--

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Soliloquies

It was just another day. Just another day that would change his life in one of those irrevocable ways he had read about in all those books. That was everybody's problem, he thought to himself silently, trying to process the epiphany he experienced; they only seek out the wondrous and the glorious, never taking comfort or even seeing the inherent beauty of the smaller things, the everyday things. It started simple enough, like most contemporary stories did, with a phone call. "Good morning, we know it's your day off but for reasons necessary to make your life not uninteresting as dictated by the weaver of stories, we're going to need you to come in today." So he went to work, not caring for the phone caller's poor diction nor his cryptic breakage of the fourth wall. How could he? He was only a fictional being made into existence by a bored deity. "Sorry we had to call you in on such short notice. The doctor coming today couldn't make it, said something about how today wasn't meant for him. You know how it is." He nodded with a quizzical look that gave his face the proper distortion to confirm his role as a protagonist in the story. "What have we got?", he muttered with a perfect eloquence. "Well, it's not going to be easy. Bed 6... He's... Uhh.. Well.... Looks like he's going to expire today." He thought of expiry dates and how simpler his fictional life would've been if every person just came with an expiry date. "And his parents? Are they aware of his imminent detachment from our embryonic microverse?" "I'm afraid so." So he went over to the newly christened Bed 6, his real name lost in a vaporous ether a good while ago, like all the other good little boys. And there were his parents, a picturesque portrayal of life at it's bleakest. They were a kind of beautiful in that way only truly  sad people can be. He paused and took a deep breath, he could sense the deity's mischief afoot. Bed 6 would die any minute now and he had to prepare for the Danse Macabre of resuscitation. 20 minutes later, it was announced and made real in his fictional world. Bed 6 was no longer a breathing life, but merely a sorrowful footnote. He soothed the parents much as he could with his generic religious  speech full of contradictory mysticisms. They left him with a dead Bed 6 in an attempt to go process the immense amount of bureacratic paperwork that must be filled in order for the world to acknowledge a death fully and officially. He stared at its lifeless body, and held it's cold hand. He wrapped the baby's hand around his little finger, channeling in the baby's parents' empathy. He said a prayer in a tongue he wasn't sure he spoke. And just like that the story hit its stride as the deity decided that it was time for him to  understand it all. "He got what everyone gets." A lifetime. --

By: Ahmed Al Mojadidi

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Hot Night In July

I've seen hot weather before, but this is just ridiculous. When you feel the walls themselves and find them warm, hours after the sun has set, you realize that you're going to have a rough night ahead of you. And it has been, not just because of this lovely weather, but because it's been a tough time in general. It's funny; time off always leads to introspection for me, and it never ends well. I do not know what it is that's missing, but I do know that it is. And that its lack is making itself keenly noticeable. Perhaps it is the loneliness that gnaws at you when no one else is there, when you realise that everything else is transient and that you're merely a piece in a much larger puzzle. Perhaps it's the niggling lack of accomplishment, that line in the sand that keeps erasing itself and reforming a few miles away every time you think you're close to it. And you keep chasing it. Day after day. Feeling that you're still not enough. You're not doing enough. You're never going to be as impressive as some other person. Maybe it is fear for your parents, when everything you look at them, you're surprised by how old they've become and how fragile they seem, and you're terrified at how completely helpless you feel in the face of whatever the future might bring.

Helplessness. That is the thread that ties all these things together. Why is it that you never feel in control? Are you just along for the ride that just so happens to be your life? Is that how you expected it to be like?

These thoughts lash you, as you lie in bed, sweating the night away. And you keep wondering what it is you can do about them. Perhaps you should just sleep, let the morning sort it all out. But the morning brings no resolution, as the inevitable ends up merely delayed to another sweltering night. 

--

By: Mazloum

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Untitled

I am lost

in all the post-s

and all the neo-s;

adrift,

not in a sea with a shore,

but in a vast expanse of

uncharted

s p a c e.

The only shuttles in sight

are too small for me—

I float away.

Science lies when it says

space is nothing

because even in this vacuum I can feel

the heaviness

of

matter.

--

By: Lara Aasem

[theclairvoyancecollective]

This is a Placeholder

This is a placeholder because I need to have something in place.

