Massacred Town

There is a black hole

where the last memory of a lover resides,

you call, unaware, that they’ve died 40 days back,

The speakers ring with subtle hope, inna ma al usri yusra*,

the evening prayer fades into torture cries

ringing from the same speakers.

There is a gaping hole

where images of twisted young bodies

are yellow under incandescent bulbs,

where blood trickles

from perforated backs and unseeing eyes.

~ Saadia,

On the day Shahid left us to embellish this massacre with our words

 

*Arabic: Verily with pain comes ease.

The pursuing and the tired

The art is by @bluewingphotos on instagram ❤

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly – Book Review

Believed to be the 1^st attempt at science-fiction, Frankenstein by Mary Shelly is a Gothic novel that starts off with Dr Victor Frankenstein’s creation of a human turned monster and centers around the occurrences that follow this unnatural event.

1. Title: The book was initially titled Frankenstein: the Modern Prometheus but the subtitle was removed in later publications. This, in my opinion, has contributed to the misconception of the monster being called ‘Frankenstein’ when it was never named in the book. While the original title and subtitle together referred to Dr Frankenstein’s feat of giving life to an amalgam of body parts, usage of the title alone has led to a popular belief that it refers to the monster.  Of course, the adaptations of the novel in the form of movies and plays have played a larger role in doing that.
2. Writing Style: Personally, I found the writing style to lack flow. The first 100 pages read like Victor Frankenstein was voicing thoughts as they came. This heavily retarded the pace of the book for me. However, the book begins to gain some pace after the 1^st 100 pages with the beginning of the monster’s account.

• Narration: All 3 narrators had the same voice, as pointed out by various critics. This made the book monotonous.
• Characters: While there were really only 2 main characters, the side characters lacked depth and description. It almost felt like they appeared whenever necessary, to carry the book onward but the reader never got to know much about their stories, background or values.

3. Themes: Science fiction, Gothic horror, guilt, ambition and its consequences/thirst for glory, the struggle against societal control, the contrast between isolation and society.
4. Rating: 1/5 stars

Based on:

• It took me a long, long while to get through
• Didn’t gain much value from it
• The story wasn’t absorbing at all
• The ending fell short of the buildup of the last 124 pages
• The downfall trope was heavy in Victor Frankenstein’s character
• Uni-dimensional side characters
• No description of the process that breathed life into the monster’s body

Frankenstein on Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/0007350961/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=3638&creative=24630&creativeASIN=0007350961&linkCode=as2&tag=saadia-21&linkId=47ebefad7761b8325867d7883007bd83

~ Saadia

 

Rent Party Jazz by William Miller – Book Review, Themes and Rating.

Rent Party Jazz is a short book about a young boy Sonny Comeaux and his mother living in New Orleans in poverty and how an empathetic stranger helps them pay rent and stay in their lodgings.

Review: This book represents the conditions of African-Americans in the 1920s and onwards realistically. The elements of optimism, empathy and love within the community made this a heart-warming read. This book, within a few pages, shows how art can bring people together and help us be more hopeful in times of hardship and impending disaster. The illustrations by Charlotte Riley Web are a perfect fit to the story line.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Themes: 

1.  African-American representation
2. Poverty
3. Responsibility
4. Hope
5. Community
6. Empathy
7. Art (Music)

Grab yourself a copy here:

https://amzn.to/2HoucRj

Or you can listen to it on YouTube:

~ Saadia

True Self care

I’ve realised that escaping grief leads to unanswered questions. It prevents you from learning about your problems and hence prolongs them.

True self care is hard, its messy and slow but its a skill we all need to acquire.

Art by Barooja (https://www.instagram.com/barooja/)

 

Autumn in March

I combined words I’d written at different points in life for this one.

What I aim to communicate through these words is the feeling of every day being mundane, possibility not exciting you anymore and being hopeless.

A Torch In The Night

She looks at fireworks
And the child in her resurfaces
I watch her, my stomach twisting
And despair creeping up my throat
She’s silhouetted against the night
And the skyline of this city
She’s beautiful
And I am afraid
For her, for what comes next.
She’s the torch in the night
And I run my way back
Skipping a step at the stairs
To the dark that feels familiar.
She’s alive
And I envy her
She’s brimming with delight
And I feel like my insides
Are burning and curling
I run my way back
So that I don’t run into decay.

~Saadia

People

There’s this girl, alive, mad and a masochist, all rolled into one. Her eyes are amber, brooding, and her scars, they run a bit too deep.

I’ve looked just enough to burn and frey at the seams
There’s another girl, pale skin, gold and cedar haired , with topaz eyes that remind me of summer sunrises. She is the living example of how an ideal person should balance life. But the other day I saw parallel cuts across her arm and wondered if anyone had it easy at all.
There’s this other girl, so different for everyone else, she is like the night sky when it is dipped in clouds, veins and tendrils of grey and ivory threating to overcome the sky; she is the moon that preserves beauty when at midnight the world looks like an unending slate of obsidian but she is also the thunder that cleaves the world apart. I wonder when she’ll learn of her own power.

– Saadia

Persistent Darkness

I wish I could share your burden
But the sky weighs too much
And it stays on your shoulders;
Tall and grey.
It is impossible to say
What it’d feel like
To live
With the moment
When your child’s eyes
Lost their light
Flashing before you
Every moment
And then the next
And the next
And the next.

– Saadia

Velvet

Your hair curves around itself
Like tresses of silk overlap
And like water
Ever flowing and unebbing
Like folds of velvet
Soft but firm
And dark… like the night sky
But flecked with lighter hues
Almost as if
Beams of light
Tear at the sky
With lethal claws of morning.

– Saadia