Day 30: Not the Last Poem ~ Alyah Al Aswad
This is not the last poem I write.
We used to be hand held mugs of hot cocoa in a basement the morning after a highschool slumber party. We used to be clutched kite strings in green spaces where dogs poop and kids ride bikes with 3 wheels. That one afternoon, a family looked beyond the elasticity of gender bends in my suspenders and smiled intently, as if it should make up for a marriage contract. Your face was a ripe tangerine in the sunlight. You sat on my knee as we watched a wedding ensuing 10 feet away. You asked if I think we could have a two-dress wedding in a few years.
I said; Yes, I want kids who enjoy the occasional smackdowns with sugar commas. In reality, I wanted your kids and hoped they would enjoy an occasional smackdown with a sugar comma. 4 months later I proposed to you on one knee and a $180 solitaire ring - I was a student and it was all I could afford. You said yes, but once I arrived home the summer after graduation, you said the entire engagement was a silly idea. because we were still kids. It broke my heart.
You moved to a third world country to be with me. I became distant and swallowed a wandering eyeball. One time on my way out of the door you said; baby, come back home tonight. Come back sleep next to you tonight. Come back, slip into a hoodie knitted of my feelings for you tonight. Come back home tonight. Make home in you again, and I wished I had it in me.
This is not the last poem I write about what happened, because this is not even a poem. It is a document. It’s exactly what happened.
We used to be hand held mugs of hot cocoa in a basement the morning after a highschool slumber party. We used to be clutched kite strings in green spaces where dogs poop and kids ride bikes with 3 wheels. That one afternoon, a family looked beyond the elasticity of gender bends in my suspenders and smiled intently, as if it should make up for a marriage contract. Your face was a ripe tangerine in the sunlight. You sat on my knee as we watched a wedding ensuing 10 feet away. You asked if I think we could have a two-dress wedding in a few years.
I said; Yes, I want kids who enjoy the occasional smackdowns with sugar commas. In reality, I wanted your kids and hoped they would enjoy an occasional smackdown with a sugar comma. 4 months later I proposed to you on one knee and a $180 solitaire ring - I was a student and it was all I could afford. You said yes, but once I arrived home the summer after graduation, you said the entire engagement was a silly idea. because we were still kids. It broke my heart.
You moved to a third world country to be with me. I became distant and swallowed a wandering eyeball. One time on my way out of the door you said; baby, come back home tonight. Come back sleep next to you tonight. Come back, slip into a hoodie knitted of my feelings for you tonight. Come back home tonight. Make home in you again, and I wished I had it in me.
This is not the last poem I write about what happened, because this is not even a poem. It is a document. It’s exactly what happened.
Day 30 Writing Prompt (Final Day!)
Begin with, “This is not the last poem I will write…”
Day 29 Poem: Rainy Jazz ~ Alyah Al Aswad
This is not about a girl, because a head of dandelion feather and lava blood leaking into rocky capillaries right when the night divorces me, does not pay the rent.
Mornings under a roof are just a proclamation that you got your ass off the streets for 10 hours. For 10 fingers of ours aren’t enough to keep our nudity warm.
How do you rewind an eviction notice into a welcome note addressing us as the next tenants.
I have a dented barrel in my living room, oozing gray in the aftermath of a flame quarreling with my own manuscripts. The little I own peals my lips into orange pulp feeding on canned fear of hunger. I love what I write, but my darling got cold last night. Her toes pet the oak of my studio floors at 6:47 am, after one alarm snoozed itself into a 10 minute death. I touched her back with jumper cable arms to electrify the daily rise. I sit in an unmade bed, dipped in mattress warmth. She used to say good-morning, but stopped. The foaming of scratched brush and tooth is supposed to say something to me to replace the words I lost in the barrel, but silence isn’t something I can beat onto a typewriter.
From her spot in the kitchen, she manages to recreate the rain hitting my bedroom window glass with whole grains ticking against the ceramic of a bowl. My stomach feels as thick as hollow milk-box compressed. I stand inside my tied shoes, jeans buttoned on, but topless as her unbuttered toast. I slip into my cup of coffee, eyeing her through the steam. She scrambles for office keys, when I’d much rather she’d be a squatter frying scramble eggs in a pan with me. Nine to five jobs are proof of an abusive relationship with bills in the mail. She shouldn’t have gone for the doorknob. My lap was still spare and my day unplanned as a pregnancy scare. At the edge of by hallway, she said goodbye.
Who would want to wake up to a goodbye.
Mornings under a roof are just a proclamation that you got your ass off the streets for 10 hours. For 10 fingers of ours aren’t enough to keep our nudity warm.
How do you rewind an eviction notice into a welcome note addressing us as the next tenants.
I have a dented barrel in my living room, oozing gray in the aftermath of a flame quarreling with my own manuscripts. The little I own peals my lips into orange pulp feeding on canned fear of hunger. I love what I write, but my darling got cold last night. Her toes pet the oak of my studio floors at 6:47 am, after one alarm snoozed itself into a 10 minute death. I touched her back with jumper cable arms to electrify the daily rise. I sit in an unmade bed, dipped in mattress warmth. She used to say good-morning, but stopped. The foaming of scratched brush and tooth is supposed to say something to me to replace the words I lost in the barrel, but silence isn’t something I can beat onto a typewriter.
From her spot in the kitchen, she manages to recreate the rain hitting my bedroom window glass with whole grains ticking against the ceramic of a bowl. My stomach feels as thick as hollow milk-box compressed. I stand inside my tied shoes, jeans buttoned on, but topless as her unbuttered toast. I slip into my cup of coffee, eyeing her through the steam. She scrambles for office keys, when I’d much rather she’d be a squatter frying scramble eggs in a pan with me. Nine to five jobs are proof of an abusive relationship with bills in the mail. She shouldn’t have gone for the doorknob. My lap was still spare and my day unplanned as a pregnancy scare. At the edge of by hallway, she said goodbye.
