ever realize that the burning fires still exist between us, and nothing is going to wash that away.

I carried my sneakers along with my school bag with me to the door and stepped in front of the mirror to have one final look at myself, my usually curly hair was neatly split into two side braids with red bows tying them at the end, my shirt was neatly tucked under the hem of my skirt, my sleeves were buttoned and my collar was folded perfectly - I looked as ready for my first day of school as the other kids I saw on TV. I quickly put my recently-polished shoes on and headed to the bus stop. “Yo, Khadija, do you really think you’re going to school?” I looked to the back and saw my neighbor Isaiah. Being my best-friend, I always told him how much I wanted to go to school, but he kept telling me that school wasn’t made for people like us. At some point, I almost believed Isaiah, until my father was killed by a policeman and my mother remarried a white man who told me not to listen to anyone who tells me I can’t. I heard my mother speaking to my aunt once when they thought I was asleep,...

I saw heaven in your eyes, I believed the stars only brightened when you were near me, but how come I never noticed that the warmness I felt every time I approached to you was because you were fire and your flame had to make me fade? You turned me into nothing but ash.

I told you once that that life only gives to take, and if it gives you something grand, then that is only because it intends on taking something in equal grandness. I remember you disagreeing, as if I was your case against the world in that belief. I remember the way you used to talk about forever as if it was your own mother; the safety of it that you strongly believe in. How was I to tell you that even with our swords held high, there is no guarantee that we shall win every war? That even if the love is real, we can never control the circumstances? So here comes today, the distance you swore you'd never keep between us. The swords are still high, but this time we stand on opposite ends. God knows I'd drop my sword and cross the distance if only I knew you wanted me to win this war. So as I stand alone, terrified of what tomorrow might bring, I walk the streets we used to take. Under that streetlight where we said our goodbyes, I stand. I look up and see that flickering stre...

I rose out of my body, and looked at the world from a different view. It was beautiful—nothing like I excepted it to be. I’m floating like there is no one else in this world; like I’m the only one up there looking down at how small the world is—how small everything is. I noticed some luminous dots on Earth. They light themselves up for other people just like stars do. They were streetlights in midwinter. In a dark atmosphere, they were the only ones shining. But then I asked myself: do they shine for themselves?

المرأة  كلمة تحمل بين حروفها القوة والإصرار  كلمة تحمل بين حروفها العزم وعدم الاستسلام كلمة تحمل بين حروفها الرحمة والشفقة المرأة هي أم ، ابنة ، زوجة وجدة . المرأة هي التي ربت الأجيال الصاعدة التي عملت على تطوير العالم. المرأة هي التي عمرت الأرض  . المرأة هي من ربت الحكام والملوك وجعلت منهم رجالا يهابهم المرء . المرأة هي الوحيدة القادرة على تحمل كل أعباء الحياة ومع ذلك ترى الابتسامة مرسومة على وجهها . تعمل كل يوم لتبني مستقبلا وحضارة تميزنا عن غيرنا وتعمل أيضا لترضي أهل بيتها وتعمل بجد واجتهاد لترى الجميع سعيد . لا تظهر ضعفها لأنها تعرف أن هناك من سيستغله . تسهر الليالي لتعمل بجد وإصرار لتترك بصمتها على العالم وتسهر لتعتني بصغارها. ويسألونك من هي المرأة وما هو دورها ، هي الأم التي تسعى لإرضاء أولادها وإسعادهم. هي الابنة التي تبر بوالديها وتسعى في طرق النجاح لترفع رأس أهلها . هي الزوجة التي تعتني بزوجها . هي الجدة التي رأت أثر تربيتها على أحفادها وتفرح للنجاح الذي وصلت له. *هذا رد لكل من استخف بدور المرأة في الحياة وكل من ادعى أن المرأة عبء على المجتمع.*