A placeholder because I want to commit and yet have nothing to commit with.

A placeholder because I just have to be part of this, for reasons unknown to me, and yet everything I want to do is so much bigger it just needs more time and attention to be ready.

Time I usually don’t have, I usually don’t have any time at all, and yet it’s time I’m more than willing to give; Hell I’m already giving.

This is a placeholder, because I’m on vacation and yet can’t take a break. Because I need to work, I want to work, at this point I don’t know anything but work.

The only things I talk about are things related to work or things I have convinced myself are marginally related to it.

Work has preoccupied my thoughts, but I’m happy it is.

Work is yet to bear fruit though, and my life is in desperate need of a fruit salad.

You think that one over. I’m not going to do your work for you. I can barely do mine. There are things about me I need to work on, to be able to work. How many times have I used the word work so far? What does it even mean at this point? I call everything work. From personal stuff I think are cool and need to be done, to brain farts I choose to express, to actual paying gigs that are somewhat few and far between now, I keep telling myself there’s more on the way...don’t break my suspension of disbelief.

 I need a haircut. A weight cut. I need to cut something, maybe someone? 

Ugh I’m rambling.

 This is a placeholder, because I want to open up my brain to you and yet it is refusing to. A placeholder because I have this really cool Idea I’ve been toying with for a while and I’ve finally put it paper and working on to deliver.

But I’m not ready to deliver, it’s not ready to deliver. It just needs a little more, you know? I’ve waited this long I can’t just throw it in the last minute. It needs to be refined worthy of the audience.

Because it’s all about the audience, isn’t it? Everything we do is for that 15 seconds of fame. That idiom needs to be changed, 140 characters of fame, yeah that’s more like it. I’d like to thank my muse, a moment ago I had no idea what to write, felt an immense blankness, because I was so focused on finishing that other thing I want to do for you guys. But then she whispered in my ears and the words flowed, and here we are. I’d like to thank my other muse, the physical one, the one I’m married to because at this point she’s the bedrock on which I stand, without her I have no idea what I would be doing at this point in time. But I digress, and I have work to do, so this placeholder would have to suffice.

--

By: Marwan Imam

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Amor Fati

Letting yourself unfold to yourself is quite possibly the best way you can be your own friend. It’s not about defining who you are through who you are not, restricting the self in any framework of elimination and addition makes the whole process mannered and calculated, when why should it be? Throwing in a little crazy, and some half-assured thoughts has its place in the grand scheme of fate playing itself out. Why do we sometimes strictly think that if a situation isn’t “right” enough it must be corrected or tamed in order to suit the natural course of things? Logic has its place, but it’s seldom the sole source of reliance or giver of success. Maybe our own sense of normal is essentially tainted by the culture around us. 

I’m not advocating making mistakes or being nonsensical but I’ve come to see that in order to truly see yourself, you have to be prepared to try. It may seem like a clichéd attempt at saying YES to life, but it really is one of the hardest things to do when all our minds do is take us to places where we are comfortable living off of fear and we get too selective about the doors we chose to open. Whether it’s something unconventional or silly or difficult, or even the most mundane of things, just seizing the most random situations can make you learn so much about yourself. It teaches you how to let go of your made-to-fit ways in order to embrace a new wave of exploration, almost untouched by your own perception for a little while, and then you connect again. That’s the moment where you see things a little differently than before, that moment when you disengage and engage involuntarily.  

A few weeks ago I was hesitant about walking into a cosmetic store but I walked in just because it smelt good, and I came out with a makeover and a new friend. A few days before that I decided to go to a comedy club on my own and laughed more than I had in ages, so much that my cheeks started to hurt. Whether you decide to set forth into the world or just step outside and have a genuine conversation with someone around the corner or visit a place you’ve always wanted to see, do it. Allow yourself to be revealed unapologetically, if you must place your faith in a fallible human, why not yourself for once? 

---

By: Farah H. 

[theclairvoyancecollective]

My Lack of Everything

[I have been unceremoniously sacrificed on your altar- she said.]

 No big fire lit the night sky ablaze. No war drums heeded my last steps to my certain fate.

No lamb was slaughtered and fed to the poor.

No pagan deity was appeased.

