Wanderer

Wanderer, 

     Ask me not to describe, for everything lies so beyond the grasp of words. Let me unfold myself here in those layers of the unnameable and get lost once again. Leave me, but don't forget.

Never, wanderer.

The Minutes

   “How many cups of coffee do you now drink?”

    The tooth brush freezes in my hand for a second. I force it back into my mouth, get it out, rinse my mouth and reply, “Six, seven, eight…don’t really know. Why do you ask?” I get out of the bathroom.

    “Nothing just wanted to know.”

     I close the door behind me and advance to the living room. You have already gone there, seated yourself, in the brown arm chair, beside the open window. You hesitate for a second before taking the newspaper. You take it, let it drop, and smile. Curiosity was not filling me, you told me all the same: “It’s funny. You used to hate coffee back then.”

     ‘Back then’ hangs in the air. I ponder upon it. When was ‘back then’? You cut through my thoughts, “It’s very different now,” you say.

     “It’s very different now,” I echo.

      You jump from your seat, throw the newspaper and go. “Nothing worth reading about”, you muttered. I occupy your brown arm chair, beside the window. I pick the newspaper from the ground, and read. Later, I get bored and realize that nothing is worth reading about.

      I go to the kitchen and pour myself water. I look at the walls, as old as you and me, and ponder again on “back then.” I spill the water. I get out of the kitchen without clearing the mess I made. I go back to the living room, curl myself on the sofa. It’s getting cold. Winter must be impending. I close the window. I forget what I was thinking, but I don’t care. I’ll think something new. I think and think. I think and cry. Thinking makes me cry. I stop thinking and I pace the room. But memories flood me.

     “Back then” is fixed at a point in time. Every day, the distance between it and me widens. It creates a gap, a huge gap, and everything is sucked in.

    You come out of the room, the one at the end of the corridor. You don’t see me and it makes no difference. It’s not me you got out for.

     Between me and back then, there is a billion or so minutes, forever divided between two pairs of eyes. Two pairs of eyes see different things. And then, the past is lost, in between. It doesn’t scare me that now will also eventually turn into another “back then.” I don’t care for now. But the minutes, they hold me captive.

      You, wherever you are, so attached to me I cannot bear you, so faraway I miss you, have you ever thought of it? For the minutes do hold us captive. Years will pass through our entities, broken into minutes, and we’ll live, in them, never getting out, hoping we did. And we’ll live them, together, but away. It will kill us, but we’ll draw a feeble pretense of life. Now, we are only rehearsing.

     You get out. “You have spilled water in the kitchen?” you say.

    "Yes. I’ll go clean it.”

    “It’s okay, I already did so.”

    And you go away.

    You, whomever you are, do you still love me?

       

Another Age Trick

All through the day, there has been  vulgar music coming out from somewhere down the street. It's easy to tell somebody was getting married. It was noisy and annoying, and nothing short of agonizing when I had to study having it as a background.
  It's silent and still now. I have just hung up with my friend after having a prolonged conversation after which I reached the conclusion that even when I am okay, I am not okay. I also, for the thousandth time, kept on discussing how there is no chance for it to get better. At the end, I wound up lamenting my so-called adolescence.
   I kept on repeating, " But I am sixteen." over and over again, as though trying to convince myself that life is still ahead of me. It made things worse, for here's how it is:  I am sixteen and the last time I recall having fun in is three years ago; I have only one friend and it's because of my fastidious nature that does not accept to befriended with people who discuss nothing but the things that enter my very own category of  "things unbearably stupid it makes me want to throw up;" I have not crushed on a guy, been crushed on by a guy-the very sound of it is weird-or had any remotely similair experience for like, more than three years and all is due  to how this entire thing comes first in the list of things unbearably stupid it makes me want to throw up.
   I am missing out on life .
   Is this not just sad?
   I have not contributed in the HBBC for a long time now. I was pretty delusional when I thought that "I will just when studying gets a little bit less tough" It is not, but yeah, I have changed my reasoning and am now living with it. So, perhaps Insha' Allah, I'll be able to post this time. I really with too.
  There is Holy Quraan now playing outside. The sound of it is very beautiful. I think I am going to turn it on in the room and sleep.

Writing, Time, and A Beautiful Classic Poem

Pencils and papers have grown too intimidating.

     The mere idea of writing something sends a wave of dread through me. Words come with no fluency. Fear consumes my heart.  And then, I am left, with the conclusion that the easiest thing is not to write at all. 

