You, Me, & All The In-Betweens

Humaid Al Bakhit Shaikha

Description

I believe that the simplest string of words can dismantle the earth as well as the pain itched between porcelain bones, and that the world is made up of fire, water, and dirt and we are just a mere combination of it all.YOU, ME, AND ALL THE IN-BETWEENS is there for YOU and only YOU.If you need a sign, then this is it.Keep going, keep going.You're almost there.

Sujets

• Poetry

Informations

• Publié par: Sail Publishing
• Date de parution: 13 juillet 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781912317233
• Langue: English

Extrait

Shaikha Humaid Al Bakhit
Published by Sail Publishing L.L.C.
First published in 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Sail Publishing L.L.C.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.



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Dear Dad,

You were here, and I had the world.
But not much belongs to me anymore.

Love always,
Your daughter
For my home, My dad

This is a tragic tightrope walk after a 1095-day fight.
I heard so many stories about the fall,
about the collision when you lose your footing. It didn't make the ground any softer. There's a whole lot of empty and my feet aren't steady. The ache is overrun, and my hands can't carry it anymore. But I'm trying to forgive the pain,
and the restless quiet everyone has left me with.
I'm still figuring out how to silence it without making it any louder.
I'm not getting far.
I forgive that too. I look at your old photographs and I am reminded that
your face,
your smile,
will start to fade in the new ones.

I thought there'd be more time to tell you all the things you already know. I can't imagine what comes after this mourning, this kamikaze. But what I do know is that: You are my country, and the streets are still beautiful. (even in your absence)
You are my country, and I still speak your language.
You are beyond what the world has ever made you.
The human anatomy is simply skin enveloped around bone, with a few glitches here and there. If skin could peel itself away, you’d see proof of how many people touched and stained your soul. May it be white or red, it’ll endlessly be marked with a familiar yet foreign fingerprint.

When our bodies shift like tectonic plates underneath floorboards, we’ll discover whose heart will stop beating first; and if oceans will fill up our lungs to the point of purple lips. What if our hands feel foreign when they touch again? What if skin on skin is not enough to thaw the winter storm between us? I know it gets tiring reaching for something when it isn’t coming, especially when it doesn’t want to be warmed.

Sometimes the heart needs to be resuscitated with rain showers and a simple glimpse of the universe. One of these days you’ll have to bury the tragedy sewn in your hands. I know it’s weighing you down like an anchor. Let me help you. I’ll wipe away the ghost stains you keep tucked in tight. Breathe, it ’ s okay. The moon deceived you many times to keep record. Please stop counting the casualties. You are not one of them.

There are galaxies in your irises, and you can move mountains with those eyelashes. There’s always a purpose to everything, even the incident that bled your fingers dry. There’s love embedded through your blood streams. So be careful of people with lips that speak wonders, they’re only eclipsing their fangs. I want you to know that you’re not a side effect of existing. You are the strength people would wish upon falling stars for. You are more than all the galaxies combined.

You are on purpose . You are alive . You, my friend, are a warrior .
Eos;
The beautiful Goddess of the dawn,
who illumes the new day with hope.
Believing in double chances

Do you hear it? Do you hear the echoes?
The mountains are crumbling, and the ghosts
are blaming you for the dirt itched
beneath your fingers.
There was a burial here once,
for hope.
Do you remember her?
She ran too fast, her legs fell off.
I know she tried to tell you something
you didn’t want to hear.
It was those days when your heartbeats
sounded more frightening than thunder,
and all you could taste was blood on your tongue.
Your hands feel too heavy,
too aching, and it shouldn’t be this way.
You’re not drenched into oblivion.
You are solid matter.
You are heart.
You are air.
You are everything.
Stop waiting for a sign to start
believing in miracles.
Stop kissing the moon good night
just to get closer to it. You belong here.
You belong on this gravel and water.
You belong in this mind whirling place we call home.
You exist for a million reasons and writing them
won’t even fit the script.
This is your sign.
This is your sign.
This is your sign.
You exist and it matters.
"Leave" shouldn’t be the only word you know

Tell me about the ocean again; how it swallowed you up like the sun every 6 pm just to spit you out hours later. Did it hurt? Did it hurt when your lungs filled up with water? It probably did. It must have because your lips turned purple. And into all the colors a bruise can dye. People have left more than they came back these days and it should make sense. But it doesn’t, none of it does. Do people still mean what they say? Because you’ve seen smiles hiding teeth stained with lies like cavities. The moon should have taught them something about eclipses. You wake up and it’s April all over again. You wake up and remember all the soft you buried beneath your bones. It’s starting to decay and it feels too much like the truth. Too sharp, too bloody. Loneliness has kissed you senseless every night and it tastes everything but sweet. It stole your voice and twisted your tongue. This isn’t you talking; it hasn’t been for so long. You can’t unlearn the language loneliness has carved you with. But don’t you know? You can replace it with one too foreign for it. You can make homes out of the words: stay, here, and now. And I swear it will send it away for good.
A road map for the lost ones

I’m lost in my own skin
and it ’ s suffocating to look for years
only to go astray.
Everything is floating away like sea foam
and my cries are mimicking the currents.
I am ocean deep and it still doesn’t feel like
drowning.
Is this how it feels like to be Atlantis?
To exist and to be found a million times
but never saved?
If I had counted how many times I’ve hit
rock bottom,
it would have cracked and dismantled
under my bleeding fists.
But they tell me even Rome was built
on ruins and we were born for more
than this.
Maybe there’s a detour route in these
veins and bleeding hearts.
Maybe there’s another exit to find
ourselves in a way we were never
taught how to.
4:00 AM lessons

The roads haven’t been easy to follow these days.
The map is smudged with salty trails and
I’ve been choking up gravel.
I think I’m lost.
I’m lost and I’m pretending that the blood
staining my hands isn’t mine.
Does this ever get better?
It’s been 1,460 days
and I don’t know how to survive.
My name has been poison on other
people’s tongues, and
they pretend not to notice my
lungs collapsing.
They pretend not to see the blood stains
and the massacre their words leave.
They are afraid of saying certain words