My body did not serve as a human pillar for some great Aztec temple. It was not entombed in the Great Wall of China. My flesh was not sewn to your skin to keep you warm and familiar on those unmercifully cold winter nights ahead after I'm gone. My weary bones were not ground and sprinkled over your barren soil to bless and sanctify it.

And when they handed you my idle corpse, you kept nothing of it but my heart, still pounding with a thud, loyally and steadfastly, like a jaded runner doing laps to and fro at gun point. It now swims, nonchalantly, in a formaldehyde solution in a glass jar on your bedroom shelf; a subtle reminder of our looming mortality and how transient and feeble we were- are.

 I died unceremoniously, purposelessly, and your tears poured on my skin like a haiku spills over a maiden's naked body; not bound by lust, nor gratified by love.

And it didn't matter.

I didn't mind because, in the pond, the old frog still shuffles every morning to the pitter patter of new rain.

  [You were not nothing to me. You'll never be nothing to me- he said.]

 We may not be carefully meditated or orchestrated but we're incontestably fated.

We had always been a heartbeat too early or a heartbeat too late. When love was abundant, the heart was scarce.

I carry you around everywhere, at any given point in time. My back bends and breaks under your crushing weight. There's always this background incessant electric-like buzz in my heart; a de facto minutia, too faint to be noticed yet still too austere to be ignored.

 So I conjure up our moments together: you look oddly happy in this photograph of us somewhere on a boat half the world away, but some truths remain too elusive and ephemeral to be captured by a simple, helpless array of timeless pixels.

And then suddenly, at 6:53 am on a morose and stale Friday morning of a slow, ill-humored weekend, I'm sucking the blood dry out of a fresh paper cut in my left index when it hits me: I've forgotten what your handwriting looks like.

And my heart aches. Just a little.

And then suddenly, at 9:47 pm on a delightful and exceptionally joyful Sunday of an otherwise mundanely average week, we're sitting at the table for a highly anticipated family dinner when it hits me: you're my favorite slow eater.

And my heart aches. Just a little.

And then suddenly, at 2:21 pm on a busy yet trite and unassuming Monday afternoon of a decadent, whimsical and painfully sunny August, I'm helping my niece cross the chaotic street when it hits me: yours are the smallest hands I've ever held.

And my heart aches. Just a little.

 Only-mildly-hurtful heartaches; so mild I don't actually mind them.

But that's probably the greatness and might of love: an emotion so soft and tender and frail in concept proving to be so shattering and vulgar in feel; so plebeian.

 You were not nothing to me and you'll never ever be nothing to me.

You will always be my lack of everything, because, every day and every night, the dysphoric rabbit jostles his way wearily and hopefully through trees and bushes; but he knows in his only-mildly-hurting heart that those woods bear no carrots.

--

By: Kamal 

[theclairvoyancecollective]

EDM

Everywhere he looked, it was the same thing; writhing, undulating bodies, swaying to a deafening tune that emerged from an endless number of speakers all over the space they occupied. He wondered, not for  the  first  time,  how  they  could  take  it.  His  ears  threatened  to  take  their  leave  at  the  slightest provocation,  as  the  thundering  bass  continued  to  turn  his  insides  into  a  fleshy  drum.  But  still,  he persevered, as he usually did, knowing that his presence there was a necessity rather than a pleasure.He  scanned  his  surroundings,  trying  to  find  her,  but  there  was  no  hope;  in  this  crowd,  all  encounters were  bound  to  be  accidental  –  a  microcosm  of  the  universe,  full  of  fateful  events  with  all  sorts  of consequences. He chuckled, knowing what she would say if she heard his thoughts right now. You try to turn everything into some sort of metaphor, regardless of how belabored it can be. And he would nod, of course, and then try to find an even more belabored one, just to drive her insane. It was not an action borne of meanness, he insisted, but he simply loved teasing her – and something assured him that she enjoyed  being  the  (not-so)  helpless  target.  She  would  smile,  and  punch  his  shoulder  playfully,  and  it would seem as if nothing could ever go wrong with the world.  

You’ll find me, Tiger. Eventually. 