     And it scares me that I may forever linger in this place. Forever "afraid of nothing..nonetheless afraid". But, it is true, it is easier not to write. It is easier to leave those velvet images of mine free of words and definitions; it is easier not to have to be faced over and over again with the futility of it; it is easier not to be disheartened every time I realize that not a person cares. I do not at all know if i am any entitled to call myself a writer; but if I were not a writer, I do not know who I'd be. 

   But no; I do not believe in this all, I never did. Because writing is not those few minutes when you put pen to parer; writing is a state of being. And I, I am haunted by words. I am haunted by long narratives that bereave my eyes of the peace of sleep; I get lost, deeply engrossed, within lined pages that have the little secrets of life in them; and my thoughts, my hellish thoughts. they consume me and send me to the brinks of insanity. No camera would capture that and steal it from time; only words. 

    And time, i have concluded, is a villain. I need it to freeze. Physics just says it cannot. And, according to my own belief, time is the progression of life; without time, we would be imprisoned by an everlasting moment of nonexistence. But then, that is actually my wish...never to exist.

P.S. 

      I am not a great fan of classic Arabic poetry and tend to have a great liking to the modern one. Today though, in my Arabic curriculum, I  happened to come across an enchanting classic poem written by Ibn Al-Roumi. It was a lament to his dead child. Even though we are not supposed to memorize it, I have read a lot already I know it by heart. Here are my favorite two lines:

 

فيالك من نفس تساقط أنفساً             تساقط در من نظام بلا عقد

and

و أنت و ان افردت في دار وحشة       فإني بدار الانس في وحشة الفرد

      

     

Getting Through the Night

I am too sick and tired.
Complaining about things that may never change has worn me out so completely.
And now, I am sitting on my bed, trying so hard to resist the gloomy gravity. Only at times like this, believing that an army made of one soldier can beat life seems like quite trifling.
I need somebody to tell me it's not. I need another voice echoing what I want so much to hear.
No voice resonates through the blankness but my own.
Is it too shameful to admit that I am alone?
Well, I am, very much.

Tonight, everything feels painfully alienated.

Measurements

My back hurts intolerably.
   I am now in that place where time starts having substance and meaning, and where squandering it does not come without consequences. Is not the mere idea that your entire future hangs on two years enough to send shivers down your spine? And then, it all takes me back to that thing I say quite often these days...."Stupidity Prevails."

    I need to get rid of this sense of duality engulfing everything, of this "Jekyll-Hyde" state of being. And you know, it all comes with bitter irony that makes me have the urge to laugh and cry at the same time. And the 'funniest" thing is, I am 16. I cannot bear how this number contradicts everything I am; even my very face is five years older. And yet, it does not make me hate growing up  any less.

I need a place where things exist beyond measurements. 

I am dying to write.
A feeling of disgruntlement combined with fear would take over me on asking any grown up why he no longer reads; it's the answer that freaks me out: "i don't have time."
well. I wish I had enough time to finish a decent post, or weave those long narratives that keep on hunting me into a story.
Sadly, I do not.
And it's like...I am still fe Thanwya Amma!

Crossing Roads

The weatherman did not point out an hour ago that it would be raining.
It is raining though.

   In both houses, everybody is asleep except for them; she in the east of the very big neighborhood, he in the west of it.

   In her room, she is sitting by the window. As the raindrops hit the windowpanes, she finds herself lying between alertness and sleep yet not completely surrendering to either. She is thinking still; her thoughts are lost in an impression of dreams. It does not bug her; at least now, she can lose sense of reality while being wide awake.

   In his room, he lies on bed. In an attempt to find sleep, he keeps on counting from one to ten over again. And yet, that too fails; every single number of these has a significance that opens a whole new line of thought. He observes ironically how sleep shifted from being a relief to being a burden and decides to cast it all aside giving up to that desire in him to stay awake.

   And so, both forget about having to rise in the early morning, forget about the morning itself and live in the night. But whether they like it or not, the morning has to come.

  When the alarm goes on, she is found to be still sitting by the window in almost the same position with the same expression. Her eyes are wide open and her mind has long ago been lost; in what exactly, she will not be able to tell. And so, it scares her a little when that pesky sound interrupts her state of blankness. She leaves that chair tiredly to get dressed and start a repeated old new day.

