Writings
Poetry, prose, and stories, arranged like small letters on a winter desk. Every word here is Dua Fatima's, preserved exactly as it was written.
Internal Pursuit
“The lord resides within your heart; why seek him far away?”
Journey to Divine Acceptance
“Farid, view joy and sorrow with the same embrace.”
Asceticism
“Eat your own unbuttered crumbs, with thanks for what you gain.”
The Knotted Kerchief
“A mother's intuition, an alarm that had been quietly screaming in the back of her mind.”
Why “Porphyria's Lover” Feels More Relevant Now Than Ever
“Browning's poem is basically a handbook on toxic power politics.”
Impermanence
“Death does not arrive with footsteps.”
The Unwritten
“The page was white before the hand. The hand was flesh before the name.”
My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open
“My brain currently has approximately 1,243 tabs open.”
[+Voice] or [-Voice]
“Minimal pairs are minimal revolutions.”
Elusion
“Memory is a draft we keep; mistaken for an archive.”
The Menu
“They ask you to choose, as if choosing is the opposite of losing.”
Inheritance
“By evening, the chair had learned to stay empty.”
The Planet
“The missiles never missed, only the speeches did.”
The Wrong Planet
“Language has no verb for occupying another's home.”
The Wrong Planet II
“No one takes the soldier. The game cannot continue.”
The First Room
“They named my leaving birth.”
The Last Room
“They named my arriving death.”
They Kept Claiming
“They kept claiming the earth was theirs, until the earth claimed them back.”
Holy Profits
“The muezzin calls Allahu Akbar; the same lips praise the ruler.”
Let It Not Be Done
“The first man who sold his conscience did not call it a sale.”
If Only I Were (Human Enough)
“I shall continue practicing this remarkable art of looking exactly like one.”
Stand Alone
“When the sky goes that color; my children still know what blue looks like.”
Broken Mind
“They called it damaged. I called it bent like light.”
You and I
“The line was a circle. And You were standing inside I.”
I said Goodbye
“A whisper carried through a thousand unsteady mornings.”
The Cursed Bloodline
“A house the world called cursed, until there was no blood left to curse.”
In Dependence
“A daughter who can read carries light in her hands.”
Why the Obsession with Happiness is Making Us Sadder?
“We engineered the struggle out of our lives, and severed ourselves from meaning.”
Stuck? Write Like No One’s Watching
“Your only job is to start, however messy or dreamlike that start may be.”
You Were Here
“The same sentence, ending in six different silences.”
Why You Should Write Everyday
“Writing daily is my way of saying to myself, I am listening.”
What if GODOT Never Comes?
“Maybe the point was never Godot. It was what we chose to do while waiting.”
5 Things I learned writing my first book
“No one can tell your story the way you do.”
Wait
“In the pause after thunder, just before the rain.”
Dread
“An acrostic where the dawn arrives but brings no light.”
I Would Rather You
“A litany for the almost-chosen, the barely-kept.”
No Myth is Dead
“Tiresias, Sisyphus, Faustus, the old myths still walking the streets.”
Et Savez-vous
“What exactly, someday, will they say about you?”
Poor Sparrows
“Crows gathering more than hunger asked.”
Who Taught?
“Everything arrived knowing what it must become. Except the heart of man.”
Forward in Reverse
“Perhaps the future is not somewhere ahead, but something we have left behind.”
The Caged Falcon
“Blame not birds that cease to soar, when you've locked every open door.”
In the praise of Asymmetry
“A quiet treaty between all things that could destroy each other.”
Forsaken
“So many human bones. So many gardens nearly dried.”
Need we?
“Beneath these stones still stirs the ancient bones of those who wouldn't bow.”
Chronophagia
“The clock has no hands, only teeth.”
A Dialogue
“Sit in the silence, where you belong.”
Silent Screams
“A haunting reminder of the insidious nature of familial abuse, and the fragile road toward redemption.”
El papel aguanta todo
“Paper is the original therapist, it never gets lighter; we just grow stronger.”
Paper is a Backstabber
“A silent, smiling deceiver that lets you pour your soul out, and then betrays you in the light of day.”
Anthology Contributions
Contributor · Poetry
Contributor · Poetry
Contributor · Poetry
Contributor · Poetry
placeholder covers, real anthologies will appear here once added
More anthology pieces are being gathered by candlelight. Check back soon, a penguin is arranging them.