She enjoyed this,  he knew. This little chase they underwent whenever he lost track of  her, a frequent occurrence  in  these  parts,  seemed  to  thrill  her  somehow  and,  despite  her  denying  it,  he  knew  that sometimes she’d make him work for it, if she spotted him before he did. And as he delved through the masses,  he  wondered  if  that  niggling  fear  in  his  heart  would  ever  go  away.  He  knew  it  was  silly  and unfounded, like most of his worries, but he could never shake the feeling that one day, the loss would be permanent. In this maze of bodies, sweat and desire, she would emerge from a different exit and be gone from his life for good. And he would forever be stuck, searching and lamenting the unfathomable loss.  But  it  was  funny,  because  at  the  cusp  of  that  fear  blossoming  into  full-blown  panic,  he  would always  find  a  familiar  hand  of  slender  fingers  wrapping  around  his  arm,  and  a  glistening  face,  ecstatic and peerless. And there should be, illuminated by a dozen strobe lights, smiling impishly at him.  

Gotcha. 

And so he smiles, delving again into the human throb, vowing to one day be the cunning cat, rather than the irredeemably hapless mouse. 

--

By: Mazloum

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Her Little Illness

As Sasha sat comfortably on the beach (the maximum extent of comfort already limited by the presence of sand in just about every fold of skin she could imagine), her gaze brought her eyes to the sea of stars above her. The moon was particularly swollen today, and she could see every star dancing, pulsatile in rhythm and vibrancy.  Her mind took her back to her childhood, back to when she didn't need to imagine herself flying amongst the stars. She didn't need to, you see, because she had the ability to travel across the infinite macrocosm of the universe. At least she had thought so back then. Gullible as her mind was back then, she yearned for the days of her youth.

She remembered the first time it happened to her. It was a rainy day at school and boring Mr. Grunkel was droning on and on about how plants produced oxygen through a process called photosynthesis. She was staring at the rain drops as they landed on the plants. And then it happened. Her mind whooshed as she found herself flying through the window and to the sky, eventually reaching space. There, she bore witness to the magnificence of her solar system. She surfed Saturn's rings, said hello to a lonely Pluto (that coincidentally had the face of Pluto from the Disney cartoons), and tried to look for Jovians on Jupiter.

"Sasha? Sasha!"

She found herself in the classroom again. "When did it stop raining?" she muttered as the entire classroom gawked at her, fear evident in their eyes.

"Are you okay? You spaced out there for a second. Why don't you go to the nurse's office?"

Spaced out was as apt a phrase as any.

"Yeah, I'm okay. I really am."

She hadn't even assumed there was anything wrong with her. Why would she? She felt great; energized by space radiation, ready to take her own world by storm. She decided to ride her bike to school the next day. Something told her that the gusts of wind on her cheeks would feel fantastic.  So that's exactly what she had done. She took her bike out from the garage, put on her helmet and started riding. She didn't expect to find herself in the middle of Alpha Centauri on a cloudy November 4th but she didn't complain. Her mind flew again until she found herself staring at the two stars burning in a blaze that somehow didn't even singe her. She was mesmerized. "Two stars!" she had exclaimed to herself silently. They seemed like two awkward children at a prom, too scared to ask the other to dance. She floated between them, and bathed in as much starlight as she could.

"Sasha! Oh my God, please be alright."

When she came to, she found herself in the hospital. Wires connected to her. Beeps invading her privacy. She felt like she'd been hit by a truck.

"Thank God!"

Her mother, tears running down her eyes let out a smile that Sasha would never forget in her entire life.

"What happened?" she felt ever syllable that came out of her was elicited by pain.

"You veered onto the highway and got hit by a car. How could you so be careless Sasha?"

"I guess I just spaced out."

And that's when the tests began. After what seemed like forever, her doctor told her that she was suffering from absence seizures.

"Quite common," he said in that typical assertive yet monotonous voice doctors usually spoke in, "an absence seizure is typical of petit mal epilepsy."

"Petit mal?" she quizzically asked wondering how strange those two words sounded together.

"Yes, you'll be fine. You're just going to need to go on this medication."

"And it'll stop?"

"Well, yes," he scoffed at her.

"But what if I don't want it to stop?"

She started to cry. She tried explaining what happened to her when she had these 'seizures'.

More tests ensued, this time a psychotherapist came in and talked to her.

