Layla Anwar And Her Writing Style Are Tortured

Credit: Laylar Anwar and Anon. Iraqi Artist

Torturous, Agonizing Words.

I am hesitant, almost timid...I am hesitant to write...my words knock on my palate, trying to push their way through my lips...

My fingers oscillate, they roam a keyboard, feeling its texture, holding back...like some pianist who would love to play that final sonata, a final say, a final spectacle, a final concert.

I write and I know this is not the final concert...I know that more audiences will queue, I also know that the hall is very empty, it looks very empty from where the pianist is seated, right there in the darkness of that hall, a long corridor, with no exit signs...

Maybe am bashful, maybe am fearful, maybe am numb...the numbness of too much, an overdose from a powerful, violent drug...

The whispers, the secrets, the faces, the screams -- all are shoved in a cupboard, the cupboard of my mind...the attic, the cellar...right where you store the wine bottles to mature, so their aroma can filter through your nostrils -- unbroken bottles... Read more at An Arab Woman's Blues