AlAnoud Writes

2021

I am writing.

I find myself here every night, typing

my notes, my therapist, my friend,

my fear, my enemy without an end.

Something rises, taking over me.

I hold a tear that won’t let me be,

a tear that bothers me because I can’t see

where it was born or what it wants from me.

There’s a quiet blast inside my chest,

a trembling rhythm that won’t rest

a melody my heart tries to confess

in scattered notes I can’t address.

I feel like a piano; old, worn, beige,

a rustic relic from another age,

standing on legs exhausted by weight,

playing out feelings I can’t translate.

What am I saying? Who would understand?

I suffocate in silence, sinking in notation land.

There’s a burden unseen, my hidden plea.

Can you hear the piano’s keys inside of me?

I guess not.

So I play till my fingers bleed

and somehow find beauty in the thing I need:

how the red from my hands stains ivory clean,

matching the piano’s keys like it’s part of the scene.

Here I go again, walking the dark,

finding light in a place without sparks.

The rest stays unspoken

unshared,

unimportant.

I am done.