andalus99

passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?

[andalus99]

a girl with a curved back can never be straight, straightened - she would only snap. Nor righted or righteous. Bent like Adam's rib and her mother Eve. So let me be, and pray for me.

[andalus99]

Forgive me God

For loving the world this much

[andalus99]

I love coming across something touching, an image, a line in a poem, a song, and scurrying to add it to my collections somewhere, like ariels cove - then realising I have the same whozit and whatzit stored away right there under my eyes.

I love the resolutness of my sensibilities. It adds to my belief that something somewhere inside of me is unmovable and eternal.

[andalus99]

Hey (with the intention of being fearlessly vulnerable to you).

[andalus99]

اشباهي الاربعون /

حضن اب وبنته في المطار

غوايش بتكشكش

نحل و ورد مطرز زينة

اسم سلمى

ملايات كرانيش

Honey and fresh bread

Curry powder

الاناناس المعلب البارد

فستان اخضر زرعي

Sticky pink glitter gloss

غنية بكتب اسمك

الخوخ والكمثرى

The thickness of oil paint

الخوف من الخوف

Cool skin

العيون العسلية

The lyrics of an angry woman

a Heart on a sleeve

Mustard (the cheap kind)

تنورة ستان

ريحة فانيلا و حمضيات

صابونة جلسرين شفافة

برطمانيات وعلب صغيرة

Spots and stripes together

Wool coats and hats

غنية قبضوني ليه?

Victorian heroines

الكحل والمكحلة

Amelie herself

Brittany Murphy movies

Big big hair

A hot broth cooking

A bengal kitten

عباد الشمس البرتقالي

Girlhood adventures

Women with silver hair

Abandoned blogs

The moment of accepting love

دقات قلب غير منتظمة

2 low braids

The softness of bellies

لون الشعر البني

القاهرة الدقي الساحات

An unexpected happy ending

Oven roasting smells

A very short poem

Mr Roald dahl

Sleeping on the floor after prayer

Cheeks touching

A cowboy hat

An old bath robe

A sparkling lake

[andalus99]

Poems on hair / 2

Lanolin hair food

in a small cylinder tub

the color of sweet milky custard

Thick coconut grease

that smells like my father

scooped in his brown fingers

cool as silk sheets

ice on your tongue

soft ice cream

Soothing and taming

pressing kinks into curls

in sweet submission

[andalus99]

Poems on hair / 1

A thick tight braid, pulled back

is not swept

shaken, or caressed by wind.

Coarse hair

does not flip

flow, or feel like silk.

Kinks and curls will

hurt you, give you headaches

a suffering scalp

two cramped arms

half a dozen broken combs

and split ends you cannot bear to part with.

A part down your head glistens

with grease, dax, oils

your aunt’s latest recipe.

Two, four, eight, lines.

Your head divides into

a map of triangles.

Drawn swiftly by fingers as

strong and steady

as the woman they belong to.

Her hair and hands both

always a part of you.

[andalus99]

I didn't push her

The others did

Atleast thats what I said

She wobbled and clutched air

Heaving silently

Back flat on the tracks

She surprised me

The way she struggled and tossed

- I looked on

Her unruly hair matted in mud

Sickly Yellow lights on her bruised face

Green and purple

Over the horns

My own voice calling me

Over the blaring horns

But I didn't push her

Did I?

[andalus99]

Petals bloom each morning

I love me

One coarse braid

I love me not

Two pearl earrings

I love me

Three cold pills

I love me not

Four new voicemails

He loves me

Five I have sent

She loves me not

[andalus99]

The truth is that I long to be loved

Deeply and devotedly

Intensly and on purpose

A long giving caring nurturing solid love

I want it so badly the thought makes me weep

Admitting this truth is okay. It is a deep desire of mine that I am aware of.

I beleive in its possibility , I can be loved in this life . I also beleive that it may not be written for me. I accept that too. There is love and joy to be had outside it , yes .. but I will never stop desiring it . And that is a truth about my deepest self that I have no business denying to myself and others.

[andalus99]

Joy is

the end of a school day, in the blue and yellow classrooms of a primary school, tired and giddy after a long day of play and class. Half of your braids have come undone, a butterfly clip is missing, the hair plastered with oil on your forehead earlier this morning is sticking up comically, there's sand inside your white lace socks and shiny black shoes, and your lunchbox is light and empty.

The classroom empties gradually, one by one small girls are picked up by tired drivers; stay at home mothers with an Abaya over their Jalabiya, playing loud music; or fathers on their lunch break, talking loudly on a Bluetooth headpiece.

And then my turn comes,

"andalus, your grandfather is here" a teacher calls absent mindedly, very few memories remain as joyful as this. Gido, with his his silver hair and silver car. Walking outside in the heat to open the door to a cool gust of air, the smell of his citrus cologne. The news on the radio, as always, piles of legal documents in brown folders in the back seat, the cool blue seat inviting.

I swing my overflowing bag into the back seat, notebook corners sticking out the unzipped side, covered with flower stickers.

This is the only time I get to sit in the front seat, like my mother or her mother, fiddle with the buttons, talk to Gido like a grown up. He greets me the way he always has and still does.

"اندي قراندي ، يا مهلبية بالعسل مسقية "

I brag about my day, my friends, my score on a maths test, and Gido tells me what delicious food is waiting at home for lunch as we make the short drive home.

This is joy.

[andalus99]

Sadness is the palest blue

Almost white dipped in Grey

The color of the sky when you wake much too early

Much too early to draw the first breath

To bear the hours

The hours you count to sleep again

In sleep I meet myself and my nightmares

Sweetness and terror await

Eyes shut but her box wide open

Pandora our mother Pandora my queen

The night her realm and I her subject

Circa 2019 (dark cloud year)

[andalus99]

If we never learnt

to phrase our feelings

To a r t i c u l a t e

With their words taken

Would they dare stay?

Claw past my eyes

Dig with fingernails

Pull out sadness

The tattered cloak

Leave no thread caught behind

Push hooks into my ears

Take festering hurt by its tail

Leave no scales

Fins or eggs

Lest they hatch memories

Stick steel needles into my knuckles

That resting place of anger

Force up my veins

To the magnum brook

Siphon it empty

Slip knives between my ribs

Better yet Crack my chest

Rip out the beating mother

Squeeze out the dripping letters

From their grey chambers

Leave me mute

Wordless

Light and untroubled

Clean of poisoned letters

They call language

[andalus99]

There are two pairs of arms

One sinewy and strong

Fed on the knowledge of you

They hold on and sit

Cross legged

On the floor of your shared sorrow

Your head clasped to their bosom.

A second pair

Feeble, foreign and flailing

Urges you upwards

Unaccustomed to that weight

But a wondrous

new embrace.

[andalus99]

Trying new things...

(Didatic cinquain)

Crystals!

Salty goodness

Sea green foaming frothing

On my chapped lips

Sweetest sleep

[andalus99]

Nesting

Weaving branches

Making love

Making home

Branching love

Loving home

Weaving us.

[andalus99]

The older I get the more I see that all my past selves are the same little girl and I flush and blush and weep for her. I love you.