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Do tell me that I’m outdated.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."

The swing without a name

a nameless kid,
when his age was three,
an old oak tree was his only friend.
around its neck he tied a rope,
a black rotten tire on its dangling end.
 for when the wind would whistle;
 and birds would sing,
 he'd perch his little self on his lonely swing
 move his legs for back and forth,
his sight gets lost on the horizon north.
and the tree would always hold him tight,
 a shade from the sun,
 and a shelter from the night.
 he climbed with his hopes up on it very high.
 a safe haven for him from the pain and the lies,
 up far away from the world and its shame,
 he'd just stay there:
 a kid without a name.

 well, time goes on,
 our kid is seventeen,
 and the tree had grown old,
 and its leaves less green,
 unpleasant to sit at, unpleasant to be seen,
 they had to cut it off for its wood to be sold,
 naive and unaware, the little boy tried to hold,
but his soul went broken and his body has fallen
his friend was dead and his swing was stolen,
its leaves were burnt,
a one last flame,
the oak tree abandoned
 the boy without a name.

 a nameless man when his age is thirty,
 his eyes look tired,
 his clothes dirty,
 followed one road to see where it led,
 and just right there,
 where all the paths end
he found an oak tree he once called a friend.
around its neck he tied a rope,
on its dangling end a hangman's noose,
 for when the hurricane hits,
 and the alarm would ring,
 he himself would be a lonely swing.
a man without a dream and a stolen hope.
 his neck held tight by a black old rope,
 his legs would move for back and forth,
the bugs would feed on his rotten cloth,
 and the birds would feast right on his eyes,
 open in the air to be eaten by his lies:
a nameless corpse, never meant to be found,
 not to be burnt or put deep in the ground
 neither baptized with water nor flame,
 a corpse without a pride, a swing without a name.

The dread you see

"Dystopia:
dys·to·pi·a

disˈtōpēə/

noun

1. an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one"
   

   
   

the ugly scenes,

the ugly sins,

the fallen cities with their broken walls,

the bloodstains/the acid rains

the persistent aches and maddening pains,

all the dread your eyes would view,

isn't anywhere..

but inside..

..of..

..you.

 you see the death of a poet,

 you see demise of their art,

 you see a chaos, you see a riot,

 you see the end,

 but not the start.

 You see the siege of Baghdad,

 the crusades,

 the holocaust..

 heaven falls, the two world wars..

and Odin's slaughter in Valhalla's halls.

 you see fallen men with sorrowful eyes,

you see their dreams confused with lies.

 you see disappointments,

 you see their tears,

 their broken hearts and demanding fears.

 you only see the burns when you look at a star,

 'Cause you see the world 

- not as it is-

 but as what you are.

 you are frustration, you are a maze,

 you are confused and in a broken phase,

 you are both genocide and manslaughter,

 you're the heartless burial of an alive daughter,

 you're not only a fear,

 you're a damn phobia,

 you.. on your own,

 are a whole Dystopia.

Maybe Those Are Funny

"DISCLAIMER:
 those are probably not funny."

*Funny how the very things you took of care the most and put ahead as reasons to look at and smile are to be the exact reasons for your misery; Every thought you kept safe in your head, every entry you wrote on your journal, and every picture you cropped and glued to the pages of your scrapbook would stand there upon your ruins, their wide smiles to redicule your existence, their aggressiveness and cruelty to show you that what you thought was unreal, what you believed does not exist, what you claimed is in your brain and merely your brain, is capable of causing you the worst kind of physical pains; The most horrible of headaches; the most brutal of insomnia.

* Funny how you, at a night, think you know who you are and what you're capable of doing. You lullaby your silly naive self to sleep with the songs of the dreams you think you have captured, Just to wake up the next morning on an isolated island, unaware of where you are, why you're here, how to survive and what destination are you to aim for. Your aforementioned dreams are the last thing to think about now, your ambitions, traits, lovely belongings? those are all to be left behind. The love you felt towards anything is to be turned into regret. The bonds that tied you to whatever you held dear are to be the very main source of your suffocation. It's horrible how this wide the sea, the sand, the moonlight and its reflections have all dedicated them selves to whisper in your ears the bedtime stories of the night when you used the jungle vines to create a lovely necklace to wrap around your neck and the time you took a leap of faith onto the heart of the sea. They whisper to you the perfect scenarios you were always too afraid to act. The endings you needed to make before it's too late for your happy ever after.

* Funny how you will soon accept the pain and its demands. Sooner than you'd think, the pain and the longing will stop being the main dialogue in this play and become a background soundtrack instead. It's hilarious how they not only will stop being things that destroy and change you, but they'll also become a part of you; your existence.
You get to a point where you don't want to feel, you're in the aching need of letting go, of moving on, of making a huge change as an attempt of adaptation. And so you do, or fool yourself into thinking you've done so. It hurts, and it angers and annoys you how you had to have the things you've worked the hardest to get a grip of slip through your weak fingers and fall to their break and shatter. Yet you'll find it funny how the realization  that maybe it's not that bad will start rushing to your mind.
"Maybe it's better have them break now while you're capable of starting over." You tell yourself. And at last you decide to keep the memories, the scrapbook and diaries, keep the items and the writings, keep them not to hold on to them. But for them to stand there a proof that good things can exist, temporary, yes. But the impact they left, that's to persist.

Out of The Labyrinth; Into it.

The leap of faith;
you took alone,
out of the maze;
onto the eye of a burning sun.
the road is made,
for you to run..
onto the mess of ash and bone;

we breathe to live;
you breathed to die.

you lit a cigarette;

then smoked a lie,
Consumed the liquor
into your blood..
the alcohol..
the shattered glass..
the bloody mud..

the books on your shelves..
the dust on them..
their yellow papers..
their unread selves..
they weep alone..

The labyrnith that you escaped..
so straight… so fast..
it put us in..
a paradox..
a labyrinth..
of human sins..
of living long.. and dying last..
of unlit cigarettes„
and undone pranks..
of a stupid fire..
burning low..
of our desire..
to let it go..

Our Faulty Stars

They burned, they turned,
They left us behind,
They fell downhill,
With that roller coaster,
You and I used to ride.

They tickled through your nose,
They flooded in your chest.
Then lit up my weak bones,
a decoration for Christ.
they ran through our veins,
they dug through our bones,
and they gathered in our lungs..
to bury us in stones.

I stand upon them now,
I look at you and stare..
And I think about our stars..
how faulty and unfair..
let down their mistakes..
on our shoulders to behold..
Pains, grieves, and aches..
and stories untold..
.
But you and I did stand..
within our numbered days,
we.. we were grand..
In all possible ways..
we offered our hearts for break,
and we made our choices,
The eye-contact we make,
and the phone’s static noises.

I loved you, can’t deny it,
you loved me, present tense,
you and I were oblivion,
..a.. hot.. damn.. mess..