by Amirah Al-Wassif
Dear and poor Eve,
I am writing to you now without putting my right hand on my chest, quivering from cold and grief.
I don’t cry any more mom, just hide under our destroyed table, count my breath.
a very long time spent while my humble sitting holding my dirty cotton doll, watching the footsteps of the hurry passengers on our crowded road. As usual, I am putting my mad eyes into the wide openings of our ragged tent, waiting to catch someone eyes, perhaps seeing these eyes convincing me that I am still alive!
I am still your sweet daughter, your lovely baby, the crawler on the sharp platforms every midnight, I am still your patience girl who walking after your shadow, looking for the warmth of your heart and the smell of your face.
Last night I dreamed about you, I was showering under the honey down, and you appeared obviously in front of me and tried your best to touch my little belly with your warm fingers, in my dream , i were baby with wavy hair and you were my immortal mother who still moving her big fingers under her baby belly in order to making her laughing , but in spite of her great job, her baby still crying!
I am writing to you with a flushed dirty face and unique kind of delicious confusion which make me whisper through the long hours of the day and night, whispering like an immigrant bird which may dissolve because of the thrill of meeting!
It is my dearest confusion, I have ever taken in my
Whole life as a woman decided to write with her foot for a long time.
everybody here in my world still wondering how could a woman dare to write with her foot?
Everybody here in my ( third world ) whisper from the first light of down until the last light of twilight, my people want seriously to catch my inner secret, they addicted to asking each other about my upturned situation.
“Writing with your foot, how dare you?!” They cried in front of my face and behind my back. they never stop asking and asking and asking, and I concealed my heart very well because in the case of they saw it, they will discover immediately my secret, if it happened they will know the only answer of ” how a woman dare writing with her foot”?
My days acts her strangest and last dance with shaken fingers and bare feet, surrounded with walls, only walls around me, watching me, touching my pain, only walls listening to my forbidden song, only walls witnessing my writing fever, only these
Inanimate objects feeling more than living people!
If you are a writer, there will be a weird rumor never leave you which based upon some upper stories such as you use the stars as punctuation, and the blue of skies is your immortal ink that never runs dry, and you have a deal with angles and devils, also you spy on every insect crawled on the earth.
If you are a writer, you may see the shadow of William Shakespeare every midnight above your head, explain to you how to eat the time, how to dissolve your self between letters, he will explain to you how to put your heart on the paper without pretending.
As a woman decided to write with her foot, I just asked how to think differently, how to play with your imagination ball like a professional player?
My name is Baraka, one of those homeless women who spent their spring age on the cold sidewalks, eating nothing, feeling nothing, tried their best to tame neediness.
I have no idea about the rosy dreams and all I know is scratching the trash cans every night.
And about my pillow, it is not surprising to be a haystack!
When the honey down, watered my hair, I figured out that I am in the middle of nowhere when the headlights blocked my sight, I touched my darkness.
Who am I?
I am a very patient crawler on the rough edges of life, I am a naked woman because of the conspiracy of poverty, lean body stretched along the torn papers which covered the grim pavement.
I am here writing in my mind, in my blood, create my own imaginary world which doesn’t seem similar to my harsh fate.
All my whole life, I have been covered with an ecstasy of writing. i gorge my poor flesh with clay and this weird stuff, not my choice at all.
Dear Eve, I were dissolving under the furious sky, need your help to clean my dirty body, I am here in one of the street corners recalling your great spirit against the boys who chased me by throwing clay which forced me to run away, in fact, I couldn’t escape away from their harsh beats, but really I do it, literary , I ran away here in my imaginary world!
I have shed tears here under the elder tree, touching my ribs during that much time.
I am not blind, I am just half-educated woman who lives in a separate tent on one side of our hungry street, a half-educated woman who still desperately dream to finish her education, but how an orphaned female in the third world dares to demand to achieve any dream except getting married?!
I was crawling on the floor, trying to count my breath slowly and hurry. It is my exclusive moment where I stitch my poetry piece. The very lost time when I contemplate myself as a baby with a wide mouth and curious eyes.
And the hours pass heavily, my poor heart couldn’t bear any more. yes, it is me the funniest creature you see ever, the ocean which walks on two feet, and that idiot elephant which bitterly wish to fit the crazy fashion.
There is a mysterious voice escaping away from the ticking of my watch, the voice haunted me, beat my soul with harsh weapon, here in the heart of my ears all these secrets which nights hide them very well, every secret scream in the silence of space ” who am I ” ?, and I join to their mourning now with nonstop of repeating ” who am I “?!
Your daughter,
Baraka
Amirah Al-Wassif is a freelance writer. She has written articles, novels, short stories poems and songs. Five of her books were written in Arabic and many of her English works have been published in various cultural magazines. Amirah is passionate about producing literary works for children, teens, and adults which represent cultures from around the world. Her first book, Who do not Eat Chocolate was published in 2014 and her latest illustrated book, The Cocoa Book and Other Stories, is forthcoming.