Who would want to wake up to a goodbye.
Day 29 Writing Prompt
Write a poem using all the words in the list.
Obsession
· toes
· gray
· rewind
· oak
· slip
· gray
· rewind
· oak
· slip
Day 28 Poem ~ Alyah Al Aswad
Re-crumple the geometry on the college block of an exhale,
into a shadow show of flames
that dance in the pit of your diaphragm.
Her eyes have learned how to fork yellow sun ray missing the flat of a wooden blind,
so her joy can splatter like egg yolk.
She talks at me,
with the consideration that my depth is shallow fried
because I barely unribbon the instruction in her voice,
just sink my pocket watch in her voice,
as it pumps through the valves of my
tonight, wine bottle, and alone,
I sweep her hum under my memory rug as she talks weight and iron
I need its acoustics in my bones in winter.
She doesnt speak enough.
She communicates in knee caps slashing their way through
the thick of people.
Her best temperament visits on Wednesdays.
She sits on the ground,
knees bent backwards
and exed.
Her hair is a throne.
Her neck is pivotal.
She does not walk,
she orchestrates with hips.
She is an orchid growing in the wood of a farm swing.
Day 28 Writing Prompt
Write a poem using all the words in the list:
Cheese Please
· pump
· orchids
· yellow
· flame
· knee caps
Sick Leave
Hey Everyone,
I’ve been rather sick for the past couple of days, and that is what has slowed me down on the 30/30 challenge. Its extremely difficult for me to generate poetry with a sore throat - believe me, I’ve tried sitting at my computer to write a poem a few times, I’m just too exhausted.
I just need a day or two to recover, and then we’ll be back on track. I apologize for the inconsistency, but sometimes human immune systems falter at the worst times.
By the way, I am looking to feature a few queer writers on the blog, so if you think you’re interested, please inbox me or shoot me an email.
Alyah
Day 27 Writing Prompt
Take any object out of your bag or pocket or purse, and speak in first person AS THE OBJECT.
Submissions welcomed.
Day 26: Family Secret ~ Alyah Al Aswad
My family’s biggest secret,
is a moment in a romantic novel,
where pages begin to bite on bookmarks
to help keep their mouths shut,
dividing the book’s spine in such a way that mourns a Berliner’s precedence of
dividing people to keep their mouths shut.
is a moment in a romantic novel,
where pages begin to bite on bookmarks
to help keep their mouths shut,
dividing the book’s spine in such a way that mourns a Berliner’s precedence of
dividing people to keep their mouths shut.
My bed is in my parents house.
In my bed.
I fold the girl I like into an origami of secrets,
because we had just arrived at that moment
where she bites on my shoulder
to keep her mouth shut.
I fold the girl I like into an origami of secrets,
because we had just arrived at that moment
where she bites on my shoulder
to keep her mouth shut.
And I hold in my breath,
so she can come undone.
Day 25: The Man Who Waited For A Heart ~ Alyah Al Aswad
He lays on a stretcher,
with the same poise it requires to sit at a Parisian cafe,
understanding a newspaper he cannot read,
waiting for a woman to walk his veins into red carpets.
He is in his 37th year.
He likes shopping for kitchen appliances,
and when he’s in love,
he handles his insecurities as wallpaper,
so one naked girl inside the box can be in the know,
and he hoped one day his box would be enough to make a home.
He believes in heartbreaks,
He breaks down while making love,
because his big love ran away with
his lifetime, and his unnamed kids
and left him with nothing;
other than heart malfunctions.
People love,
the get sick sometimes.
He lays on stretcher,
with the nervous smile you find in grocery shops on Thanksgiving mornings,
and the joy of little people the height of turkey freezers.
He wanted a couple of those - he wanted them to grow under his Christmas tree.
He used to wait for people,
But he no longer qualifies as a bachelor,
he just qualifies for insurance;
and it makes him feel like a sour cup of yogurt.
Today, he waits for things people at hospitals wait for;
a cup of coffee,
jello,
with the same poise it requires to sit at a Parisian cafe,
understanding a newspaper he cannot read,
waiting for a woman to walk his veins into red carpets.
He is in his 37th year.
He likes shopping for kitchen appliances,
and when he’s in love,
he handles his insecurities as wallpaper,
so one naked girl inside the box can be in the know,
and he hoped one day his box would be enough to make a home.
He believes in heartbreaks,
He breaks down while making love,
because his big love ran away with
his lifetime, and his unnamed kids
and left him with nothing;
other than heart malfunctions.
People love,
the get sick sometimes.
He lays on stretcher,
with the nervous smile you find in grocery shops on Thanksgiving mornings,
and the joy of little people the height of turkey freezers.
He wanted a couple of those - he wanted them to grow under his Christmas tree.
He used to wait for people,
But he no longer qualifies as a bachelor,
he just qualifies for insurance;
and it makes him feel like a sour cup of yogurt.
Today, he waits for things people at hospitals wait for;
a cup of coffee,
jello,
a transplant surgery,
or the nearest exit.
or the nearest exit.
This blog documents the memoirs of a Queer Arab Muslim Woman, who holds an interest in the advancement of LGBTQ awareness within Middle Eastern societies. Alyah Al Aswad is a young writer, activist, poet and spoken word artist, based in Amman, Jordan. For bookings, interviews and blog sponsorship inquiries, please contact the author at riversoulx@gmail.com.