"Sasha, you need to understand that these were hallucinations. None of it was real. If you don't go on the medication, what stops you from having another seizure, another accident. Another accident, where you might not be so lucky this time."

She could hear her mother crying outside the door.

So she took her medication, and lived on with her mundane and bland life. She remembered reading about Icarus once in class and consequently, broke down into tears.

Her mind always wandered when she stared at the stars.

"Sasha, what are you doing? Stop ogling the sky and come sit with us!"

"Right, just give me a second. I'll be right there."

"Oh have you heard?" Her friend pulled out her phone and showed her a picture of a planet. "Check it out. Apparently a space probe, finally took a picture of"

"Pluto!" her smile widened. "And look, there's Pluto's face!"

Her friend looked at her quizzically, and said,

"God, Sasha, you can be so strange sometimes."

Strange, she thought to herself, but not crazy. 

--

By: Ahmed Al Mojadidi 

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Gypsy

Hide and seek is not one of my favourite games, maybe because it is all about deception, whereas I prefer to be honest and loyal. Nevertheless, I do adore seeing the game played in nature - in a chameleon that finds sanctuary in hiding its true colours, blending into the surroundings. This is what I like about gypsies; they never have to play hide and seek about who they are. What you see is what you get. Maybe at some point, their constant roaming around seemed like hide and seek more than indecision, but the truth is they have nothing to lose; who they are has become the most precious thing they own. There is always something about their look, something that gives it away. Almost like the hidden challenge in the abandonment of something familiar that made them more determined. Rebellious hair and tattoos, people who grew up in chaos, in a constant state of motion, forming a union bigger than merely their sum. Suddenly becoming alone is not so bad. Finding something is no longer attractive. Everything moves, evolves and changes to something much more indefinite. I take off the blindfold and stop hunting. I wear my skirt and let my hair down. I run... Run so fast... To join that circus. by: Farida Shams

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Sometimes life turns into a lull.

Sometimes life turns into a lull.

It just happens; you don’t realise how quickly time is passing by, and it hits you as you find yourself doing things for the first time. You are never too old for first times, and there is always a first time.

Sometimes streets bring a smile to your face.

Your memories are scattered: at street corners, on flights of stairs, at what used to be your table at your favourite restaurant.

I found a memory yesterday during my walk on my lunch break.

I found another at the street corner where I parked my car.

And another, waiting for the elevator to take me to my boss’s flat.

And one just found me, as I was staring at the wall in front of me, waiting for the words to come.

We sat there and played backgammon – we being you and I, being me and her, being me and him. Tens of times, if not hundreds…

I made breakfast today and saw an image of my grandfather cutting fresh toast from Le Chantilly. He added butter and homemade strawberry jam as the smell of filtered coffee filled the house on a Friday morning.

My grandmother was inside setting the table in the living room, and my sister and I sat there with messy hair, watching her. My Friday mornings were always lazy, were always spent at my grandparents’ house – where we live now.

My grandfather is gone now, and my grandmother has aged to the point of not being able to digest her favourite Egyptian white cheese and tea, her choice of breakfast. She’s no longer capable of eating. It makes her unaware of the years that have passed – it takes her to another decade, long before I was born.

I found a memory today.

The wallpaper in the room I share with my sister has yellowed; it used to be my mother’s room. My mother is an only child; she doesn’t get the concept of standing up for a sibling. I found another memory looking at it this morning while climbing up the drawers to reach something high on the dresser: my mother’s big, big makeup set that she got from Dubai. I made a clown of my little – then only – sister that day.

I made a memory yesterday. There is a certain way that my eyes look at things that makes me realise I am making a memory. I was sitting with my best friend and another friend of ours as she was complaining about something and it made her cry. My best friend has this beautiful way of crying with a smile on her face and she always says, “I’m fine.”  I hugged her as I was leaving, making my way home before my Cinderella curfew.

I go for a walk in the very loud streets of Cairo, or as I sit in my car, music off, it all drowns out. In the lull that silences all the noise going on around me, I find peace. I find a vortex.

I find an oxymoron – or you.

