The wind doesn’t know which way to blow,
says ‘guide me’ to the trees, but even they
won’t listen. Even they feel hollow inside
sometimes. Even they have their pasts carved
into their trunks, every struggle written on their
skin, but they forget.
This is a disaster.
The wind doesn’t know which way to go.
A storm is coming. The storm says:
‘I’m here to take you home’.
Yesterday you believed it. Today you’re a little
more sceptical. Today you ask it where ‘home’
is but it changes the subject. Today you grab
a map, hold it to its face and demand an answer.
You are standing and the wind is holding your
hand – wants to go home too, wants to leave.
The storm says:
‘I’m here to take you home’.
The wind says ‘guide me’, but you don’t know
and you don’t listen, can’t listen, its pleas
making your head spin.
Today it is a year later.
Today it is winter again.
The wind is lost and you are too. There is a storm
inside of you and outside of you. It said it would
take you home. It said it would take you home
and you’ve only been going around in circles.
It said it would take you home but you’re just
realizing it doesn’t even know what ‘home’ is.
Author: 7ala Abdullah
Hala Abdullah is a poet and a feminist from Saudi Arabia. She has founded and is currently the co-president of the Writing Club in Riyadh - a project that aims to help young men and women find their voice through writing.
No (or “Yes, yes, yes.”)
i. When you said you no longer recognized me,
baby,
I burned our house down,
danced chest-to-chest with the flames
to see if that would trigger your memory.
ii. On the fifth of this month, I sat outside on a
balcony in the mild early-October cold and cried
so hard my skin shrivelled with dehydration. You
were leaving on a plane, leaving a whole continent
to mourn your absence, and I thought you were
leaving me.
iii. We peppered the New York City streets
with Eskimo kisses. I think the alleyways and
the street corners and all the avenues will
always remember us.
iv. I still remember the first day we met. Five
hundred and ninety-one days of learning
there is good in the world, and it has always
been here in the form of you.
v. You said you no longer recognized me.
vi. I didn’t know how to understand that.
vii. Yes, I burned down our house that night,
baby. Made love to the flames slowly as they
ate me up. I swear I tried to shout out “FIRE”
but I could only moan it inside my mouth over
and over, quietly, silently throughout the
night.
viii. I don’t remember much from that night.
I wasn’t myself and I don’t think you were you,
but then I woke up and you were holding me,
lips pressing on my lips, hands shaking and
terrified, but still pushing firm against my chest.
1, 2, 3, 4,
you saved me.
ix. Distance is a liar and she twists our words
around and pours acid on them before they
reach us. We learned that the hard way.
x. You said you no longer recognized me. But
I’m still that cynical hopeless romantic you
fell in love with millenniums ago, and I still love
you with my eyes and my hands and my belly
and all my heart and my lungs and my brain
and my worn-out words.
xi. I still remember the first day we met.
You asked me if I believed in love, and I meant
to say “no”, tried to push it off my tongue with
all my might.
xii. “Yes”. A word so foreign; so estranged from
me; so peculiar and outlandish. Yesses rolling
off my tongue into your palms, into your mouth
and your collarbones.
xiii. The New York City street lights have missed
you – I know. The trees in Central Park long to
breathe in your scent again.
xiv. Take my hand in yours again, love. Rest
your head on my shoulder. In forty years, I
promise we’ll laugh about this.
Update: My poetry finally has a Youtube Channel!
Darling Readers,
I’m pleased to announce that I finally have a Youtube channel! After 2 years of performing my poetry on stage, I’ve decided it was time to post these performances publicly.
This was a big decision to make, but I’m feeling very optimistic about it. I’ve uploaded 3 videos thus far, but I’m hoping I’ll have more during the upcoming months.
Please feel free to watch the videos, comment, share, and subscribe to my channel!
Here’s a peak:
Summers At Home
Nothing grows here in the summer.
The trees, once tall and proud now
droop over sideways, sunburnt and
dizzy with delirium. The birds have
forgotten how to sing; too tired to
tweet their favorite symphonies.
Nothing grows here in the summer.
Even the buildings shrink with the
heat, for once despising their near-
ness to the sky. They don’t look
up to pray anymore: their heads
hanging down avoiding god.
Nothing grows here in the summer.
The grass has learnt that and every
year shrivels in anticipation. And
the flowers: they hang themselves
from their branches – would rather
take matters into their own hands.
Nothing grows here. Mostly in the
summer, but oftentimes the whole
year through. The stench of still-
ness fills the air and drowns our
lungs in stagnation. We have all
gotten used to it. Ask anyone.
Nothing grows here in the summer.
My spine, once tall and proud now
droops downwards. My body shrinks
with the heat. My lungs are filled with
waiting for a better day, but my
head hangs loose from my shoulders-
I’ve gotten used to it. Oftentimes
it lasts the whole year through.
Nothing grows here – the law
strictly forbids it – no matter
our efforts. Now we’ve put our
gardening tools away, and our
bird-houses, and we are no longer
fascinated with tall buildings or
pretty flowers. Nothing grows here,
we’ve learned. So even our dreams
we’ve learned to nip quietly in the bud
before anyone sees them.
light/yet
This is a string of thoughts that are pouring off my tongue because you’re away:
i. When I found you, my eyes became moons that orbited you.
My lips, a choir that sang your praises.
My heart, your heart.
My hands loose ends I tied to you.
ii. When I found you, I dropped like an anchor to your feet.
iii. I have been searching for truer definitions of love since I met you. For 432 days now, I’ve been coming up empty.
iv. You have taught me that happy poets write the worst poetry. And that’s a sacrifice I’ve willingly made.
v. I keep redefining love into something that sounds a lot like you.
vi. You are more than could fit into words or music notes or empty canvases. You are worlds and worlds and I am small and unworthy but I promise to find better ways to immortalize you.
vii. When I found you, I dropped like an anchor to your feet. But you lifted me up and I have been floating ever since, the weight of my chest no longer heavy enough to pull me down.
viii. Love is when you’re certain your lover is incapable of hurting you. Everything else is either lust or like or nothing at all. This is my 431st definition. Still not close enough.
ix. When you are not here, there is no light for my eyes to feed off of. Open or shut they are the same. Darkness inside and outside my eyelids.
x. Love is only love when it is egotistical and full of self-importance. Love is only love when you and I can say this and mean it:
“No one has known love like this. No one has ever loved like this. This is the first love in the history of the world to be felt this purely and intensely.”
This is my 432nd try.
I don’t think I’ll get there.
Solecisms 