  When his mother enters to wake him up, she finds him pacing the room and thinks he has woken up earlier today; what she does not know is that he hasn’t had one moment of sleep. He halts his motion pondering on the dreaded fact of having to leave home for yet another day. A thought of breaking the order of things roams his head but leaves quickly being rendered as only a stupidity. And so another repeated old new day begins for him.

  In the street, as the sun hurts her eyes a wave of hate towards her inability to close them overtakes her. She does not regret last night though; she can regret everything but last night. She finds an ineffable effort in merely walking, and yet, she walks. Does she have another option?

   In another street, his feet present him with no trouble in maintaining his motion; it is that feeling of abhorrence in him towards everything that does. He can find no reason at all for going to his destination, none still to his life, but in both cases, something greater pushes him to unwillingly go on. He has no other option.

   She takes another route. She doesn’t know why but she just does it. Perhaps it is only because she feels a desire in her for things to be more in her control; perhaps it is not. She does not care, not any longer, not at all. Her body though revolts on her instantaneous freedom and makes her almost swoon. She doesn’t fall to the ground; he catches her.

     As their faces meet, they find familiarity but not recognition. Familiarity is there not because they saw each other before; it is something beyond it. They could not have met before.  And yet, could they be soul mates, potential friends, or even enemies? Neither had a say in his future but both felt it was too far away, too unrealistic stop happen. But could it be, could it be in a parallel dimension? Their minds wandered to a different world where their souls were not split by an entire neighborhood having tens of buildings, a couple of hundred flats and a thousand rooms which contain a million corners having innumerable insomniac minds. Could that be? Maybe it could, only in a distant past, away from a present where everything loses its main property to become a cell, just a cell. But alas! They live in that present, and in that present, everybody is destined to live in alienation. They are not bigger than an ugly life to beautify it; they are not brainwashed like most of the others to think it is beautiful, and so they lie in infinite agony feeling that something is missing but not quite knowing what is it.

  They have to divert.

   Before this, he breaks the norm of social traditions and asks her, “Will we ever meet again?”

   At first, his question takes her by surprise; but then, she admires the frank boldness in it. “Perhaps we’ll cross roads,” she replies. 

Self-love

This is an HBBC post. For other takes on self-love visit this

In life, absolution is nonexistent. We get to determine the state of things by subjecting them to a chain of comparisons of which we can deduce what the best in that chain and the worst also in that chain; outside it, there lies nothing, just nothing. So, for instance, when you say that a certain person has a beautiful face, it is because your mind has automatically made a comparison between that person’s face and other faces, and found that among those faces he has the best. It is owing to the fact that beauty does not exist in an absolute state for you to measure things on it, you just compare. Whether you do it consciously or unconsciously, we always determine our position in life in relation to others.

    It is needless to say that we always have an incessant desire to be the best. This desire is reflected in how our comparisons are always in our favor as we all tend to magnify the wrong-doings of others to make us feel better; this also why any wrong-doing of any person is always an enjoyable subject for people to tackle. This, I guess, can be noticed every time you open a newspaper and find an entire page dedicated to telling, in details, the scandals of a celebrity whose personal life cannot be of any importance to anyone. If you are asking why all of this happens, the answer will be self-love. Because if you cannot be the best, it will do you no harm to belittle others.
    You are yourself; the statement may sound ridiculous, but it is as simple as that…you are yourself. And since you cannot possibly separate yourself from you, the self remains as an obligatory companion throughout your life experience. Such a companion that won’t go away will always need to be patted and told how amazing he is. Yes, we are talking about you, you always need to be patted and told how amazing you are. This too is pretty simple, but you may never underestimate it. Discrimination, all kinds of discrimination, stems from that. If you cannot see the connection, try to perceive things backwardly. We have that street sinking lowly in poverty. Most of the inhabitants of that street are Muslims and there is a minority of Christians. They are looking angrily at how humans quite like themselves are treated in a very different way. They lose their self-respect as they realize how they are in the bottom of the social ladder. They are getting closer to hating their own selves. If they hate themselves there will be no survival for them. Quickly, what do they do? Well, it is clear that their situation in life cannot be better any time soon. There might be nobody poorer than they are, but who said it’s all about money? Here, the Muslim majority will automatically look down on the Christian minority using the ugly excuse of “God said so”, and if they can look down on them, it defiantly means they are better. Because they couldn’t feel “amazing” when comparing themselves to others, they had to lower one group of them so that they would be better than some people at something. There are lots of these streets in Egypt, and others all over the world and throughout history having injustice as a constant and reasons as variables.

