This is (NOT) an Elegy

One: Every time I close my eyes,
I see yours glow in the color of the highlighter marks on my calendar.
Two: The traces of our late night conversations are still apparent on strangers’ morning faces.
Three: I believe time heals wounds just to cut them open again.
Four: Peeling the skin you clothed me in left scars on my ugly flesh that now glow in the dark
Five: At nights, I put my earphones on so I wouldn’t hear the screeches and screams of the memories hidden beneath my bed.
Six: I take painkillers before I sleep because the migraine nightmares trigger is like having a wound being stitched by a surgeon with shaky hands an a broken stitching needle.
Seven: I dug a grave in my room but I buried nothing inside, as the dead body of my journals stood by, watching.
Eight: The Ink stains on my fragmented body cannot be washed away.
Nine: My room is not a cemetery, my bed is not a grave.
Ten: This is not an elegy.
Ten: Eulogies are said on funerals, and only the living can bleed this much.
Ten: This is not to time heals wounds.
Ten: This is not to misery brings wisdom.
Ten: This is not to the half filled glass.
Ten: This is to drinking the glass.
a cheer for people whose scars and mine are puzzle pieces that fit together and make a cracked wall.
Ten:This is to swear words we shout until we scroach our throats as we stare down at the world from the rooftops of rock bottom,
Ten: This is to our bare feet that grew weary and bruised on journies to a distant land that only exists in our sick minds,
Ten: This is to the voices in our heads telling us about the melancholic gateways we chose not to take,

Ten: This is to realities we fake in six nights and days,
Ten: This is to the blasphemy we mumble as we pray,
Ten: this to our beating hearts and throbbing minds.
Ten: This is not a requiem, not an elegy nor a mourning tone,

Ten: This is to a melody to dance to.

The Jury's Magical Shirt Sleeves

Take those glasses off my face then wipe the dust of their surface with the tip of your shirtsleeves…
dig your nails onto their corners and show me the spider web you just removed.

Lift those glasses towards the sun and look through them because maybe then you’ll see the world as I see it,
but no.
put those glasses back on my face and stare into my eyes with so much eagerness for my gratitude then make sure that I see the disappointment in yours for not thanking you enough for doing the math to all my equations and solving all my problems and actually saving my life by…
wiping the dust of my glasses.



Please, do take a deeper look into my eyes…
now…

Judge me.
Judge me, for I heard the eyes were the gates to the soul,
Judge me then cover your nose for my soul smells of rotten food and dusty cloth.
tell me.. can you wipe that clean with your shirtsleeves?



Judge me…

Cause maybe then that’s the only thing we can do,
Diagnose me with a disease that I cannot spell and tell me I have not much time to live,
Not because it’s true but because it’s what you wish..
Cover your nose and mouth with filters and now look back again into my eyes and…
Judge me…
Look at all of the hypocrisy graffiti’d on the ruins of my mind and tell me again..
where do vandals reside in hell?

Remind me of my room’s number and,
hand me the keys…
Call me a hypocritical infidel.

Laugh at my attempts of wiping the dust of the picture of god I long ago put above my bed because.. 

you know the god you believe in would only rain me with fiery stones,
Wait, don’t leave yet!
There’s a whole lot of judging to do.
You have not judged me enough, so…
cover your ears as the walls around you shake with the beats of music that repeats itself onto my mind and..

make sure that I see an expression of disgust drawn on your face of what I listen to...
Slowly make space between your fingers and let the lyrics slip into your ears and…

Judge me…

Do tell me that I’m outdated.

Tell me that my tracks are too loud, and too old, and too cacophonic.
Laugh at the lyrics for the words are combined in ways that make no sense.
Laugh harder at the next track then ask me about the reason why do I listen to music in languages I do not speak,
Please, wipe the dust of those instrumental vibrations and put them back again.
Can I see the lyrics clearly now?
Can I understand them? Ask me in sarcasm.

Judge me,
form a telepathic connection between my brain and yours then choke on your own laughter,
Point a finger at my feelings of not belonging and displacement.
Stare at my hand-made solitude and shake your head in disapproval,
tell me that I’m begging for attention.

Look at the two angels on my shoulders and listen to their gossip about my sins.
Ask them for the notes they behold,
Fetch a pen and a paper and calculate,
write down every detail.
Count my sins and categorize them into times I did not have enough faith in god
and times I disobeyed my parents,
Times I did not love my country enough,
Times I did not go by morals,
Times I hurt myself,
Times I hurt other selves,
Times I lied when I didn’t have to,
And times I told the truth when a lie would’ve saved you,
Shake your head into hurricanes of disapproval..
Can you erase my records with the tip of your shirtsleeve?

