Tayal Alan
Off Script
forsake the narrator - rambling and dull -
let us try something new: you walk
to the other side of the city with
a static in your head. it takes
everything you have to not tell
yourself that this the beginning
of a story. wait - you’ve done it
again. you’re doing it now.
just the rush of images. this world is not
your novel. just the petroleum
jelly on your lip, the bloated
abdomen tucked in jeans. the
copper keychain from your
sister that impales your thigh,
only that throbbing and nothing
else. just the south-east Asian
store clerk that hands you back
your debit card over a pack of
cigarettes that you’ve bought –
not his family, or that look in his
face that tells you nothing but
the beginning of some plot that
you construct in your mind. not
his mother shouting for him over
a long-distance phone call in a
language you can’t conjure, not
that first silence when the credit
runs out and the line cuts. not
that clench in his gut when he
wonders if she’ll die before he gets
a chance to call her back.
just the soft air of this Tuesday,
on your neck
and wrist. only that.
Talal Alyan is a Palestinian writer based in New York. He has written about politics in the Middle East for various publications including Vice News, Al Jazeera English, Huffington Post, and Daily Beast. These poems are from an ongoing project he is working on about the intersection of narrative and noise.