I try on a dress from when I was ten, and I find no memories; just the excitement of still fitting in it now that I am twenty-six. And the look on my mother’s face – it was a bit hard to believe for her. All these years have passed, and I am still, physically, the same. It’s just a whole lot of experiences, that have been adding layers to who I am; thousands of memories.

I get flashbacks of places, of moments, bits of conversation here and there, and I wish I had written about them as they happened. It is, after all, why I write – for these flashbacks, as an aid to memory, for you will not always have those you made memories with in your life.

by: Kiki

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Dear X

Dear lover of inconvenience, 

This time, I recognised the ending a little later than I should have, when the crows finally spoke some sanity into my mind and I sat through the pain in an Alexandria park. I leaned upon a palm tree, closed my eyes and I gave in to fatigue. You failed me with such consistence as you kept on promising to be there and to take care of things. You did take care of the finances, yet made sure to disappear on me during times I needed you the most.

You probably had no intention to break my heart, but I learned the hard way that you have no recognition of anything but yourself anyhow. You didn't want to wrong me out of mere ego. I confronted you about it and you claimed it was my illusions. You turned your back on me right after you asked me to trust you. And then you offered good will when I said that it hurts. We played that game numerous times. I got sick and you couldn't (wouldn't) handle it. You escaped me and you made silly excuses and I said that I didn't need any of it.

I was only failed cause I fell for you so. I put together a plan to recover you, to keep myself from calling and from giving you more credit than you deserve when you decide to be sweet and loving again. You might not admit it but you did manipulate my love for you. You are not a vicious person but you are not a good one all the same. I will miss you. I will avoid your street and your office. I also plan to stay away from the mutual friends. Don't worry, only one knows the details of our affair, otherwise.... your image is quite preserved and "no one will use anything against you." I will not say that we'd been together. It doesn't seem to matter any longer anyhow. I will not claim that you broke me.

I promise to never fall for anyone like you. I will not be swayed by the little perfect words, my dear, you said everything I wanted to hear. I will not turn ignore shortcomings when we discuss books and movies and drool over the fact that we seemed to share a passion. After all, you are only a middle-aged man who spewed words of intellect that his heart doesn't really know. I know that now.

It will take me some time to recover from you and from that unborn being. It will take me a while and a lot of weeping. 

by: Yellow

[theclairvoyancecollective]

On Storytelling

There’s no neat way to tell a story- a real story I mean.

Stories are messy, complex breathing organisms.

Treat them with care.

Delve deep.

Don’t smooth the nuances over to deliver cookie cutter Hollywood crap.

Treat them with respect.

Take those gloves off; you’ll be waist-deep in grime no matter how hard you try to cleanse the story of its peculiarities. Life doesn’t come with a soundtrack and Photoshop to ameliorate the ugly.

Most importantly, be true. The world is overrun with lies without you adding to it.

by: Nermeen H.

[theclairvoyancecollective]

The First Hello

It tasted like having my favorite food for the first time. The scent in the room seized my mind, like the New York City skyline right when the sun begins colliding with the horizon. A tapestry of hues, of skewed blues laced with purples, reds and smoky burnt oranges, like the embers of a neglected campfire. A high ‘Hi.’ Her words were cloudy at first, as if relayed from the moon, bouncing from a satellite to my eardrums. I’m reduced to a caveman, words flowing from my mouth like a river in the desert. Slowly, if at all, I say my name like I’m someone else, learning it for the first time, like an amnesia patient exposed to a new dawn of memories. Her name is déjà vu. The syllables bounce through my mind, kinetic. She’s simultaneously Kryptonite and sunlight. The haze coaxes conversation from the moment’s pregnant pause. The spaces between “Hello” and “How are you?” and “Where are you from?” start to answer the unasked question of “Who are you?” as the picture she paints is that of a life lived. Her father died in a car accident, my sister was lost to heroin abuse somewhere in Seattle. She was a biology major. I was a fine arts dropout. She was studying abroad, first time this far from home. I’d left home to somehow find my way back to it. It was as if this conversation was water, and I was parched. It’s amazing how you can find yourself by getting lost in the swirling, beautiful mess of another person. And lost we were as we found out more about each other. The room grows a little larger, the people around us disappear, their bodies there, but we become less aware. There’s something about the ecosystem of attraction, that effect it has on conversation. Our lives were oceans where we dove deep, uninhibited, like we’d known each other for years. As the sun rose I realized that every “Good Night” should end with a “Good Morning.”

