The day you went away Something died inside me too I thought that with time In the pithy wisdom of poets And cure-alls of self-help books In the endless cycle of the days That I’d come back to life To some semblance of pulsing life But I didn’t And that’s ok Isn’t the end of self the next terminus anyway?
The formidable ego that relentlessly keens For fantasies of euphoric times Trapped in snow globes Frozen for life Crashing like cannon balls Into raw hearts that survive That part of me died But that dead part of me Buried somewhere In the thick of my atoms that ricochet And my lungs that tirelessly inhale Is now also my quiet side A stoic, eternal, abiding thing Cloaked in The resolute infinity Of ceaseless serenity
In that sepulcher of my being There is no distraction, no noise No daunting end-times tunnels of light The lifeless part of me Is nerveless, unfaltering Impervious to everything Everything but the little flame You left behind when you went away Glowing softly just beyond The stillest, deadest part of me For me to gently find my way.
For my beloved sister who is swept in the constant tides of farewells and then meeting-again-for-too-short-a-while. And for all the other parents whose fledglings have taken wing, may you continue to find your joy and serenity.
They are the quickening parts of you That you bestow upon the world Beings that become other people Independent. Adult Then there’s the anxiety and tumult Of letting them go From the safe radius of the home From the proximity of your everyday touch From the protective circle of your sinewy arms Each muscle a testament To years of being superhuman A perpetual hero, a champion And now you also have Your own growing pains to bear Of them not being there As they make their start In places you can’t be Coming back to rest To lay down tired heads On other pillows, other beds Their childhood rooms Stirring softly with their scents But my dearest, don’t despair These aches pass, they morph They bloom into other things A kinship deep as all the seas A bond of care that is more even-keeled Conversations, confidences, the sharing of dreams
They are out there now Let them live and love With all their might You’ve done your part They know the tree The orchard, the seeds That they’ve sprung from Now let them go Let your fluttering, bursting heart Give them wings to fly Fly, fly, up, up high Into the vastness of the sky Let them whoop with joy Let them go Where the soul moves them Out into the brilliant world To take a little bit of it Make it their own Let them imprint it With their hearts and their minds Let them be quirky, let them be kind Let them be funny, let them be full Of passion, of hope, of tenderness Let them roar and cheer and also tear up At life’s beauty, excitement, its bruises and cuts Let them show all their own shades of loveliness Let them add to the shimmering throng Of all that’s vital, new and strong
And you, dear beloved With your empty nest Now filled with books Or paints or pets You who have begotten them Stand fast and true and wise Behind them. Cheer them on As they sing their own songs In the great choir of life.
Birthed from the soul haunting paintings and videos of Palestinian artists and vloggers.
You want to know If I sleep? I don’t anymore, not normally But when I do When my eyeballs roll back in my head From exhaustion and from dread I dream I’m splayed across Broken stones And clay begotten slivered bricks Shattered bones And severed heads Skin like parchment Bomb-buoyed, paper-thin Every pore missile-singed Flying in the wind Up, up into the sky I send a prayer with my eyes I lift a leg and scrutinise The other one It lies unsprung, unsung, wrung From its muscles and ligaments It lies in the dust The dust is whipped into a storm It brings along The smell of death Of rocket-burnt flesh Bloody, fear-soaked it’s a mesh It clings to me I can hear Each howling soul As it holds me close I let it grip me as it curls Into my ears as they bleed Quietly so silently Tenderly, bedecking me My lobes dripping in rubies There is no sound anymore My wings unfurl I float away As they gently gently weep The tired lifeblood out of me.
I draw so you remember What happened in October Of 2023 And November and December and January and February And on and on in 2024 and 2025 I draw because I’m still alive
I stand where the stricken Lie dead or dying in the rocks Once homes and hospitals I stand And I draw so you remember
And should I lose my hands I will still paint The ravaged spaces that I see I’ll paint them with my feet I’ll sit With my reds and greys amid Strewn limbs and death debris A paintbrush in my toes
And should I lose my legs One of them or both And if I can draw a breath I’ll still draw the faces Of the living and the dead I’ll etch them with my eyes Into the watching skies
I’ll engrave them in the heavens Where angels wait to greet All of me and mine We, the flowers of Palestine
I’ll draw, I’ll paint, I’ll etch Until my dying breath So that you can always see So that you don’t forget.
