Monday 14 December 2015

A dose of Hypocrisy

Man, I'm sick of poets writing poems about how dope their poetry is,
I'm sick o'them forcefully dragging emotions along with them to freak shows just to show off their fucked up senses of metaphorical fashion.
I'm sick o'those painting their faces with nonmatching colors o'passion a desperate call for approval.
Yellow smiles, red excitement, and tears too blue to be true.

I'm tired of love poems.
And I guess love poems are tired too,
Burdened with so much wordplay, so many tongue twisters, and way too heavy metaphors for a love poem to still look, feel, and sound like a love poem.

And, I'm getting tired of words,
How they betray their creators and turn against them,
Shred the writer apart and take all the messages they were suppoused to deliver and burn em,
What good is causing a stage mayhem if it wasn't you behind the mic?
What good is writing a thousand bloody lines to explain what something feels like when you don't even know how it feels?

But I don't blame them,
I don't blame words, writers, pens nor phone screens,
I don't blame metaphors, rhymes, nor word schemes,
I don't blame music, singers, bands nor solo musicians,
Not the media, not the west, not aliens, not even the illuminati,
I don't blame us. I don't blame me, I don't blame you, and..I don't blame our parents even though we're only taking the steps they once took before...

It's a marsh after all,
And it's... less of a civilization more of a freak parade.
Can't you spectate? Look around you...
There's a set of definitions for normal that we all work our asses off to live up to,
Yet no one reaches it.
And if you can't make it, you fake it,
So I guess that makes us less of a society, more of a masquerade:
Manmade massproduced humane flesh that we pay so much to buy just so we can glue it to our faces just to look human,
And man, should you be careful...
Make sure that you pour enough glue on that face,
Nail that mask to your eyelids, lips, and cheeks,
For if you fail at keeping that mask on, if the temptation of flashing your face to strangers overcomes your willpower to remain lowkey,
Then you'll end up like us, you'll end up like me,
Buried in names and labels, locked in between descriptions and definitions...

Society's unwanted children, its blackest of sheep, adernaline junkies too indulged in their little selfish sins,
The posers, the fakers, the sinners, the pretentious brats and the misguided fucks,
Look at them, trying with what seems a little too hard to fit between misfits,
Rebellion's brakes, tranquility's rebellion,
The stains of mediocrity in literature, the stains of shame in time...

And in time... we end up isolated even from isolation,
Looked down at and frowned upon,
For we're the ones historians trash the most and wipe off the records, and...

I'm getting tired of words,
Getting tired of poems that take us nowhere,
Tired of revolutionary songs and passionate love speeches,
Of the monsters that we hide behind those masks of humanity and their constant screams and screetches of objections... and...

I'm tired of this.

Tuesday 18 August 2015

The Frustrating Teaspoon of Love

See when it came to writing lately:
ALL THE FUCKING METAPHORS SOUND USELESS AND USED,
ALL THE POEMS UP HERE ARE CRINGEWORTHY,
all the ones about your eyes,
your face, your lips, your thoughts,
All the similes of how you walk,
how you talk, and how it all puts down this...
this pile of piles of intersecting loopholes, newspaper shreds of crosswords solved wrong and explosives full of damp gunpowder that fails at being it self,
how it puts down this linguistically poor sad excuse of a metaphor into...
(I DONT KNOW THE WORD)
see that's the thing:
It feels as though all the language I learned since I let out my first unintelligible shout of objection is severly inadequate and that no matter how many dictionaries you go through you still wont find a word that says what you want to say.
I KNOW that words are suppoused to be mere complexes of voices that can hold any meaning but that's not how it is
how it is is how no word has enough syllables to hold off what weighs on this che- mind.
And then all the words I always were familiar with turned themselves into tongue twisters I only heard for the first time and my tongue grew heavy with  speaking hardships
Thats why every I love you I say sounds less like a word and more like a sigh,
because I love you doesn't really say it.
I love you doesn't even live up to the standards of a phrase that would say it.
but I settle down for what little that tiny teaspoon shovels off my thoughts because the closest thing to how I feel about you is holding up a dr.Suess' book everytime I look at you and my heart feels as if it's flooding in a strawberry milkshake and my dark face flushes into darker shades of red and quoting something irrelevant to the context of love.
So I'm not sure if this makes sense to you but when I say I love you what I mean to say is...

"walter Witter called a waiter: "Waiter, over here!
I want some water, waiter. Water, waiter! Is that clear?
The waiter brought some water. Walter Witter shouted: "WRONG!
This water's really watered-down! I like my water strong 
The waiter brought more water. Walter Witter was upset. 
"This water's dry!" said Walter. "I like my water wet! 
Bring me wetter water, waiter!" Walter Witter said. 
The waiter brought a pitcherful and poured it on his head."

you feel me?