  --

by: Joshua Bull

[theclairvoyancecollective]

The Hollow Organ

In the ambient atmosphere of her voice, he travels back through his past looking for answers to all the questions the silence imposes.

He runs, panting through the days of his memories, puzzled as the days stretched to weeks and months. He's losing his mind while his heart slowly turns into a hollow void that's constantly stabbing him from the inside. Running and chanting and ranting and falling within the identity that once belonged to him. Fragments of light cast themselves on his sweating temple as the maximalism of the scene heightened by his feelings strike him, his limbo is now real, he can touch it and smell it and feel it swallow the remaining sanity in him as the moon high above him divides in binary fission. Soon, the sky will be full of countless small mutedly-lighted moons, projecting on him from above, like eyes penetrating inside his soul, immediately introduced to his suffering, to the emptiness in his heart, to the loss of his mind, to the useless mass of flesh that's him, surrounded by bits and pieces of the person he once was while he listened to her echoing moans of pleasure as she closed her eyes tilting her head backwards.

  His oblivion will never release him, leaving him to wander aimlessly inside his reality, once so near he could even smell it. Nevertheless, he knows that once he grabs onto it, it's just air, never to belong to his material definition again. He will never beg for death because this is his only way to reach her. She is there looking at him from some hidden place in the hems of this abyss, calling his name in her soft moans, urging him to go further and further in order to come to her and be inside her; their souls are one.

She looks beautiful as he always saw her; her eyes a blazing and glowing emerald, grey hair scattered here and there among the blonde mass, the beautiful smoky shadow glittering around her lazy eyes and the crystal butterfly resting between her lips. She's an illustration of how beauty should always be: distant, fresh, indifferent to reality, arrogant in its minimalism. He longs to touch her, to feel the intricate curves of her cheekbones beneath his fingers. That ever-growing image curved inside his every cell is what's keeping him going, stretching above and beyond time and existence, seeking eternity in her presence. He longs for her long and bony fingers to search his body for comfort again, but he's not going to collapse now. And as the colour of that unknown sky diminished un der the crowd of moons, sounds from above start to go louder, her moaning is still overheard through the cracking of the moons against each other, this sky is not enough for all of them, and the weakest have to break and be gone forever. Flickers of strong white light flash in between the cracking broken moons. Will these falling white stones bury him in his place? Or will she finally stretch her hand from that sky above and lift him to their eternal union? Will he ever feel the ache of her flesh against his? Or are they to exist as souls released from desire, purified by love, and united the force of recognition of each other all along?  The rain broken moons shower him with the pain of realizing that giving up will be wasting his sanity in vain. He will keep going, and keep bleeding until the last drop of his blood washes the last part of this everlasting land of waste. She keeps moaning his name and he keeps sinking deeper, and it never ends. by: Anonymous 

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Other Mother

I am going to tell you about my other mother. The one I met at the bus stop. The one who told me, with the sincerity of sunlight, that I was a little her. She told me about her life; The good, the bad, and how she survived. This is my other mother; The one who did not birth me. The one who showed me virtue and compassion. She spoke forgiveness, and we shared oysters under the starless night, over cups of jasmine tea, with sugar drops. She spoke galaxies, and I saw heavens behind her smile as bright as day. Several miles away, in a land where they speak the language of my book, there lived a woman who did not know me, who did not birth me. Under the skies in March, she gave me life. I am a daughter with two mothers; sun and moon, my right and my left. I am a daughter who finds mothers in women on the street, who speak smiles and call me “beautiful.” I am a daughter whose mother is earth, who is never lost for the ground raised me. by: Asma

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Nothing is sacred to you

“Nothing is sacred to you” she heard him say.

I looked at an imaginary object in the distance because I could not meet his eyes, piercing as they were, compelling me to wake up from the state I was in at the time.

She felt like a whirling dervish, only one whose hands are flailing, whose lungs are gasping for breath. I twirled to induce a daze in my mind, not to be one with the universe. There was no poise or serenity, just the chaos of losing balance. Only the turmoil of a state of change, a state of transformation where no starting point has been defined, and hence no end point. There was no timeline or plan – no oasis in the distance in the stretch of desert that was all she could see.

