Hoda Marmar

“ما إن تبدأ السنة الجديدة، حتى يهمّوا بلمّ الغزلان من الشوارع وإطفاء الأنوار الجميلة. يعبّئونها في شاحنات كبيرة ويكدّسونها فوق بعضها لتتشابك أسلاكها المطفأة وسيقانها الرفيعة بحجّة انتهاء الاحتفالات. لا عيون لها كي يدركوا ذلّها. لا أفواه كي يسمعوا حشرجات إطفائها الأخير وتبعثرها فوق بعضها. لا دماء فيها كي تسيل حين يلوون الأسلاك كي تتسع الشاحنات لها. سينتظرون الوقت الذي تصبح فيه زينة قديمة وعرضها غير مناسب كي يجوبوا الساحات كلّها يطاردونها.”
― نغم حيدر, أعياد الشتاء

“Dear god is there not more to life than this? I sit and I watch others living their silly little lives, and I am ashamed to be a woman sometimes, though it is no wonder this is all we have: a desire to be small, to stay small. I know it well, from looking, from scorning, from wishing it were me. Berry-pickers, baby-raisers. Chaste and childlike. Burned at the stake. Ducked in the pond. Hanged by the neck. Stays, stomachers, corsets, girdles, Spanx, SKIMS; whalebone then steel then rubber then spandex, bodies winched into letters V and S, or numbers 1 and 8, gaining and losing value through body weight, beauty, and biological clocks. Mysterious, veering, treacherous codes: long, loose hair is innocent, until it’s whoreish; tanned flesh is lowly, until it’s exotic; cleverness is charming, until it’s embarrassing. With everything we give, we get smaller – and if we don’t, men take it anyway, pinching and nipping and penetrating. We pat creams around our eyes, cover upper arms, as men coarsen and grey good-naturedly.”
― Emma van Straaten, Creep

“This is women’s way of feeling time pass, that sinister clockwork inching round the roundness of the body; the slow gathering of endometrial cells, a nesting, a fluffing of pillows ready to receive guests, the ripeness of the womb, fleshy and welcoming, all neat and tidy and, yes, ready to receive guests, even one, just a casual visitor, anything. And then realisation that the arrival time has been and gone, and no one is coming; the tearing of the wallpaper, great swathes of it, and tears of disappointment, of ageing, of loneliness. The womb revolts and shudders. The painters are in.”
― Emma van Straaten, Creep

“كنت قاسيًا، كنت مختلًّا في الواقع، وأعرف أنّني مختلّ، أستطيع استخراج الشوك حتّى من حديقة لا تحوي سوى زهور ملساء.”
― أمير تاج السر, جزءٌ مؤلم من حكاية