   This is not it. Self-love is literally everything. We love our football team, our family, our neighborhood and every other thing that is ours, simply because it’s ours. We always say that it is us who belong to these things but it is actually these things that belong to us; they, as us, need to always be the best. Why? Because they are extensions of ourselves. And so, even patriotism can be considered a form of self-love. Need I say more?

Art runs deeper than flesh and blood

I have made a vow never to write about writing; now, though I am feeling a deep desire to do it.

  This is my fourth cup of coffee in a relatively short time. Why am I doing it? Certainly not because I am that much in love with coffee; it has got something more complex to it. My brain has formed a connection between writing and coffee that now I cannot do the former without having the latter in hand. What is even weirder is that I often wind up forgetting about it until it goes cold. It is as though the mere idea of me having made coffee gives me comfort.

  I was not going to write about that in the first place. I was going to write something which typically belongs to my journal but which is also mentioned in it way too much it would be simply boring to repeat it. But then, I could not write it in here. You can just say that I am the closest thing to being allergic when it comes to mentioning something that is deeply me. That kind of what you can call embarrassment completely abandons me when that person I am forsaking detailed things in me to is nothing but a character I have made in a story of mine; I even detest anything I write which does not have me between the lines. In reality, I remain the furthest person from being me.

  When the door of my house is closed behind me as I head to the outer world, I undergo a thorough transformation in attitude: I smile, a lot; I use my hands excessively and my voice becomes shrill. The me I know myself as is not any of these. That all takes place when I am talking to people. I do not usually feel nervous on a conscious level but it appears that my unconscious has another say about that.

  I have digressed, so back to writing. You know, it is actually like this: I do not put myself into words for the fear of repeating it all again in one of my stories; it is like my stories deserve me more than I deserve myself. That does not irk me in the least. I am only a mortal made of flesh and blood; they on the other hand are Art.

 Art runs deeper than flesh and blood.

خواطر ليلية

Never wrote Arabic Poetry.....but then again, who knows?

يسدل الليل ستائره

علي يوم قد مضي و انقضي

و اندثرت في ثناياه

ذكريات لماض سحيق

فأنا لست أنا

فقط بل محض صدي

لصرخات كل من تأوه

وقال لا ادري كيف البقاء

كيف الحياة

كيف التنفس في هواء

قد اثقلته الشجون

تدفنني الاغطية

و قبري سرير

اتقلب ابحث

عن ساتر يسترني

من تلك الرأس رأسي

تجرعني الالم كؤوس

فلا أجد من ملجأ

سوي أطياف لغد

أتواري فيها

عن الافكار عن الظلال

عن اشباح الجنون

و لكن يا اسفاه

فمنها لا اجد

سوي الطرد الي

الي الان الي

لحظة تأبي الا ان تدوم

A World With No Personality (1)

Every Egyptian student has to encounter, at least once, in the exam paper, this Composition Topic:

     Technology has greatly influenced our lives making them much more comfortable and easier.

     Write in this topic expressing your opinion of how Technology has changed life to the better.

  There of course comes my mental sarcastic smile asking, "And what if I do not exactly think Technology has made life all that good?!" But, quickly, I halt that opposing pattern of thought to conjure up the best ways of betraying my beliefs in order to fill three pages praising how fantastic life is because of Technology. Now, though, I am at complete liberty to express my genuine anger at the technological world we are living in.

   The common belief is that we live in a "progressed" society. Let me just ask one basic question: From what aspects? Why do we always assume that how Time is in relation to us as humans goes in a shape resembling a stairs where you are always going to be going from good to better? Why are we not realistic enough to grasp that the future is not necessarily better than the present, and the present is not necessarily better than the past? In fact, I feel like that the more we progress in time, the more everything deteriorates, and I believe others share this belief with me. Judging also by another common belief, it is easy to deduce that most people make a mental connection between progression and Technology making them both the closest thing to being synonyms. But, is it really so?

    I once made a comparison between us with our Rockets and bombs, and our Stone Age ancestors having only caves. I found that we are both the same: most of us both have no purpose in life other than securing food clothes and shelters. It might sound like unreasonable, but just think of it with me for a while and you will find that we are only a more refined version of them. We go to school, then to college, to learn? No, to be qualified enough to find a job. When we work, are we doing it for the sake of some great cause? No, to get money. And what do we buy with money? Food, clothes and houses. Then, will somebody tell me what is the great difference? But no, there is one: the Stone Age man saw himself for what he is; we don't.

