Draped Windows

” Hala, why don’t you wear lipstick like all the girls do? ”

Let’s see, while you cover your words with deep red lies, I cover mine with the steel cold truth. I wouldn’t dare say that I’m looking down at you, but your heels wouldn’t reach my pedestal no matter how bad they kill your toes. You look at the world from a gorgeous deep window, with black velvet drapes, always perfectly drawn, while I step out the door. Get the sand in my hair, let the sun dye my hair, and get the gravel shoved down my throat. I step out and the world hugs the air out my lungs, I get black eyes for makeup and scraped knees for dresses. While you’re dusting off compact mirrors, I’m out there in the trenches, yelling hold, but the fire keeps shooting straight through.

While you’re behind the glass, staring, thinking why I don’t use lipstick like the other girls do, I stare back wondering, why don’t you step out of your glittery shadow. Why don’t you taste the salty winds and touch the burning sand. What is so wrong with your voice that makes you not speak it. What are  you so afraid of , I will never understand. Trapped within your perfect shades of beige, grey and crimson, you don’t realize that you are your own prisoner. The incessant need to look, walk and dress perfect, the duty to echo every thought that visits your ear, and mute the ones coming straight from your sparkling mind, this is nothing but your own treachery. You have set for yourself this whimsical death sentence.

I wonder if you’ll ever set yourself free. I wonder if I’ll ever tire, give up, rest my head on your shoulder as we watch the world pass by from behind black velvet drapes, always perfectly drawn.

Drive

Love how accurate this is 🙂

loveletterstoaghost

She wants the road,
to drive against
the rushing wind.
She can feel
the warm breeze
from the open window
caressing her cheeks.
The freedom
of the journey
walks through her body
and tickles the souls
of her feet.
The music pounds
through the speakers
sending memories adrift
in her mind.
Salt dreams
float through her
like a wave
and sandy shores
collect the breaking tide
of stolen images
and broken promises.
The road beckons,
calling her like a lover
with arms open
waiting for that moment
of exhale,
that place of release.

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Sound

Writing about ” sound” , this was an assignment for a course I’m taking, definitely a first. Let me know what you think. 

 

In the midst of a restless chattering buzz, he flumps onto his swivel chair and adjusts the back with a clang. He turns on the computer and waits for it to stop its mundane whimpering. With a sigh of exhaustion that is yet to come he stirs his first cup of cheap instant coffee with a loud clink. The shrill ring of his telephone invades his made-up peacefulness and with a low deep voice and an unsatisfied shrill hiss on the other end of the line, the call drags on. Taking another sip from his lukewarm coffee he listens tiredly to the dreaded sound of the day; a short, high-pitched ping shooting from his computer, signalling the arrival of more work. Followed by a number of clicks and the clickety-clack of his keyboard he grunts, wiping imaginary sweat from undeserved exhaustion. Ping, ping, ping! More work is piling up as he watches the drowned out tick-tock of the clock above, looking forward to the beeps, honks and screeches of his way home. 

A daily fight

As the dawn breaks, I try to cram all my screaming thoughts, spilling them on paper. We are racing the sun, running away from it, hiding behind the beauty of darkness. Like a wide-eyed five-year old, I watch the glowing silver dots on the night’s canvas. 
When the light starts creeping in, winning its fight against the gentle night, my hands start going faster than ever. With a tired pen, and a tattered piece of paper , I try, but who has ever won racing the light? 
Folds of darkness kiss the stars goodnight, Stars kiss other stars goodnight, and I move my cheek away, still writing. 
Like a victorious warrior, the sun stretches its arms to everything in sight, embracing the win, embracing the cheering crowds, crowds that have been given life within the light, and light within that life. It reaches us. Me, pen and paper all freeze.

Frozen. 

Frozen and still, words that are only to be read in silence, glow under nothing but the black, silver-dotted canvas. 

A gliding fragrance

My father’s fragrance races him to wherever he’s going. It enters rooms, unannounced, long before him. With no doors knocked and no permission asked it pierces through, marking the end of his day and the beginning of mine. It is fresh, freshness of an icy blue winter morning, of pine. It fills the room demanding attention, respect and obedience. A scent that doesn’t roll but glides, it is sharp like a steel blue fountain pen, sometimes edgy and always powerful. Like the smoothness of leather, it is not warm nor tender but crisp like zesty aftershave yet heavy like musk. A fragrance, if spilled on paper, would tear right through. Whether mixed with the stench of cigarettes or the rich aroma of coffee, it always lingers behind, long after he’s gone.