Judge me,
Get out of my head
and look at my body,
Look at the sandwich between my hands and stare at my stomach,
remind me, please, of what I see every time I look at the mirror,
remind me of what I remember every time a person runs by my side,
remind me of the lump in my throat that I force keeping in by only pushing it down by swallowing every bite of food I eat without chewing,

Open your mouth and let the words escape,
Remind me, because as a teenager, I was never reminded enough.
Tell me that I’m fat.
Tell me that I’ll die before I’m forty,
That I’ll widow my wife and orphan my baby children.
Tell me that I’ll only make hell a lot more hotter for the fat in my body would melt down and boil and raise the temperature around,
Tell me that my hell colleagues would only hate me more because I’m taking more space than what you decided I should.
And, dear, because you’re such a caring, loving, person, who does not state out problems without solutions…

Please do save me and tell me to watch what I eat

 and remind me to work out.”

 Because, of course, nobody ever told me before.

Judge me for my acts and potential,
Judge my nightly thoughts and daydreams,
Judge me, pitiful victim, and almighty prosecutor.
Judge me, your grace, for you’re the head of this court,
For your testimony is valid while mine is shredded into lies,
Hammer down on my shoulders and tell me to keep order,
Judge me, please, for I am a child in need of your guidance,
Judge me, because everyone else does, but no one else does it right.
Judge me, for I am a suspect, Judge me, for I break the law,
put me in custody,
Try to wipe off my fingerprints of the car wheel that I drunk-drove all the way down here.
Judge me for I’m a pollution,
a potential revolution.
Plead me guilty.
Throw me behind the bars cause your shirtsleeves cannot wipe dust of places I stood on,
lock me up for eternity,
Set a press conference and announce that you won,
And that I’m finally righteous.
But don’t tell them that detail,
Do not tell them that you’ll have to burn down the cell in which you kept me inside.
when..
eternity is...
over.

We Grow, We Change, We Shrink

We grow, we change, and we shrink.



I think...

What do you want to be when you grow up?



When I was three I had the ambition in the size of a universe.

A backpack that I wore everywhere in which I kept the world inside,

I had a torch light with which I lit up every night,

and an umbrella that shadowed me from the heat of a thousand splendid suns.



When I was three,as small as I was,

the globe,

as large as it is,

felt like a stone inside my shoe.



When I was three I figured exactly what I wanted to do,

That is to fly, to escape, to go to space,

to become an astronaut.



And I wonder…

Was it because three I wanted to unshackle my feet of the ground,to break free of gravity,

to get lost in the dreamy blue of the skies and never to be a found?

I wonder..



Three year olds have eyes too small to behold the world between their lids,

Arms too short to reach for the stars,

And feet too tiny to accompany their fathers down the road to the mosque without complains...





Daddy, you’re holding my hand too tight,

Daddy, something got in my eye,

Daddy, there’s a stone in my shoe,

Daddy, I understand that god made gravity,

But I don't understand why?









We grow, we change, and we shrink.

I think…

What do you want to be when you grow up?





When I was young I wanted to be everything...

I wanted to be an astronaut!

I wanted to be a pilot!

I wanted to be an artist!

I wanted to be a pirate!

I wanted to be a scientist!

I wanted to be a writer!

I wanted to be a police man,

god, I wanted to be a fire fighter!





We grow, we change, and we shrink.

I think…



Energy is neither created nor destroyed.



The brilliance we had at the age of three years old had gone nowhere but locked inside of us:

the gravity we could never break free of pulls us down

and the coulmn of pressure on our shoulders pushes us towards the ground,

yet we grow!

But our souls…

they shrink.

I think…



How different are we from a moth that burns itself with fire?

How different are we when we live our lives seeking affection,

seeking desire!

knowing that they'd do us nothing but burn us down to ashes,

with the very same flame we long ago decided

not..

to..

fight..?





We grow, we change…

but at some point, we need to stop shrinking…

I’m thinking…

now that I grew up, what do I want to be when I grow up?

I want to mend my soul,

I want to grow,

I want to change, but not to shrink.

To be limitless,

to have no range,

To be reborn a phoenix from ash,

With two wings of flame,

That I wave far away,

From gravity..

