Creative'ink of the week By:
Islem, an eighteen year old senior from Susah, Tunisia.
Islem fell in love with spoken word poetry when she came back from a writing program called "Between The Lines" which took place in Iowa, U.S.A.
To this day, she still thinks it's the best experience that she had in her entire life. “I wouldn't have discovered Spoken Word if it wasn't for this program. I wouldn't have organized my very first Poetry Event last January. I wouldn't have had the courage to actually publishmy first novel this summer. I'm excited about it. I hope people will love reading it just as much as I loved writing it. I simply owe BTL a lot.”, she says.
Islem started writing when she was twelve right after reading her first English Novel The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. She says “I immediately connected with the character even though I couldn't quite get the whole book at first read due to my limited knowledge of the English Language. I just remember I somehow managed to get the fact that the main character was a lot like me. I found a friend in Charlie, so I started writing letters to him, and I haven't stopped ever since.
That's how it all started, just letters to an imaginary friend. I then fell in love, like most people do. Only I couldn't love people in a normal way. I could only love people from afar. So I write about them, and never tell them. And when the time comes, I just walk up to them and say "Oh hey, I have written a book about you. I love you." Don't do this. It's stupid”. Islem’sbiggest fear is forgetting and being forgotten. So she uses writing in an attempt to linger and make people remember me. She also writes about the people that she wants to remember. She basically turns people into books.
Islem chooses to think of herself this way. “I never really like to say that I am a writer. It feels weird. I like to call myself a practitioner of the loneliest art.”
This poem is about someone I decided to remember. I'm not so sure if he remembers me, but despite everything I think it's still worth it. I actually think it's quite interesting, painful, but interesting, to think that there are a lot more people to love and remember than people who love and remember me.
September 23rd
It is seven days before my birthday, and I already have a list on my mind of things he is possibly and most likely going to do to make my heart ache for the right reasons, just for this time:
7 Days Before,
He will not walk past me in the school's hallway.
He will not turn left when I turn right. He will not
turn to his best friend and ask him a question he already knows the answer for
just to avoid my eyes, searching for him even when he is right in front of me.
Instead, my name will fall off his lips gracefully and it will sound like
the end of the world and the very beginning of it at the same time.
I will turn around. He will be wearing the same warm,
shy smile that I've grown to adore. I will have an excuse to look at him for
longer than one stolen glance five days a week at ten in the morning.
He will give me a mixtape of all the songs that we've
listed to each other that one time in French class last year. He will tell me
that he still remembers and I will tell him that his voice is the greatest song
that I've heard since I've learned to love the girl that he left behind, though
I am still not sure whether it's a sad or a happy one. I will tell him that
I've stopped looking for songs that pour my heart out and started looking for
ones that fill up his silence and say all the things he failed to. I will
tell him that I wanted him to be more than a song played from underneath a
tear-stained pillow so quietly so I can still hear myself breathing. Please
don't turn into a song. Please. Please. Please.
'Happy birthday.'
6 Days Before,
He will write me a letter.
I've been carrying my backpack around half zipped for a while now. I am sure he will find a way to slip his letter inside without me noticing because he will not have figured out how to talk to me yet and I will have still not learnt how not to let my love fall off my lips like violent waves, not the kind that you ride but the kind that drowns you.
I will go back home and read words he has written with hands I've been dreaming of holding since last January. I will smile a smile that is my own for the first time in months, and continue reading about a bitter sweet closure and a boy whose heart is now a dead language I wish I could speak fluently.
He will write to me. And i will tell him that every poem still tastes of him. He will write to me 'You do have someone who writes back. You do deserve all the love you're giving away.
'Happy birthday'
5 Days Before,
He will get me a copy of my favourite book.
He will have read it and highlighted the parts that remind him of me. He will hold my hand and tell me that he understands. Now he understands. Now he knows. Now he stays.
'Happy birthday.'
4 Days Before,
He will get me a mini galaxy snow globe for when I feel too small.
He will tell me how the universe has made a home out of my heart. He will tell me that if the cloud of dust and gas that created the Big Bang had been missing even one tiny particle, there would have been no Big Bang. Therefore, there would have been no universe. He will tell me that I am made of all of these particles. They are a part of me. And I am just as important as each and every single one of them. He will tell me that i made the universe. It lives inside me and it wouldn't be existent without me. He will tell me that I matter.
'Happy birthday.'
Three,
He will wrap his arms around me like I am his universe.
He will whisper to my ear all the words I've been craving him to say for as long as I can remember. He will pull away, he will stare into my eyes, and I will stare into his and realize that they are not blue.
'Happy birthday.'
Two,
He will send me the longest text message of appreciation because he will have looked for me everywhere at school but failed to find me.
He will tell me how bright i make his world, and he will apologize for the hurt he caused me when he was hurting. I will tell him it is okay, forget this. I don't need him to be sorry, i just need him to be listening. I need him to be listening to my heart beating out of my chest as I try to learn how to carefully unfold the memories I've been trying to push to the very back of my mind for the longest time. I will remind myself of all the things that made me love him. I will remind myself that there are still some things about me that would still make him want to love me.
'Happy birthday.'
One,
He will post a simple Happy Birthday on my profile.
I'll pretend Facebook didn't have to remind him. I'll pretend that he remembered all on his own.
This is around the time when I will start making excuses for his absence. He hasn't spoken to me in months and when he came back, he wasn't himself. My eyes will see the love marks across his skin as bruises and scars caused by my negligence.
I will wish to kiss all his pain away but I will not be able to near him because I will remember that i am most aware of how broken I am when someone decides to stay and hold me together. I will start bracing myself for the apologies. I don't want him to be sorry. I only want him to be listening. Stay. Stay. I need you to stay.
'Happy birthday.'
Zero,
He will smile a sad smile from across the hall as I stare at him behind the silhouettes of all the people that I love that aren't him. A smile that says "I haven't forgotten. But I need to stop remembering." He hasn't forgotten. He hasn't.
He has.
'Happy birthday.'
I was born in the fall.
The time when falling leaves tumble from the interlocking branches above, branches that grow so thickly only bright gaps of sunshine break through. I often compare him to the sun. And today, I stare at him for too long, far too long, and when I look away, I can't see anything but him, everything has faded away and his light is the only thing I see. The only thing that's blinding me.
I was born in the fall.
The time when beautiful things can't help but end no matter how beautiful they are. Happy birthday. He is the most beautiful sunset that I've ever witnessed. Happy birthday. He is the dawn i never wish to see. Happy birthday. I can never make a dying thing sound or look beautiful no matter how much I try. Happy birthday. Today is the day i know that I've lost him. Or he's lost me. Or we've lost each other. It doesn't matter. There's the suffocating scent of loss and death lingering in the air. Yet I still have to call it a birthday.
Happy birthday.
It's seven months before his birthday, and I already have a list of things I will probably never be alive enough to tell him,
"You are still my favourite song. Happy birthday."
"You are still my favourite poem. Happy birthday."
"You are still my brightest star. Happy birthday."
"You are still my happiest heartbeat. Happy birthday."
"You are still my sunniest day. Happy birthday."
"When I said forget this, I didn't mean forget me. Happy birthday."
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