  I asked myself once if it has always been like this. I am not well read in history enough to answer this, but I do know, that in past times, there were people who lived not just for the abstract purpose of staying alive; they lived for more: they lived for a belief. They are Prophets; they are Philosophers; they are Artists, and they would be changing lives, and with lives, changing life itself. The sad thing is, we do not see any of these anymore.

The Dim Haze

It is one day since he’s slept, and two since he’s eaten.

It remains a mystery to him how he is still capable of motion. Walking comes rather mechanically: he puts the left leg forth then the right one and repeats that tedious activity all the way. All the way to what, he does not know; it is the way that always stretches endlessly before those who have no destination that matters, and not what is awaiting him by the end of it.

Strange memories are flooding his mind; memories that have the odor of things long forgotten and dead it becomes perturbing when they appear again. Amongst them is a vow, made too many years ago, by somebody who is strangely him: he vowed not to leave a street in Cairo unvisited. He also remembers that by the first week he started fulfilling his vow, he gave it up. He remembers why. It was painful to see the same scenes and faces, with their old corners and creases reiterated with different decorations. He came to the conclusion that it would suffice to look out of the window and see specimens of that big thing called life.

He feels that his legs are going to give way under him. Physically, he can walk no more; mentally, he cannot but walk. And now, it is his desire to escape feelings he can find no name to that propels his legs to keep their activity. And with every step, the objects are sinking further into a haze; all things melt into each other. The deep blue color of the sky suffuses the clouds; people fade into the grey of the asphalt; and the horizon…it lies lost in the hues of brown of autumn’s leafless trees.

But then, he decides to keep on walking. He lifts his gaze from his shoes and notices that the night has befallen his side of the globe. It seems peculiar how last time he looked it was day and now it is not. It is peculiar because his shoes are still the same, and the sky is different .His eyes look searchingly at everything and it is unchanged. It is like the sun and the moon and summer and spring and fall and winter all are backgrounds that shift and change to the monotonous theme of our lives. But perhaps it is not so; we do change. We do; only it is not as systematic and predictable as the seasons. He himself has changed.

He starts thinking of himself. He does not stand and analyze like everybody else would do; he is questioning the very essence of being. What proof has he that he is him? Him? And he keeps on repeating his name. He is detached from all it is that is him. He focuses on the sound of his name. He has said it all his life but now, now it is anything but familiar. He repeats it, nervously, and it turns from a murmur to an almost angry shout. “I am me!” he exclaims, laughing hysterically.

On this very moment, his eyes fall on his shadow. It is taller than he is; yet, it retains all his basic features. He stares at it; it stares back. He runs; from the corner of his eyes, he sees it following with the same pace. He stops, panting and feeling more fatigued than ever. He curses himself for his stupidity, however; another glance at his shadow sends a cold shiver down his spine. It feels like everything corrupt and defiled in him was standing there, looking at him challengingly; a dark projection of his soul that without he will have no existence in life. It stares intently at him. It is as silent as grave; yet he hears an echo, springing from the very core of him resonating: “Yes, I am you, and you can’t run away.”

In the midst of the clamor, he hears a voice calling him. He cannot recognize it at first and it seems to be uttering something unintelligible. Soon though, the voice gets clearer and so the words it is saying. “My dear husband!” he hears. He is beside himself.

But it is only his old neighbor; his first friend and sole wife. They got married at the age of 6 only to separate a few days later; he tore the eye of her favorite doll which she called “Candy”. He bought her another one on the following week, and was bestowed forgiveness on the spot; only they did not remembered to get married back again.

All these memories and more come into his head on the sight of her. They manage to translate themselves into a genuine widespread smile invading his face, as he retorts, exhilarated, “My beloved wife!”

Midnight is an hour away. She is riding a car. He is in the street. She tells him to get in and now they are both driving off. To a nearby cafe’ she says they are going. And he does not mind.

The time in the car is spent in an endless chatter about what came of the family of each after her family had moved away years ago. After about half an hour later they arrive at the café’.

After they get seated and order, she looks at him for sometime which places them both in an awkward silence. She changes the direction of her gaze suddenly, smiles, and says to him, “You have not asked me about me yet.”

He answers, abashed, “Oh, yeah. I am sorry.” He pauses for a second then asks monotonously with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, “So, you’re married?”

“Pretty much. I am engaged to be married.” There was unmistakable happiness in her voice,

He starts unable to conjure up anything to say. “I am surprised,” he says, quite without having prepared it.

