so peachy

the skin on your

sex

is as delicate as the

fuzz

on a ripe

Turkish peach

and

both are

as

indescribably

juicy

at the first bite.

Poof! It goes

The electricity went out suddenly. Poof! And we were immersed in darkness – not total, for beyond the walls of the compound, we could see the glare of white lights reflecting into the night sky.

I sat still and grabbed my handbag close. Just in case.

In a room down the hall, children screamed in mock horror (I assumed) . I sat silent, not saying a word, except for the initial exclamation: “Allaaaah!”

Around the room, women shone the screens of their mobile phones to light the space around them.

One woman started to give thanks for all that we had in Kuwait and how unimaginable life would be without electricity.

Another woman murmured: “This was our situation in Lebanon this summer. The electricity would go off for hours!”

Then, for the lack of anything more inspiring, they started to wonder who to bless, the man who had invented electricity.

So a couple of voices shouted Newton.

So much for  your college education, ladies.

I was going to say something fanciful: like,  it’s alien technology, ladies. But then I would be blasphemous. I didn’t mention Tesla. I thought Edison would be a more familiar household name.

Ah, they exclaimed! Yes, yes, Edison. Bless him. Where would we have been without him?

When the lights went on again, there were squeals of delight. The air conditioners started up again. The television was staring at us once more from the corner. And half the women had their heads bent over a Blackberry, an iPhone, or a humble Nokia mobile as they resorted to communicating with people who were only in their virtual world.

And I resorted to munching on the smoked sunflower seeds with thoughtful vengeance.

a pair of sensual bumps

“I’ve heard that breast enlargement implants cans seriously affect a woman’s sensations and consequently her pleasure,” I said to the room full of women. “If anyone of you knows a woman who has had breast enhancement implants, can you ask her if it has minimized her ability to feel pleasure?”

There were a few uncomfortable looks cast at me. I’m not sure if it was because there were unmarried girls in the room (who probably knew more about sensuality than their mothers) , or if my frank question painted an erotic  image of  a woman’s erogenous zones, rather than just a pair of bumps that add to a visually pleasing package.

Later I chuckled to myself in private. Oh, how brazen of me.

seriously pondering a jokey jab

Are you fasting?

He asked

in jest.

I replied,

two days later,

No.

I was put on

earth

to test

the resolve

of people like

you

Berhi V

Crunchy

bittersweet berhi

deep sunny yellow,

sometimes

still greenish

unripe

at the head,

mostly

deeply yellow,

sun-kissed

rounded

hard

delightfully crunchy

once popped in my wet mouth,

sweetly juicy

with a delicious

heady high note

that keeps me

wanting you more;

making my throat

dry with anticipation.

thoughts of ripe berhi

waiting for me

in the heat,

passion

waiting to

be savoured

consumed

and altered.

If we all cared enough

I sat alone at the bus stop, perched on the narrow red bench. The breeze was cool and the mid-morning air was pleasant.

A woman made her way hurriedly down the pavement, casting a look behind her right shoulder. I immediately turned my gaze to the road to determine whether or not the bus was coming.

It wasn’t.

But the woman was charging along with great purpose. She was a neatly dressed middle-aged woman dressed in a conventional skirt, a suitable top, and with  jewellery picked to complete her look.

Her appearance I was able to ascertain  as she got close but her behaviour before struck me as odd and I averted my gaze, looking  at the trees instead, and guarding her with my peripheral vision.

As she walked towards the bus stop, she bent down to collect the litter. Some tissues here, some paper, some bottles, bits of plastic. She gathered them in her hands and dumped them into the litter bin adjacent to the bus stop.

“There!” she cried out triumphantly. “All done!”

She looked at me with a satisfied expression and smiled.

And here,  I laughed heartily. And all suspicions were cast to the wind.
I turned to her as she also perched on the red bench beside me and we started to chat.

She started to tell me about somewhere she had been in Asia where there was no litter anywhere in this remote area she was touring. She went on to say how the guide had told her it was not always like that but that they started with the young children and taught them from an early age at school about cleanliness and not to litter.

I had to restrain myself from telling her my experience in Kuwait. Here our children have it hammered into them from KG not to litter, and how cleanliness is next to godliness, and yet,…yes, yet we have a miserable problem with litter in this country.
I didn’t say anything. It was too beautiful a morning to be negative.

My bus stop companion however was more energetic.

She started to complain about the bus. I noted to her that it had improved over the years. She countered that yes, it had but it still took ages. In those moments, she tried to convince me to write and complain about the service.

“Just think if everyone did it, then we could change the way this bus runs. It would be more efficient and everyone would be happy. I’m serious. If you write and I write and we tell everyone we know to petition, then things can change.”

The bus arrived and predictably, the woman went all the way to the back of the bus, leaving the front seats for those older, handicapped, or passengers with little children and heavy shopping bags.

I am Rapunzel

What keeps me from writing is an invisible bar, keeping me at bay, a fiberglass, semi-transparent bendable sheet; an illusion through which I see my creative thoughts in blurry movements.  At times my interruptions come in a more obtrusive manner: the shrill ringing of the telephone; calls for attention; demands for my presence to which I cannot say: No, I would like to be alone now. Please understand.

My dreams are bursting at the seams these days, full of adventures, full of mini thrillers, and full of untold stories forgotten with the first fluttering of eyelids and the realization that night has turned into a  hot starkly sunny day.

There are invisible bars around me, the kind of rods that buzz if touched so I dare not venture too close to them. I stay within a safe distance and listen to stories that arrive with those people who are free to come and go beyond those bars.

I am Rapunzel but I no longer let down my hair. It is short and I do not believe in extensions. And so I am here alone.