You tell me I should have known Better than to trust another With tender things Like the blood reveling warm within Sweet imaginings You tell me I should have seen The telltale clues in between The spaces where I had wrapped My heart around someone, rapt In the throes of so much joy I beamed, I glowed for months on end You remind me now again I look at you and I smile Sometimes silence golden and still Is all that is needed to fill The pause waiting to receive Contentions, remonstrations, a speech I let that moment pass me by Bloated with pent up intrigue Silence exquisite, shimmering Now takes me in its calm embrace I had loved with all my heart No regrets, no shame, no blame My quietness golden and still Now safekeeps memories in that space.
She sits there selling bangles Set up in a wicker basket Some laid down on the grass Every now and then she gently Sweeps off the dust that spreads thinly From teeming feet that hurry past Barely slowing near the woman Sitting on her haunches hoping For someone to slow down, to pause Her concave belly almost touching The basket that is tugging The life blood from her womb Every time that she moves Spilling it in little driblets Onto its precious load
The maternal bond of glass and blood Unremitting, never enough As she sits car-caressing Sometimes fretting, sometimes fussing Rearranging, caring, loving Always loving, always loving A tender smile hov-hovering Around her tired mouth She is umbilical-corded To her treasures Resting in their bed of wicker Willing them to cleave their way Into the hearts of passersby Willing them to shine so bright That it brings tears to her eyes The boundless world of plenty In those bangles by her side
Behind her lie two little heads Heat-numbed and stupefied Little thumbs in little mouths Doing their best to pacify The endless hunger in their bellies Matured and rarefied Over lifetimes spent behind Their mother as she hums Little songs of gentle rain On golden fields of wheat and rye Watching their little sisters Take all their mother’s time Resting in their basket They tinkle and they wink They watch their little sisters Gleaming, laughing in delight Suckling on the joyfulness That streams from their mother’s eyes.
NB: Image is from the World Wide Web. Artist was not mentioned.
There’s a sweet pain in my chest A bloom of soft memories in my head They hold hands for a time Making me smile for a little while Charging then to pierce my eyes Awkward friends This ache in my ribs And these recollections They make me weep And yet all the while Hugging each atom of my being Places and spaces inside of me Phantom-greyed, blue-bruised, bleak Stark in the darkness of old scars and stings Fledgling losses, crushed hearts and things They hold them close the vital lot Nostalgia and loss begot I have a tender-sweet ache in my chest I wait for my pin-pricked eyes to attest To love that was gentle, to the fierce kind Rapt in reminiscence they fill my mind.
I resolved to write egged on By echo-braised recipes Of grating voices and bitter hearts And chopped up memories They tossed about inside my head Seize-sizzling, beet-bloody Of you is who I tried to write As bits of you fell in In-cisor cut, unholy messed Out and in of my sight I took my pen The scene was set I would write of pent up things Of audacious consequence But my pen lent itself more To gnawing contemplation A cooked-up imagination As it bickered in my mouth The words they just sat there Headless, fleshless, boneless, bare I chewed again upon the pen They leapt aloft and hovered then For a bit before they bit Me on my purposeful lip The drop of blood Drop.ped on my page There was no plot there was no stage There was no more righteous rage For them to come off eloquent And so I laid down the pen Let down my resolute bun Bun-dled off my peaceless pique Pick-ed all of myself up then Set free an ex-heal-ation I don’t think that I’ll try again.