“What? You are not married?”

“No.”

“Engaged?”

“Not that either.”

“And I thought I was gonna die an old maiden!”

“Well then,” he retorts, smiling, “you are not.”

“But tell me, why is that?”

“I have not found anyone to love me. Besides, I want to be free. Free like the birds.”

“You people are so shallow.”

“Excuse me, I didn’t know I was talking to one of these marriage-maniacs,” he teases.

“Shut up. You know I am not. I just need to understand why everyone identifies freedom with birds. Have you ever tried to imagine yourself in the middle of the sky fighting gravity and wind risking your life to reach a destination because that’s just how you are designed? I find nothing free about that.”

He is somewhat taken aback by her words. For the first time, he finds himself really similar to birds.

She looks at him inquiringly. “What are you thinking of?”

“Animals,” he titters. “You know animals can be very interesting. I was just reading yesterday on the defense techniques they have got.” He pauses abruptly. “What is your defense technique?”

“What is a defense technique?”

“I guess if you are talking about humans, it means a special trick you use so that no one will see through your weakness.”

“When I am feeling so vulnerable, I get aggressive. I shout at stupid things; things I’d usually laugh at. When somebody I was just thinking of calling calls, I find myself fighting with him for no apparent reason than wanting to fight. I don’t think it’s about anger-not the whole thing anyway-it is about me trying to appear as the opposite of what I am feeling; I hurt people because I am afraid they’ll hurt me. What about you?

“I also act opposite to what I am feeling but in a very different way. I appear the happiest when I am the saddest. I don’t make it up, it just comes. Perhaps someday it used to need some effort to make it up, but now, it comes automatically. It actually annoys me at times.”

“Well, I think you should start searching for another defense technique.”

“Why?” He looks intently at her.

“This one is not working. You laugh and joke and act happily, but believe me; I have never seen a sadder look in somebody’s eyes.”

He still cannot take his eyes off her; not from anything but pure astonishment. For a minute even thoughts are paralyzed in his head. His first attempt at talking comes as a strain of unintelligible words. He closes his mouth and opens it again; still, no words manage to come out. He laughs. He then stops and assumes a rather stern face. “I’ve once talked to a cancer survivor,” he finally commences, “He said to me that all doctors in the world could not have cured him if he hadn’t had it in him that he should rise back again on his feet. He also said that cancer was the enemy, and he had to defeat the enemy. But then, here’s the thing with pain, you cannot make an enemy out of it; pain swallows you up. You carry pain around, everywhere you go, you just carry it around. It consumes you so completely you cannot consider it a separate entity from your own self. It fills you up so that if one day it decides to leave, you start feeling empty. And if you try to fight it, the first blow you give will be to yourself. It is like your shadow, can you escape your shadow? Can you uproot you from you? And if you do, what remains? How on Earth can you beat an enemy like that?”

“Stop putting pain in test tubes. Stop making it part of an equation with two unknowns. Here’s fact: you will never get pain. You know why? Because pain is stupid and stupid things make no sense. And if pain is stupid, treat it in accordance to its own IQ level. Or no! Be stupider. Pain is not treated by thinking and theorizing; pain is treated by acting. So act! Laugh when you are not supposed to. Dance in weird times. Smile randomly at passers-by. Do you hear me, act!”

The utterance of her words came with vehemence that shook her both literally and figuratively. He too was shaken, only in another, deeper manner; the deepest of his beliefs has just been controverted. What she said still resonates in his ears and yet; he is not thinking of it, he is rather filled with a sweeping feeling of gratitude. As she has just advised him, he acts. He holds her hand tightly saying with a voice that cannot fail to interpret what he is feeling, “Thank you.”

Sitting hand in hand for a moment longer than what was expected, they sense awkwardness finding a way between them. As though suddenly realizing it, they quickly move apart.

She blushes and looks away for a second but then looks at him and says in undertone, “I know you were lying when you said you are not married because nobody has loved you enough. When we were young half of the girls in the neighborhood were crushing you.”

“That’s because we were just young.”

“And because we were just young it means that when we grew older the entire neighborhood must have been crushing on you.”

“Okay. Perhaps I was lying when I said I am not married because of that. The second reason though has nothing but truth to it.”

“What? That you want to be free?” she answers mockingly.

‘”Yes that I want to be free, “he says earnestly.

“And are you?” she challenges.

