Faits Divers

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Faits Divers

I scan each page for names

I do not wish to find;

Names of people,

Names of places,

Names of things.

I scroll each feed for names

I do not wish to find;

Asking of both,

Of all sides:

You are not coming for us next, are you?

Are you?

Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez 

Twitter X: @hibahshabkhez

Insta: @shabkhez_hibah

Self Portrait in Narrative

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Self Portrait in Narrative

Lucy J.

There is a small white scar

Almost invisible, hugging the right side of my knee

i used to play basketball with my dad

i slipped, slicing my knee open

i think i slipped, smooth and stinging

i think i slipped, i have always been light on my feet

i think i slipped, foul play is part of the game i never learned

i think i slipped

i think

i am six years old, face first on the edge of the court

learning how to speak again, while you

are spitting red into my tired lungs

i slipped, over half healed ridges from the time before.

as you walk inside, leaving me to study the blood and dirt

i begin to whisper to the insects unfurling around me

watching them creep and crumble and curl

i begin to speak because there was no one there to hear me

I am 24 now, at the edge of my seat

Listening through clenched fists and grinding teeth

I am watching you tend to the child that is both of our second chances at paternal love

And I am realizing now, your laughter

Is a metaphor that has lived on the tip of my tongue for years now

i am weeping silently,

creeping and crumbling and curling

contorting my body in ways i did not know possible

i am asking you to stop

i am waiting for my turn to speak

I am begging for you to try with me once more

And what I ask of you to realize

This is only my recollection of the memory.

I am humanizing you,

In this recreation of myself

I know, I too could slip into that delicate darkness

A slice of you that is braided into my blood

So instead, I tend to it as you would a cut

Too tender to touch.