The Round Thoughts of a Flat Minded head

    In the first space geometry class teachers are bound to tell their students about the first and most important item one needs to understand space geometry; Imagination.
In the first space geometry lesson, we were taught about definitions one needs to understand in order to understand space geometry.
-    A level is a flat space on which you can draw three different dots on three different spots that are all on the same dimension. Neither higher nor lower. Levels do not oppose difference, but they oppose favoring; discrimination because one dot is better… or worse.
-    A sphere is a round shape that cuts through so many levels that it becomes almost impossible for two dots, or lines, to be on the same level. One is always better than the other, or worse. You see,the issue with spheres is: you know that none is equal, yet you cannot tell what’s better in a definite way. It changes, depending on what direction of space you are floating on.
    If you pick a point on a sphere and you choose a direction to follow, you’ll most definitely end up on the same spot of your beginning. You turn and choose to take a different route, you end up being on the same bloody turn you took. Like a vain hamster in a bloody running wheel; frustration.
      Levels, on the other hand, are unlimited. You can pick a route and and walk on it forever, you have an unlimited number of routes to choose from, unlimited numbers of choices to make, and of course, unlimited chances of retreating and taking a way behind. It’s all your choice, the form of land has no say in what you want.
Spheres are closed and dominant. Repetitive cycles, endless routes of frustration. And sphere is what the world we live in is.
Stars are spheres, planets orbiting stars are spheres, and moons orbiting planets are spheres.
Insomnia is a sphere. Sleepless nights are spheres. Unfair karma is a sphere. Love Triangles are closed, like spheres. Racism is a sphere. And revenge is a sphere.

Our ancestors believed in a world that is flat: A flat earth covered by seven sheets of skies above it and laying on seven layers of burning hell. A flat surface with mountains raising atop of it and water running across it. A green heaven with waterfalls on its edges, pouring themselves down on Hades below, to put it off.
   Every morning, the sun rose from east and sunk into the west to kneel at god’s throne and beg his grace to teleport it back to where it came from, so it can rise upon us one more day, granted with the divine permission of god himself, to provide us with the heat we need.

Just.
Imagine.
The.
Significance.

Imagine karma being as flat as the earth our ancestors believed in. Imagine it being the cover of a merciful book that our world went by. Imagine not being punished for your sins, but baptized. Imagine never being blamed, but forgiven.
Imagine your eyes being flat white areas with round colorful holes on them, not a round shape that sinks its roots deeper onto the round holes on your face.
Imagine moving those flat pupils of yours on an equal surface, favoring none you see more than the other.
Nobody is too fat to be beautiful, nobody too skinny to be healthy, and no one is too beautiful to favor by their looks.
No nose too big and no ears funny to make jokes about, no teeth looking like an animal’s and to eyes too stretched. All being equally flat, equally pleasing to the eye.

Well..
Our lives are cycles of coming out of a dark womb and falling onto wombs dug in the ground. We are believed to be made of clay, and the round way takes us back to clay.
We find joy in kicking round shapes, shooting their bouncing bodies against  the ground, and tossing them at our enemies’ goals makes us win a battle.
Bullets were first made as round small balls. Cannonballs are round. Death takes the shape of a round. Yet a round belly tells of a new life coming to earth.

As spiteful as round seems, its significance lies in how contradicting it is. We despite round, thus, we despite ourselves, for we are round, and we revolve around our rounded selves. 

Dear Rose (Four letters on 4 AM)

One.

4:04 AM,

“Dear Rose,
I woke up today to the sound of my own crashing bones.
I opened my eyes to see how the oxygen I breathed had turned into none but heated black iron particles.
Every breath I inhaled rusted inside my lungs and layered on its insides.
Every breath I exhaled took an absolute naught out of my chest.
My left lung grew heavy with its pressure on the heart below it and squished it.
The fan on the ceiling moved confidentially in circles, striking the floating particles in my direction, having their heat cauterize my chest, not as if it was wounded, but as if my existence was a wound that harmed the harmony and peacefulness of the room.
My eyes filled up with bloody tears that carved its path on the shape of two question marks across the sides of my face.”


Two.

4:04 AM,
“Dear Rose,
I had guests staying over last night.
 All unanswered questions in the world came to ridicule the existence of my naïve head.
I walked up to the mirror to welcome the guest thoughts that knocked on my broken eyelids and rested on the black bags beneath my eyes.
A hand ran across my messy hair straws and found its way to the two weeks old adolescent facial hair but it found no other hand to hold on to and shake.
My eyeballs scanned the mirror looking for the lopsided smile of my guest but there was only the picture of a disappointed man that mouthed:
“Not good enough, never good enough.””

Three.


4:04 AM,

“Dear Rose,

Today, rose, I used a highlighter on a book I was reading. I turned the side of the book behind the page I was reading, and I wrote a note with a pencil on the margins of it.
I haven’t had sleep in two days but I still fought the urge and the headache and I didn’t pour my morning coffee.
I shredded the pages of our scrapbook and I scratched black all the papers on which I sketched your face.
 I put the colorful painting that hung on the insides of my cupboard door on fire and used the very same fire to light a cigarette that went and deoxygenated the very same chest that locked you dear between its rusted rips. I went ahead and filled that chest with black smoke to block any vision to your memories.
You once said that we’re over if I ever smoked. Are we over now?
 I went ahead and cursed like a pirate in the sea and I expressed thoughts that defy every thought you and I shared. I changed my favorite book, favorite color, and wore my least favorite shirt.
I didn’t punctuate my letters for today, and I didn’t end my sentences with periods. I got rid of all habits, all except one, for today, when I checked on myself on the bathroom mirror, making sure it was myself…
 I saw a person I did not recognize.”

