The rinsing through of passing years
puts a fair amount of
stretch and fade
in to the spaces between mistakes.
Just three more minutes
on this cycle
and you will never have happened.
Author: saaleha
I am a writer and photographer (look up my work on www.shootcake.com) based in Johannesburg, South Africa. I have an MA in Creative Writing from the university currently known as Rhodes. My writing accolades include winning the 2014 Writivism Short Story Prize and the 2020 Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize for my debut collection, Zikr.
Things I probably should’ve given Naeem the heads-up on
via Hamish
1. I have a real problem managing time.
2. Hence I’m a pro-procrastinator.
3. It is difficult for me to wake up early especially if there is nothing pressing to attend to.
4. I sing along to jingles and other tracks when I watch TV or listen to the radio.
5. Chaos is my element.
6. I’m always up for eating strange things.
7. I like the bitterness of schweppes dry lemon and malts.
8. My dreams are often strange and textbook. (There’s one I would like to translate into an art installation; a swimming pool shell filled with condoms that have had little notes placed in them by people writing about their regrets or unfulfilled dreams)
9. I’m easily distracted.
10. I can lose hours on repetitive games.
11. I really, really don’t like conflict.
12. I’m selfish. Not because I want to be, but because I don’t know how to be any other way. (I am an only child)
13. My stuff is everywhere.
14. I speak silly.
Window in Masjid Bilal, Madinat Nasr
I ran one of those vintage photoshop actions on the photo of a window in Masjid Bilal. It’s just down the road from our flat in Madinat Nasr. I’ll be posting more pics soon. Perhaps I should retitle my 20-ken project to “The Year of Shooting Recklessly”. I’ve been a bit suck about the writing. Our place is on Naguib Mahfouz street, so I’m trying to channel some prolific writer spirit. So far all I’m filling up with is karkadey and basboosah. Good gorge, Cairo’s wonderful.
Pedobear fi Misr
We spotted this on our way to the Cairo Book Fair:
Acute Fail.
I am allowed one lookie-me moment per year
If I had known I’d be seeing six of my words in typesetted/isbn-ed glory, I would have put a bit more pith into them.
Though still, freaking yay! And they send you your very own contributor’s copy. I’ve got nothing but heart for Smith Magazine and HarperCollins.
7 – between memories
If we do not write,
we will forget
and be
forgotten.
[I’m reminded of my late maternal grandfather who would keep rectangles of cardboard torn from cigarette cartons in his pocket and use them to note down any thing of interest. He was a meticulous record-keeper, and each family member had their own file in the curious grey cabinet I’d spend hours scratching through as a child. Birth records, school results, newspaper clippings, First Aid certificates, letters; that’s how I met my mother’s brothers who had passed on before I was born.]
born-again
Have you ever seen
the girl who can cry confetti?
Every shake of her head
scatters the celebrations
from her lachrymals
She wants to baptize you
In paper rainbows.
It’s freaky, I know.
But don’t turn away,
you can’t drown.
It runneth over
Food, friends, family;
A full house
makes for a big home.
completion made manifest
completion made manifest
Our love comes down to bread, milk and bananas.
The staff of life,
The stuff of bones,
The stomach-cramping fruit, his favourite whole,
I can only eat them baked, cooked or blended.
Our love comes down to who picks up the socks,
And who leaves them on the floor.
Who switches on the lights
And who changes the lightbulbs.
We’ve scaled no mountains (well, maybe Kilimanjaro one day should our bones obey)
We’ve swum no seas (need lessons first, the both of us)
We fought not long nor hard for us.
He did not write a song for me.
He didn’t have to.