“I am free of many things: I am free of predestined future, a future that I know already all the details of because this future is the life of all of those I have seen. In it, I don’t wanna lose myself. I just wanna keep me, in the absolute way of being me. I wanna be me, not relevant to somebody, just me..only me.”

“If we are talking about freedom on the human scale, it does not come for free; you have to pay something to get something in return. What are you forsaking?”

“I know what you mean and I have thought of it over and over again. I know that I’ll be alone. I know that when I am old and ill, nobody will go with me to the doctor or be concerned if I am okay. I know that I’ll have no children who will always bear the memory of me. But that’s all when I grow old, and when we are old, we are as good as dead. Will I give me up for a ghost? I find all that a fair price I pay for not losing myself to somebody I don’t trust and to a life that is bound to be a copy of a million others.”

“Only if you get to have that. Let me give you a description of your free life: nothing. You will be too caught up in the nothingness. You’ll do all that you want to do but for no reason than wanting to do it. And then it’ll all be gone to no avail. You say you don’t wanna lose yourself, it might be so, but then, you’ll be lost within yourself. An entity that is not anchored by another can have no definite shape, and you’ll then be drowning within you. You might even die down there and walk with no soul flowing in you. And then all of your life will really be forsaken to a ghost; only you won’t be old and as good as dead, you’ll still be young, you’ll be young and it might happen soon, or maybe it has already happened.”

“You know you are saying nothing new? You know I know all that? You know that every moment I am breathing in the air of what you have just described? But I am afraid. I am nothing but afraid. And then maybe it’s all about trust. Maybe if I trust somebody enough that choosing to live with won’t bereave me of me, and in that case, will complete me, I’ll break my chain of freedom. Which makes it all about love. Maybe I just need to get rid of that self I am wallowing in to be able to love, to love and be loved. Maybe it’s just really all about that.”

“Yes maybe.” Her smile comes radiating warmth, and this time, she is the one who softly holds his hand.

For the past ten minutes, she has been taking fast glances at her watch. Though he has taken notice of it, the idea does not enter his mind that she might have to leave soon; for a reason that defies sense, he is not willing to accept that. But now, now is really time for her to go.

Saying that she is now taking leave and trying to assume the proper expression for the occasion, she finds herself stopping mid sentence. Her face is the closest thing to being frozen; her eyes have their gaze fixed on him with a look that speaks of deep empathy, almost of love. In them, there is hurt too reflected, but not for her own self, for his. She is hurting for him. She is feeling his pain. She is touching his brokenness.

And he can sense it all. He can sense how at this moment, a deep vulnerable string is woven between their hearts, and through it, he is flowing. Each second added to their moment makes the weight of the impending departure pressure them more. He feels a needing for her that he has never felt for anyone or anything before. And that needing is not simple, not normal, it is a needing that shall never cease long after she goes: in her lies his sole cure. And she too needs him: leaving him now will dig a wound in her that will bleed forever.

But she eventually leaves. And later, he too leaves.

The way back is always longer. On going to a place, the zeal, no matter how slight, and the excitement, no matter how imperceptible, manage to make the road less tiring, more bearable. The dilemma always lies in the way back, when all is seen and done. The road then stretches to a destination that offers nothing new, no expectations. At this time, walking back becomes a mere obligation. And so, he drags his feet back home.

He thinks of his long walk today. He does not know what made him do this barely sane thing, and something tells him he was not acting just on a whim. Perhaps his inexplicable need for walking and not stopping was a projection for his wanting to escape himself. The idea seems too hopeful: as his shadow previously stated, he can never run away. And now that he is going home, the question haunts him: instead of escaping, can his self ever feel like home? But it hangs unanswered.

On entering his room and lying on bed, all the tiredness seems to leak out of him and into the open window. In his momentary release, all his life fades into a haze. His haze is dim, except of patches of color here and there. His chest now widens enough to grasp it, all of it, with its tiny details. His life really is not that big: his life is only now, only this minute, where he will always be living. And when life is only that one minute, it is much easier to be lived. He breathes, in and out, slowly, savoring the taste of each breath. He abandons his thinking and theorizing: for the meantime, he shall make no sense and be glad of it. His head is then flooded with dreams that can have no possible existence in reality. Tomorrow he’ll wake up and make fun of them; but now, he is possessed by an idea that nothing matters but dreams.

After some other minutes, the entire room is bathed in the delicate color of the rising sun. The day has befallen his side of the globe.