Four.
4:04 AM, 

“Dear Rose,

 I was always told to “Stretch my legs to my coffin length”.
Today when the sun of dawn rose from behind the mountain on the horizon, and I haven’t had sleep yet, I realized it was because I didn’t have a coffin to spread my legs to.
I got up today and for once I went further than my balcony, I spread my legs a bit further, and my sight went a bit away from the void your eyes locked me inside.
I flipped through a book of gardens that held pictures of lilacs, tulips, sunflowers, dahlias and every other flower a tree ever blossomed. Every flower except roses.
I didn’t run from the rain and I didn’t seek a shadow when the sun overwhelmed the roads at Twelve PM..
I didn’t stop to admire a rainbow from afar, but I followed its curved path to see if there really was a pot of gold at its end.
I closed my eyes and had seven significant thoughts, and dear, you weren’t one.
Today I grew too big for the bubble you put me in and I broke out and bungee jumped all my way down to heaven. A heaven where you don’t belong.”

Thoughts Of You

I think about you, 

but I also think about a thousand other things, 

for you are but a tune, 

trying to make a sound,

midst a thousand other symphonies.

I think of how you,

Like agony and anger, 

Like thirst and hunger

Like fear, like wars,

Like a bottle of poison

And a loaded pistol in the hand of a child,

Like an insomniac thought on the back of one's mind,

Like a roaring storm on the far horizon,

Are incessant.

You were chaotic,

Thus, You were beautiful,

But only when alone,

Since,

In the orchestra of the brain

And the audience of the night,

You are an absolute wrong, 

that once seemed right.

See, I think about you,

like how I think of the story, 

Of how you ended up here

Of how "there was a kingdom

Colonized by the rain

Raided by fear,

Inhabited by martyrs

and watered with tears. 

And you were its queen:

A fragile monarch,

made of broken old branches

and fallen tree leafs.

Every time the wind whistled,

Breaking a way through the cracks in the glass,

or the gaps between the logs

in a penurious farmer's house

The kingdom trembled with fear

And drowned itself in alarm

For it was always told

that the evil cold wind

will -one day- cause their queen

harm.

But you- the queen never broke

For  you- the queen was a dream. 

A painting of surrealism

Of a cloud that resided

Neighbors to the moon.

And atop of the cloud

I lived

safe

and sound 

Until one day

the wind blew hard enough

To break open the windows

And blow the queen rough,

to cut through her body

with the moon's sharp edge,

Make her bleed her rain,

And storm upon the ground

her tears of agony

and shouts of pain.

Then diminish the Kingdom

into a raindrop,

a single raindrop

that neither fell on the ocean,

Nor on a river to flow,

but on an isolated land, 

That consumed it whole

into down below, 

the very same ground,

That it was rained upon…

See,

I think about you.

I think of many things.

I think of what you were,

I think of what you've done.

Like, 

I think of how you

abandoned your very own masterpiece,

Wrinkled its three messy pages,

And tossed them away

In the lonely basket

...On the lonely corner

 .....of your lonely room.

I remember things,

Like how you wrote beautifully, 

you beautifully you thought, 

I also remember how weak you needed to be

to never write again.

It's me; it's you.

Hi,
 I'd like to introduce myself,
 but..
 Who am I to do?
 I mean,
I'm a random person walking down the street,
 a fellow passenger who may have once shared your seat,
 I'm a hand that breaks hearts,
 And I'm a broken heart's beat.
 I'm a tune out of rhythm,
 I'm an outcast.
 I'm just a.. teenager
 whose love would never last

. so..
 Hi.
 I am the disappointment in your father's eye,
 But I'm also the anger that lingers in yours.
 I am Armageddon,
 I am civil wars.
 I am industry,
 I am agriculture.
 I'm a third world country,
 with a disaster from the nature.
 I am gunpowder
 I am the clash of swords,
 A blasphemous laughter,
 and the cruelest of words.

But,
 Hi.
 I am also the smile of a stranger on the road,
 I'm the warmth of the feeling of being understood,
 I am your won battles, your truthful accusations,
 your valid arguments and cheerful conversations,
 I'm your dream castles, I'm the future generations.
 I'm a happy thought,
that floats inside your head,
 I'm your favorite quote,
 I'm the books that you read.
 I'm Your hidden affection,
and the words you haven't said.

 I'd like to introduce myself,
 So I walk down the aisle,
 now knowing what to do,
 I've been rehearsing for a while,
 and you saw it coming, too,
 so I stutter, smile and say:
 "H-Hi, I am you."