"When the Velvet Fades: A Lament for the Unseen By Amany El-Sawy 🇪🇬

When the Velvet Fades: A Lament for the Unseen

By Amany El-Sawy 🇪🇬

Reem Al-Abdullah's poem, "Such Is the Beginning", is a lamentation dressed in velvet sorrow—a tapestry of disillusionment embroidered with fragile dreams and ruptured connections. With the gentleness of lyrical verse and the sharpness of existential pain, the poet navigates the transition from a world of illusion to the blunt edge of truth.

At its outset, the poem offers a mirage: a "crimson land," "rosy dreams," and "eternal words"—images that evoke warmth, softness, and eternity. This paradisiacal realm is "drawn for us," suggesting that it is not of the poet’s own making, but rather imposed or gifted, perhaps deceitfully so. The illusion is shattered swiftly. "We awoke," the poem says, and with that awakening comes the erasure of beauty and the death of hope. The "painting" that once held life is now drained of all color—a metaphor for lost meaning, love, or belonging.

What follows is a fierce indictment of abandonment. Al-Abdullah speaks not merely of loss, but of disposability—“we were just time,” useful only as a stepping-stone in another’s hardship. This brutal utilitarianism—the use of others for emotional or practical gain—is exposed and condemned with raw vulnerability. Al-Abdullah’s voice becomes a collective cry, a chorus of broken spirits pleading for recognition in a world that has moved on too swiftly, too coldly.

Al-Abdullah masterfully employs repetition—“لم يعد” (no longer)—as a pulse of despair and finality. Each line with this phrase becomes a nail in the coffin of once-cherished relationships. The rhythm of grief is punctuated by phrases like "قلوب يتيمة" (orphaned hearts) and “كسر الخواطر لا يجبر” (broken spirits can never be mended), which do more than mourn—they testify. They accuse. Nonetheless, within the wreckage, the poem clutches a single thread of solace: صحبتنا—our companionship with the self, or perhaps the inner circle that never betrayed us. This is not hope in the traditional sense, but a resigned return to what is left when all others have turned away.

Artistically, the poem is textured with synesthetic imagery and deep psychological resonance. The tonal shift from velvet to ash is deftly handled, and the emotional journey is both deeply personal and achingly universal. The use of color as a symbol—crimson, white, faded—is especially poignant, tracking the moral and emotional corrosion through visual cues.

In conclusion, Such Is the Beginning is not merely a poem; it is an autopsy of love, loyalty, and the soul’s quiet devastation. Reem Al-Abdullah crafts a lament that is both indictment and elegy—one that refuses to offer easy catharsis, demanding instead that we confront the hollowness left behind when human bonds are treated as disposable.