Each time I put them away In some silent corner of my being Locked away So they don’t rear Their grief-gorged heads When it’s not their time Nor their day
And then you begin A conversation Those things I’ve been meaning to say Rattle the locks that hold them at bay I let them out They race for my heart My eyes smart
They scratch their way To my mouth I let them out Hesitating with every one That escapes Wrapping itself around your shoulders In a hug, a tortured embrace
Waiting for you To look at them, feel their grain Their pain, hear their refrain They float around waiting for you You turn away Their ragged breaths Steam up the pane
They quiver In a final thrum of hope Fallen, on the ground they grope For a sliver of faith But you turn away Unhearing, unseeing They disintegrate Into nothingness around your feet.
The blue has vanished from your skies The golden gleam from your eyes Snatched away, so many times So many times, it found its way Back into your lion hearts Through shining windows of your souls Now gaping holes pockmark your homes That still stand In the ruins of your beautiful land Once again it’s raining shells Mixing in With the silver salt of your tears again Washing, washing sins on sins They keep hounding, pounding down You keep cleansing, renewing again With tender streams that gush forth Washing, washing, washing sins The world has watched for so long As you have sung your ardent songs Of peace and freedom, just those Worn your sorrow, brave and strong While the world has sat secure In the boundaries etched and drawn Liberty-guarded, Flag-adorned While you lie shrouded in the dust Of rockets plunged into your hearths Hearts bleeding, torn apart The world is watching yet again Your pain, your pain, your searing pain Has seeped into our prickling skin From all the rivers to every sea We see you now Palestine Each woman and each man Standing tall unto the end We keen with you Palestine For every child that has died Blown to bits or buried alive We scream with you Palestine Our voices ring across the earth For every tear that you have shed For every drop that you have bled A million hearts now hold your grief A million more march on and on In every city, every town We roar with you Palestine From the river to the sea You will prevail, you will be free.
She’s caught in the rush of hurrying feet Snippets of conversations Of laughter, exclamations She’s caught in a tidal wave Of teeming, streaming life She’s caught in the swell Of people of voices, of sights and smells Riding the vital wave Pushing ahead Her silk scarf catches the breeze Of swelling, surging humanity She feels it pull Floating just a little in front of her She quickens her step Her feet instinctively keeping up With the urgency of life She feels something In her gut, the pit of her stomach A ripple, almost a laugh! She inhales deeply, she can’t place This sudden lightness of being It feels out of place This morning, mourning She had felt like lead Now like vapor she rises up Colourless, clean In that moment she’s someone else Propelling her body like a comet Lighter, brighter almost serene
She arrives at her gate 8A The same number, the place Where this very morning She had buried them She had forgotten For a few moments Who she was She was desolation and grief itself Wearing the bruises of loss Mourning only this morning It all came back dawning As she came to herself As her blood remembered And curdled inside A freezing, heaving cauldron of chills She sank into the depths of her seat 9B There was a sequence Monumental, compelling To her agony She had to remember She couldn’t forget Her world had ended When she had buried her dead.
(This piece is about body image issues that so many women face especially as they get older. It takes a lot of character and guts to not let the negativity get to you. Again, this objectification is a product of our chauvinistic environments).
You’ve put on weight, wait! Does this mean that you’re eating too many sweets Or could it be that you’re finally getting old Old, rolled, holed into the box That’s been built for you, no u-turns Nothing you can fox your fading way out of You’re done. Stay in the shadows, woman Know your place Face the truth of tradition Perdition Hard-wired into your being, your biology Know your place Or we’ll remind you Laughingly, ribbing along the line Where we can jest or malign
I’m caught off guard, but I’ve also been Wrought, fraught, taught To feel bad for feeling bad To smile wide Wide enough to swallow his sin and my own hurt My eyes scrunch up, almost close Those windows to my soul Beclouded, beclogged, becloaked Lest the world see the state of my heart He feels bad for an instant, he reneges Laughingly, now ribbing across the line I feel worse that he feels bad My smile widens until I can feel it cut into my skin His sin and my guilt doubled Lancing at my face, etching unnatural lines Into furrows that make me look Comic, demonic, they take their pick On the day they feel a rage Righteous, man-ifold and brave That they then spill into the ruts Of my shame-shambled face.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 