That was all I could see, only it was in my own head and I was not alone. He sat next to me but never in my life have I felt so disappointed. What made it even worse was that it was my elusive self that has let me down.

I carry delusion for a mind and flaws for logic. My heart beats for the wrong things and taints what it holds dear. I have hope, but hope is only for the weak, and weak is meant to be broken, and what is broken cannot be loved. What is broken cannot be accepted. What is broken cannot be fixed.

Surrendering is not acceptance. To surrender is to admit defeat, but life is not a war. The war lies within me; I am fighting a battle of reason versus hope – of realism versus idealism. I am fighting a war of what I say versus what I do. And what I do, which is all that counts really, has failed me. In fact, I have failed myself and I can’t seem to accept it. My feelings are valid, but there is no room for them here – not anymore. With one act of defiance after the other, those feelings have lost their worth and meaning. What you feel is of no importance to me, what you say is of no worth; that person is simply a mirage.

She wanted to throw her arms around him; only they were too busy trying to fly. Trying to take her far away from this, from now and from here – little did they know that where the body goes, the malfunctioning heart tags along.

Your body is all I have got, but a body is only an instrument – a channel. What it carries is what I long for. There is a hunger that I shelter for your words and your thoughts and your sentiments; things that are locked so deep within you. This world is abysmal. This reality, dreadful.

She started running, as if getting ready to take off, and she jumped head first into the wall guarding his city! His city was warm, his city was home and right at the very center him-city sheltered a strong beating heart, like that of a wild animal and a quiet, accepting soul. The guardians will not let her in, but she still had hope.

We all get moments of craziness and irresponsible childishness, but it takes a strong person to forgive another’s weakness. It takes a willing person to tolerate another’s resistance, even with acquiescence. But the strong person here was also the resistant and the weak the acquiescent. It just happened, and how can you explain that to someone who wasn’t there? How do you explain the contradictory to the sensible?

The electric current ran through her body to wash away her evil. All evil starts with a smile. All smiles could be twisted by the flow of electricity. Her teeth starting jittering and her limbs became stiff. The torture was in the state close to death.

The truth hurts when you are finally faced with it, like the sound of your bones breaking or the feeling of your tears as they make their way up from your heart to your eyes. The end is sensed and the truth is told and the words are gone. This is how you break-up with yourself. You just look at her with utter disdain and disgust as she stands there; small and cold and you walk away.

Delusional, deceptive liar…

Mislead, misconstrued child…

Undeserving bitch…

She lies on the floor, sorry for herself, she shook the grounds but didn’t make it through.

[theclairvoyancecollective]

Rabid

    I can hear them whispering behind my back, the sentinels in white. They call me a monster, say that I’m mad, but never speak my name. They must think it’s cursed; a vile anathema that befits a monster. They say that I’m the spawn of the devil, a curse upon this world. They’re afraid I’ll bring about their ruin. How blind humans can be when they’re scared, when they fail to comprehend what their eyes register. I am not the spawn of the devil. My ghastly feat was to stop the devil. They were his progeny. I know it. I saw it in their eyes.     Those eyes that haunt me in my sleep. They beg for answers, and promise vengeance before I could answer, their faux innocence instantly dispelled by the diabolical fire within. Only then do I know that I was right, and my conviction is born anew. I did the right thing. It was not a crime—it couldn’t be. It had to be done. I saved us from our doom.     “You want to know why I did it”, I ask the man in glasses. “Because God asked me to save you. It was his divine will. It was my God-given duty to save all of you.” I hear him telling me to calm down and lower my voice.     “You should be thanking me!” I burst in anger. “You should let me see my children. I worked for them. I killed for them. I saved them. I saved you all.” I hear some indiscernible mumbling, but I don’t care. I must tell them the truth. They must know that I have saved them. “I am not a monster. Do you think I enjoyed it? Their screams keep me awake at night, and the dreams make me tremble in terror. I see myself killing my own children in my sleep. But I had to do it. It had to be done. It had to…”     I see the devil smiling sinisterly beside the man in glasses before everything fades into darkness. by: Mahmoud Nasr