It makes him smile.

Impressions

And then dreams
Long and persistent
Take me off to you beloved you
Not unlike when all in me turns cold
I should find life vigorous and strong
Ringing the bells
Of my soul’s dingy door
Asking permission
To let me be again


And in the day the sun comes shining
So tender in me you melt
Leaving only
An impression of warmth

The Irony of Love

here

He advances towards her with heavy steps that evoke no motion in the sand beneath his bare feet. The urge to burst out and evaporate into the air now abandons him; it’s hurt so much it doesn’t hurt any more.

   She sits two footsteps away from where the waves hit the shore. Her eyes flash to the sky. An eternity ago, she could tell time by the position of moon; now, though, everything stands transfixed.

   As their two haggard entities intertwine, they feel it digging its way through the holes between them and a dream-like past, it crashes them and yet binds them together; and as they hear its sinister silence lurking beneath their tears, it becomes impossible to elude…they have inhaled all the glow love had, and now, it is time to be burnt by the fire.

To you who is no longer there

here

I will fight all that's tempting me to be poetic, and I"ll catch words as they come.

  I try to imagine how things would be like if caught by a camera. I shut my eyes and paint everything in sepia. And when the world fades to black and white, I wish for colors resurrecting it. But at times, when soul breathes into life, I find myself crashing within the tempests it evokes.

  And I envy the characters in movies; free from existence, but in their folds, you can see all the tiny complexities of how it is to be alive. It's then when I weave myself into one.

  I just need to tell you..there is nothing intricate to me; draw a line between a million drop of rain with a black pen and I will be the image glittering behind your eyelids.

Scene Zero

Behind a screen

Of red green blue

She is entrapped

And breaks

As luster abandons

Her eyes once so luminous

And before him

She stands

In a white paper

Suffused with her

Painted in

Colors quite different

Between never and forever

Both dance

And tear off the heavy

Garments of now

But the curtain has

To eventually fall

And instead of the end

It’s written  

That to love

There is no moral lesson

                                     

In The Nonexistence

Breathe

In-out

In-out

In the morning

Sometimes it’s just

Too hard to breathe

 

Your porcelain skin

Hovers

Not two inches away

And I can’t reach out to

Touch it

Touch you

In the nonexistence

 
I run

But I can't elude

That everything you mean to me

Is always  meant to be

Everything

Which is Which

They say,

“To hold your faith,

You should keep it blind”

Afraid

You’d open your eyes

 And see

It’s just the darkness

And the screeching voices

Pull you back and forth

Torn between

A hundred falsenesses

All having the title:

“Truth”

Beyond it all

There lies a challenge

In a time less

Than your years on this Earth

Can you pick one difference

Between two pictures

Called “Facts” and “Lies”

And tell

Which is which?

The Deceit of Words

I carried two heavy weights with my hands stretched before me to test my endurance for pain. I tried to resist myself and found-even when I succeeded- that "self-resistance" is the trickiest of all terms: I could go there, let my hands down and say, "I have resisted and succeeded," and it'd be nevertheless true. Is not the "good voice" part of the self too?!

Through Me

Egypt is such a loose term; who or what am I referring to when I utter that name? It seems to be like those things you know through and through, and yet, it lies beyond your ability to mould into words..to delineate.


Places are queer-countries are places too-we give them hands to hold memories and we let soul wander in them as they define our decisions, as though they are people, or more: saints, angels. And in seconds, we can undress them of all reverence and leave them naked on the ground to tread whatever remains with a thousand dissing tongue. We fight for places and we die for places. We breathe for places . And places, they don't feel a thing. So, are we only bonding with the shadows of us intertwining on the walls? Are we merely attached to an enormous other self? Can all the emotion overflowing in our hearts be the facade of only one: possession? In their inconsideration, objects and places are the same; objects, though, I can touch; places, they lie between the abstract and the concrete..and in that too lies all the mystery.

I'll let Egypt pass through me like it's the minor and I'm the great. Call me a narcissist, or a megalomaniac, but I won't let myself be a part of Egypt, Egypt will be a part of me. If I want objective facts, history books will be full of that. I am here to be biased, to let all that is me overpower. I'll be the sieve through which the sunrays pass.

I cared to hear and converse, to argue to reach a truth. I felt afraid and recoiled to bed with my limbs shivering. For the most part though, I wanted to recede to myself, where none of it took place, where nothing at all takes place. It’s painful to be me and it’s more painful that I never want to break free.