GRACE // KIKI

He held himself with grace that made it seem like the entire world was his entitlement. He walked with such certainty, taking deliberate steps. Tilting his head to one side as he did things, making it seem that it was so easy to live; that it was so easy to be him.

He spoke in a tone that made me want to fall apart. To stand there, stripped of all my walls and facades– strength, independence, success – he spoke and I wanted to be little. He spoke, and I wanted to be small, I wanted to be comfortable in the small space I occupy, in my mumbles and incoherent thoughts. He spoke and I wanted to cry, not minding the whole world watching. He spoke and the world stopped whatever it was keeping itself busy with, its false sense of grandeur, until he was done vocalizing a carefully processed thought.

All done in but a moment, but to me, the world really does stop.

My false sense of control, of knowledge, of having it all figured out. All it takes is one word. I want to touch his skin, and maybe in doing that, I will understand. I own nothing but my senses. I won nothing but the awareness of my true self in his presence. For the first time, I don’t feel like I want to own that person, to control that person, and it’s not because I know of my inability to do so. I don’t want to.

Free spirits are in fact not free; they are confined by their own thirst for freedom. They strive for it, fight for it… the very thought of being stripped of it utterly frightens them. Fear eats away at your poise, and who am I to do that?

Who are you to expect things of such a being– enlightened, illuminated.  Who are you to limit such an existence? 

RED AND TWO MOMENTS OF OCEAN // FARIDA EZZAT

He says this is a true story and that he remembers everything.
 
Her True Story:

She was bleeding in his arms. She was bleeding and they were red. She cried and he sat there helpless; paralyzed.

“You are beautiful and I may not love you but you are here and will always be.”

“You’re going now?”

She couldn’t reply, her blood a sea drowning all realities and words and feelings. But she uttered at the end: “Yes, and I will be waiting for you.”

She departed. His tears permeated her blood and the ocean of something they didn’t know overflowed and it was not a tragedy.

He embraced her body and her red wings. She was not there.
 
He says this is a true story and that he remembers everything. He still lives by the red ocean and wonders if red skies ever dance.
 

NEW STITCHES // DONIA ELMAGHRABI

I can almost see it. 

You’re staying in bed, somebody let you down again. The world seems far too big, far too cruel, and you ache in places you never even knew existed. It aches to remember, it aches to breathe. 

You think of yourself as spoiling fruit, too ugly to even be seen in white light. You hide underneath the covers, chasing the shadows of people who didn’t have the heart to love you anymore. You lose yourself somewhere in the middle of the chaos in your head, your hands burning from all the scratching at the edges and the clawing at the walls. Your feet are tired from spending so much time running away from them when you always end up running into their open arms. 

Your voice is a drowning siren, I can see your rage turning red. I can see the coldness biting deep into your chest, I can see you trying to think of anything else but the way you feel. 

Counting the shapeless figures on the ceiling. Pushing the earphones a little closer. Making the music go louder and the car speed faster. Letting the numbness take over. But still, you remember every nuance of every word of every time. You measure time in bursts of clarity that come way too scarcely. You measure it in whispers, in words, in the distance between two sounds. It stretches, and it shrinks, and it takes you back to places that make it harder to want to wake up in the morning. 

But let me tell you just this: I’m here now. I’m braver than your loneliness, and I’m stronger than the tides that pull at your heart.

We can jump off buildings together and turn into soaring birds on our way down. I will make you so full of light, you would forget where you buried your darkness. I will love you so hard, it will feel like anchors opening up our hearts from the inside out, and I wouldn’t mind. I’ll tear your old self from its chains and hinges, and I will love you all the way into finding a brand new heart. 

I will teach you never to hold your breath unless you plan on letting it out, and how there always is the good kind of breathless. I will teach you that it’s okay if someone you love undid your veins with a seam ripper or took a blade to your almost-but-never-quite-healed wounds, I’ll have the patience to stitch them back up no matter how tired I get of holding the needles. I will be new stitches to all of your old wounds. 

You know I’m not the “hold your hands when they’re quivering kind of person”, and I’m not the “let you cry on my shoulders” one either. But I could try to be the person who makes you laugh so hard, you hardly remember the tears striking your cheeks. I can be the person who makes you forget to remember that you’re still hurting. 

I’ll be your armor, if they come with their hurtful words and their chainsaw memories to get you, they’ll have to cut me down too before they get anywhere near you. It will ache anyway. I know that. But if the aches turn into open cuts and broken bones, I will heal you. 

So let the noose of rope find its way around your neck, let the concrete ground embrace your falling body, let the venom course through your blood and the razors cut into your skin. 
I will save you every time.

UNTITLED // AHMED SHERIF

You put it in your mouth and you light it up. It burns. And you burn.

You inhale it devouringly. You feel the nicotine infiltrating your bloodstream and you feel your hunger for it getting satisfied. You feel the smoke filling up your lungs, and you hold it inside for a while so your demons can take their share too. They like it. It keeps them still and it keeps them quiet. They asked you to do it more often last time you sat together and talked, last time you were bargaining for your sanity.

Enough, you decide.

You exhale, feeling every ounce of pain, every burden, every shred of insanity and every horrid creature inside you blending with the smoke and escaping with it. Reposefulness. But it’s an illusion; an illusion of momentary salvation you’re addicted to. What’s inside of you remains inside of you. The smoke particles diffuse through the air forming a hazy painting composed of faces; faces of people you miss and faces of people you would like to meet, faces that taunt you and faces that beckon to you in vain. You see your madness manifested in a puff of smoke.

You smoked too much, your body is numbing and you can’t feel your limbs. You don’t care, because what good are your limbs if not for entwining with theirs?