I get off late from work in the precinct, and I always go back home and fall on the bed in exhaustion. Honestly, if anybody thinks work in forensics has the glamour and suspense of TV, they should quit the dream while they can. Because nothing happens, and everyday is the same. Bad coffee, black eyes, dried pens, dried blood, horrible bosses, disrespectful coworkers, and one good friend in the workplace that you only talk to in the walk back home; if you can muster up the energy to have a conversation. Until he came around. Him, with his dark and messy hair. Him, with his tall and heavy coat that perfectly matches his height. Him, with the speedy way he speaks. A way that I seem to keep up with in some odd and distant way. Him, with his solidarity. A solidarity that is prominent in the dark, under the flickering streetlight. Coming off from work was boring, hell going to that god damn precinct was torture before his royal peculiarity showed up. Before he stood everyday , at ...

I'm walking down the flat, slippery pavement, still wet with rain. Your coat hangs loosely on my shoulders, and your hand limply holding mine. The streetlights are giving off a luminous, yet slightly depressing, glow; barely giving us enough light to see clearly. The silence is deafening, just the clicking of my heels on the concrete ground and your deep, solemn breaths. We stop at my front door, I turn to look at you. Curtains of thick, brown hair hide your face. A nervous trick you've adopted over time. You've always found it hard to open up, you never tell me how you feel. Your skin is translucent under the streetlights' glow, I can see the streams of blue and green veins on your tired face. Your nails are chewed to the nub. Your eyes, empty and glassed over. We exchange simple goodbyes, then you disappear into the darkness, the glow of the streetlights swallowing you whole. I stand there, with your coat still wrapped around me. I breathe a warm, foggy ...

The flicker of red, the beam of yellow, and the fluorescent shade of white that churns my stomach every time I look below. I see bloodstains seeping into the slits of concrete blocks. I shiver. My heart quakes, and I fall beneath the sickening lights of streetlights.

Daughter of the Desert: I’m the daughter of the golden sun. The star that guides you to your journey’s end. I’m the independent, the persistent. I’m the scream of riots, and the whisper of revolutions. I’m the jewel of this land, and the pioneer of its borders. I’m strong, I’m resilient, and I am the daughter of the desert.

Like a streetlight, I saw the path I was supposed to walk under your guidance. Like a streetlight, you led me from a place to another in complete silence. like a streetlight, You saw through the empty part of me and showed me how it brightens. But as a streetlight, you’d disappear with no sign. My eyes would search for you any glimpse of you that I could find. Then you’d come back again with the light of a thousand stars promising to leave me blind. You see, you are a lot of things present and absent cruel and kind Infact, you are all of them combined.

في خريف الذاكرة أوراقٌ متساقطة صنعتها أنتِ - لازمتك سنين طويلة لحين سقوطها و على عكس ظنها - جميلةٌ أنت بها و دونها . قويةٌ أنت؛ بجذورك، بجذعك، بأغصانك . للخير فيك صورٌ عديدة، حملتها على أزمنةً مديدة . بإنتاجك و ثمره للجائع - بأغصانك و منازلها للطير الجريح اللاجئ - بالسند المتواجد في جذعك - و الأمان و السكون تحت ظلك . للقوة فيك صورٌ و قدوة؛ بشموخ وقوفك في كل حينٍ و زمان بتمسكك بجذورك فوق كل أرضٍ و مكان . في خريف الذاكرة أوراقٌ متساقطة تعود لك يا امرأة صنعتها؛ تكنّ لك بالامتنان يا امرأة سقتها من روحها و علّمتها تكنّ لك يا امرأةً بالامتنان، فلولا الله ثم لولاك لما كانت و لن تكون . في خريف الذاكرة أوراقٌ متساقطة فور ابتعادها عنك جفت و قست - ماتت و فنت . في خريف الذاكرة أنت يا امرأة: شجرة - رمز القوة و العطاء رمز العائلة و السند رمز الحياة و السلام في خريف الذاكرة و ربيع المستقبل الشجرة هي المرأة . عذراً يا امرأة، فأنت أحق بأن تكوني الرمز و الأصل - و الشجرة - مجرد صورة تشابهك كثيراً .