Yet, You Completely Missed My Point. Your Stance On This Was Flawed Right From The Beginning Itself,

MAGDALENE BRIDE

There’s guilt that I retch onto the floor, and my rotting flesh stains the chapel, seeping into the cracks more than any of my prayers ever could. I gnaw at my own ribs, scraping them to pieces. The priest has remnants of me defiling his mouth, and the stoic eyes gaping at me from the pews—painted the same white as the walls, which have long forsaken me—don’t betray their dignity. Their postures are perfect, their suits well-pressed, and their expressions unyielding. The one awaited does not show up; he has become a prayer. Instead, he turns the bend and smiles—a smile that hints at quiet encouragement.

My body hits the floor, my knees bleeding—applauses are what reverberate. The space reeks of jasmine and myrrh, and the cold bite of metal from the cross stings my skin. The communion wafers lie long forgotten, and the sacramental wine dulls with the passage of time.I witness the priest standing a few feet away, his hands trembling with hunger."Young girls have corruption in their minds," he says. The horror of Jesus, hanging limply from the crucifix, his hands bleeding where they’ve been nailed and his feet rupturing flesh, gapes at me with open eyes full of helplessness and dread. A rag—grey with time, stained with his blood that is infected with rejection—hangs at his pelvis. The wooden framework encasing his heart of impotence and throat of meekness withers and cracks in the sun, but the dews remain cold. The congregation jitters and jeers, repulses and admires, devours and purges—they merely talk.

The stained-glass windows have witnessed men and women alike, with the eyes of its saints gouged out and their presence bleached by the sun. The children sink their nails into my skin as they taunt with their smiles, the candles serving them, delighting in the play they call their game. They like their toy. The priest prays at my hips, the altar cold and unforgiving against my back. He probes and digs at my flesh, tearing at it, splitting the skin—it does not tear cleanly. It clings because it lies. It pretends to be whole. The fibers, caught in clumps, wrap around his fingers, the blood soaking into his robes. But the sinews keep winding around his nails as he sinks deeper into the pulp. I witness my gaze burdening Jesus; he trembles, but his feet remain heavy with inaction, his body slack—limp, listless, beneath the weight of his own faithless mercy. It starts slow—a tear—but then my skin stretches and squelches. The audience gasps and gapes, the children laugh, Jesus suffers the terror of ridicule, and the rosary beads are made ever more maroon with blood spooling onto them.

What are your favorite Arabic poems, if you have any?

These are some of my favorites:

An Ocean Without Shore, Ibn ‘Arabi

Fragment from Al-Buhturi’s Wolf

From the Luzumiyat of al-Ma’arri

From the Diwan of al-Ma’arri

Reality, Rabia al-Basri

Love, Rabia al-Basri

The Enchanter of Dust: Psalm, Adonis

The Wound, Adonis

I Pray Behind My Shadow, Bahija Massri Adelbi

The Spirit Bows to the Will of Love, Munir Mezyed

The Manner of Sand, Mahmood al-Braikan

Exculpation, Khalil Mutran

Revolt Against the Sun, Nazik al-Mala’ika

Myths, Nazik al-Mala’ika

Who am I?, Nazik al-Mala’ika

A Stranger at the Gulf, Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

An Alphabetical Formation, Faraj Bayraqdar

A couple of fragments from Sanieh Salh

Sorrows of the Black City, Muhammad al-Fayturi

Shadows, Wadih Sa’adah

The Strange Grief, al-Shabbi

A Storm in the Dark, al-Shabbi

A Body, Al-Saddiq al-Raddi

Annihilation, Muhammad Afifi Matar

Fragments from ‘Quartet of Joy’, Muhammad Affifi Matar

Mural, Mahmoud Darwish

We Will Choose Sophocles, Mahmoud Darwish 

Clouds, Ounsi el-Hajj

Smoke Bloom, Nadia Anjuman

Boat to Lesbos, Nourri al-Jarrah

Your body is my map, Nizar Qabbani

The boop is gone... pain... misery... darkness

“the arts and sciences are completely separate fields that should be pitted against each other” the overlap of the arts and sciences make up our entire perceivable reality they r fucking on the couch

I dream of living in a small one bedroom apartment with my husband, with a huge white couch that isn't really practical, with baby blue and yellow accents everywhere,and a balcony I rarely use becuse it hangs over the train line, which is fine becuse I use it to grab groceries from the farmers market and we cook our favourite food together and invite friends over for themed movie and game nights

Flower details

the marrow in my bones is filled with rot and my organs are covered in mold