You light another one.

VERY SHORT STORIES // FARIDA EZZAT

The following are short – very short – stories written about the world and the lives within it.

---

They had only shared thirteen glances, one every month. Their thirteenth was on their birthday. The day of their Universe.

The stars are born to embrace her eyes. The gods plant her soul in ancient lands of flowers and amnesia. No one remembers.

The cries of child, of mother, of man lost in the lands of the dead. They travel around the sun in perfect carelessness.

The toothpaste oozed desperately onto my skin, longing for the calcium flesh of teeth. An unforgettable French kiss.

Red lipstick smeared on the white pillow sleeping below the bed. She had married the perfect cotton.

When the train blew up and the bachelor died screaming her name, that’s when she woke up from her coma. She laughs.

They followed lions in the forest of love. A butterfly takes its last leap into their nets, dying forever. Genocide.

The taste of their freshly baked love, immortal. The music of their passionate symphony infinitely alive. They breathe.

Pressing ‘delete’ wasn’t enough. His memory like cancer reaps her neurons. His words carved on her spine. Keyboards fail.

“Shoot the bastard,” she shouts. My hands, paralyzed, humiliate me. I no longer hold a gun. I only imagine her shouts; my shots.

We survive on one thing. Meat, desire, and power. Three phases of a single moon.

A drunkard met the Grim Reaper hoping to dissuade him from taking his wife. The Reaper shared a drink, kissed his wife.

Bare legs. Naked eyes. Hollow hearts. Bleeding noses. They dream of becoming; damned to the human body. They pray in shards.

“If I die tonight, burn my body,” she said. “I will set fire to myself and hug you,” she replied. They lived aflame.

They painted themselves in red and danced in the street. They were called love and strawberries. They were fire nebulae.

It is an outrage. They killed three girls every night, shaving their red hair and braiding it; beautiful. It is absolution.

They promised to stop lying in the morning. The sun rose. They rose. They surrendered to their voices. It was true love.

Up, they are. Eyes and flesh. Screaming for freedom. Fantasy escapes in fear of their imagination. Gods of life, they are.

ENOUGH // NERMEEN H.

It happened
on the way back from work,

I tripped
              and

                     fell

fat folders and half-corrected exams
scattered on the gray concrete

and eyes fall upon me like rain

needles, sharp like stifled screams,
pricked my heart
and blood did pool into my raw palms
and fog did fill my eyes

but there!

Beckoning from the midst of the fanged abyss,
a glint of gold:

A key.

Deftly engraved on the shaft- 
in ethereal ornate lettering- 
were the words

TAKE ME AND RUN

and so I did

Days bled into nights
and spanned across the heaving sky
like the tips of an Archangel’s wings
still I ran
faster than the rebuking lips of my dwindling lungs

when

like a forgotten apology,
a chalk-lined door blossomed
from the faint scars on my fingertips

blessed key kissed lock

the sweet squeak of swinging hinges

I’m home,
I whispered

Their smiles were forgiving
and genuine.

IT'S ALL OVER // SARAH EL SHAZLY

Grab a pen and a piece of paper, print down your victory in ink. 
There you have it, your verbal proof. Show it off to yourself.
Cut it in pieces and throw it in the air. 
Burn it to ashes. 
Fold it under your pillow. 
A memento of glory.
Your glory. 

Applaud your sentiment of pride. 

You’ve fought a fair battle. 
You’re done with the ache, no more ache. No more distress. 
The battle is over.
Tears are shed. Dried out.
Your wounds are evidence. 
The ruins are there to testify.


"I really don’t want to fight this battle anymore."


Rest. You’re worn-out. 
Jaded. 
You’ve been through a lot.
Come here, lay down. 
Rest.

Look back. It’s all there.
You’re past it all. 
Don’t worry, you made it. you did it.
You’re safe.
Look, it’s back there. 
It’s all over, it’s ok. 

Everything’s ok now. 

THE PORTAL // AHMED EL ATTAR

Have you ever tried to think about the majesty of that portal - the one you have in your mind - that keeps you striving and thriving?

It is the anticipation for a better tomorrow, a voice echoing in your ears: “Just one last push,” when you are about to succumb.

It’s your lucid dream; a world of your own creation, exquisitely tailored to you.

As astronomers look up to the sky to observe celestial phenomena and discover new stars,

You dive into your portal when reality is just not enough for you,

When it’s not quenching your thirst.

You see things so vividly that it makes your heart beat as if with the pretense of escaping your chest. You smile and feel a zephyr untainting your soul, refreshing your being.

Being loved back, or restoring old love, living a bohemian week in Paris, or a gypsy dance in Colombia.

Or maybe fighting for a noble cause.

The thing is, everybody has his or her own list of things. And although the portal never carries a promise, you are reaching out

and in this simple quest lies your life

Some of the things turn into reality, others won’t

and in this simple fact lies a great wisdom.

LUB DUP // NADINE BADAWY

Lub Dup .. Lub Dup.. Lub Dup..Crack .

Lub Dup.. Lub Dup.. Lub Dup.. Crack.

How many times do you have to break down before that crack is permanent? Before your heart falls way beyond repair?

How many times do you have to pretend you do not notice before your chest tightens and your stomach clenches?

How many times do you have to over-think before your brain explodes into a million pieces, shattered on the floor, like pieces of puzzle that do not fit together anymore?

How many battles do you have to fight before you can surrender?

How much crap do you have to deal with to soar past the threshold and completely earn the right to fall apart?

Lub Dup.. Lub Dup.. Lub Dup.. Crack.

BINGO!