It was the still, sticky, egg-yolk afternoons that made her think of mothers, sisters, aunts and grandmothers. When the sun is her stinkiest, the salt dissipating from her skin and bubbles on the pores of everyone and everything she laid her eyes on, that was when cotton dresses, floral patterns, gold bands and blue stonesContinue reading “Egg-Yolk Sunshine State of Mind”
Category Archives: Memories
Corduroy
A story about an 11 year old boy’s small thoughts spurred by the feeling of corduroy fabric on his skin. A feeling that kept strangely and interestingly coming back in the form of memories and dreams at the age of twenty, the almost-age of fifty and his final year of nintey-two. A story that remainedContinue reading “Corduroy”
An Insomniac’s Morning Hours
When the call to prayer soundsand the sun’s about to rise,my thoughts restlessly dissectthis sorrow, that guilt, old lies. “I can’t keep up”, I say,“slow down and stop the mumbling!”But they answer with obtuse eloquence,lingering, rolling, and tumbling. How lucky I find those people,who are right now asleep.Their heartbeats slow and steady,their dreaming calm andContinue reading “An Insomniac’s Morning Hours”
The Blue Jay and the Red-tailed Hawk
It was rather enchanting, how I died. I was hovering above their heads when they wrote with a blue bic ballpoint pen that it was from natural causes. But I am certain it wasn’t that. We never just die from the cause; other things mark the real ending. And even then, it’s not quiet aContinue reading “The Blue Jay and the Red-tailed Hawk”
The Sunken Forest
August 25th, 2014 – “That Day” / “Today” Fire Island, New York Dear H, My sentences will be long. If you are in quarantine like I am, only read this letter when you want to plunge into the abyss like we used to, where sentences are made for pure feelings, and where they lack structureContinue reading “The Sunken Forest”
Helpfulness
The best quality in a human being is Helpfulness. There is a corner in my heart filled with nametags, uniforms, hairstyles, voices, eye colors, and smiles of strangers who have helped me as if their life depended on it. They don’t know me and if they once did, they surely forgot me now. But IContinue reading “Helpfulness”
But First, Coffee
My eyes felt heavy, but I didn’t let them rest after the too-much they had stayed open for, and the much-more they were waiting for to happen. I blinked very fast, too. In case you turned to look my way and find me mid-blink, then you might have thought my eyes are resting so myContinue reading “But First, Coffee”
Chrysanthemums & Berliners
“It’s not so easy!” My granddaughter cried. I looked down at the wrinkles on my knuckles and stretched a leathery fold on one of them. I waited until the skin slowly retracted to its place; I lingered momentarily at the shape it made, that of a half-moon or a lopsided grin. Then I looked atContinue reading “Chrysanthemums & Berliners”
And Just Like That
And just like that, my love for him swelled, it overflowed over the rim of its cup and poured all over the table like a large boundless map of a suddenly borderless unknown world, which I newly marked here, and there, and here, and at the far end of it down there where Australia usedContinue reading “And Just Like That”
Mosaic
My consciousness is a mosaic designed with sharp shards and broken pieces of people, words and memories. The glue that keeps them together to make me whole is my subconscious. What you see is not all me. What you see is a part of others, put together by me. -Beisan AlShafei
Beisan's Burble 