Thursday 25 June 2015

شماعة: وماذا بعد؟


"النهاية."
انتهى تدافع الحروف، تزاحمها على السطور، توقفت ركلاتها المستمرة لعقبيه، لم يعد شيئا يرغمه على التقدم... لم يكن هناك مجالاً للتقدم على اية حال.
ما أسوأ ما قد يحدث؟ الموت؟ ابداً.
ما أحلى الموت مقارنة بهذا المصير، أسوأ ما قد يحدث هو ان تعلق.
ان تنتهي قصتك، ان تنتهي الرواية التي كنت بطلها، وتنتهي أصوات ازرار الآلة الكاتبة التي كانت تفاجئك حرفاُ تلو الآخر، واصوات همهمة القراء، وتتوقف الاحداث عن الحدوث وينطبق الغلاف الأخير على الورقة البيضاء الأخيرة هو أسوأ ما قد يحدث.
ربما كان مصيره أفضل قليلاُ إن مات اثناء الرواية، ولكنه عاش طويلاً جداً. وإن عشت طويلاً جدا لتشهد "النهاية"، فما اتعسك، وانا اقترح عليك ان تبدأ بندب حظك، واعلم انه لا شيء اجدر بأن تندب حظك لأجله.
وصلت به "النهاية" الى الحافة، لم يسقط تماما، ولكنه يقف هناك، لا مجال له للعودة لأن الحروف وراءه تشكل طريقاً وعرة جدا، وان استطاع العبور على اغلبها، فإن الالف واللام والطاء بعصاتها يقفون له بالمرصاد، جدران وراء جدران تسبقها جدران، وهو يعلم جيداً انه سيء في القفز، وان الهاويات بين الالف وبقية الأحرف واسعة جدا ولن يستطيع ان يقفز عبرها...
هو يخاف السقوط.
هو يخاف كل شيء.
انتهت روايته وتجرد منه لفظ البطل وأصبح لا شيء سوى نفسه: جبان.
لم يعد شيئا سوى لا شيء، لم يعد شيئاً ابدا.
وقف على الحافة، عَلِمَ ان الهوة امامه تنتهي بالحضيض، وان لا خيار امامه سوى السقوط، ولكنه سيأجل ذلك قدر ما استطاع.
أراد الجلوس ولكن فكرة ان تهوي قدماه الى الأسفل معطية الجاذبية الأرضية فرصة لسحب رجليه مُعجلة بسقوطه ارعبته فظل واقفاً.
سيقف هنا حتى تنهار الأرض تحت قدميه، ذلك الحل الوحيد. هو سيسقط، ولكنه سيقسط فقط حينما يريده الله ان يسقط.
بياض الورقة الناصع يؤلم عيناه، يشعر بالحنين للسماء الزرقاء، او المعتمة، وهو لا يريد في اللحظة سوى بعض النجوم، وبعض من هي...
كان يحملها بين اضلعه، تذكر ذلك، النشوة غلبت الرعب للحظة، والتفكير، ادخل يده في جيبه، اخرج المفتاح وفتح باب قفصه الصدري، واخرجها.
هي لم تنطق، كانت تكره ان تكون سجينته، ستعاقبه بالصمت، ولن تدعه يملأ جفنيه بسحرها. هي تعلم سحرها، وتخبر جيداً قدرات كلماتها على اسعاده، هي تعلم ايضاً ما يحدث له الآن، وهي غاضبة جدا، تركها في صدره المهمل ولم يعتني بها، لم يعطيها الاهتمام الذي تستحق، ستجعله يندم.
تحركت هي بكل خفة، رفعت قدمها عن الأرض: خطوة. وضعت قدمها اليمنى، ورفعت اليسرى: خطوة. كررتها عدة مرات، صارت خلفه تماما. تبدو أقدامه غبية امام اقدامها، تشعر قدماه بالإحراج من نفسيهما، يريد الدوران، يعلم ان لا قدرة له على الدوران، تعلم ان لا قدرة له على الدوران.
يعلم انها عنيدة، وأنها لن تأتي امامه، وأنها لن تنطق.
لا فائدة، سينهي هذه الفوضى وسينتهي.
خرجت الحروف من فمه متقطعة، كانت الكلمات محتارة الآن، خصوصا وان "النهاية" تقف خلفها، وهي تعلم ان لا مكان لها بعد النهاية.
قال:
إ
د
ف
ع
ي
ن
ي.

ارتسمت ابتسامة سادية على وجهها أرسلت قشعريرة في جسده.

ل
ن

ت
ف
ع
ل

لم يكن خطئاً واحداً الذي ارسله هنا، بل مئات. خطؤه الأكبر كان ايمانه بالنهاية السعيدة، وثقته العمياء بالكاتب. لم  يكن يعلم ان الكاتب كان يمقته، وانه أعطاه كل ما أعطاه فقط ليأخذه لاحقاً. لم يكن يعلم انه ليس سوى وسيلة لتفريغ موجة من العدوانية اجتاحت الكاتب في يوم سيء.
كل شيء ضده، والله هنا لن يقول للأرض ان تنهار، ولن تدفعه هي، ولن يحدث شيء، بعد النهاية كل شيء ساكن، وسيقف كل شيء هنا، يسخر من وجوده.
لم يكن ابداً بطلاً.
لن يكون بطلاً.
هو يريد القفز، ولكن الكاتب جعل فوبياه الوحيدة هي المرتفعات.
امال رأسه وارغم بؤبؤا عيناه على النظر الى داخل الحفرة، شعر بالدوار، فقد توازنه، وسقط.

والنهاية هنا ارغمت السكون على السقوط...

وظل يسقط.

"البداية."

Thursday 11 June 2015

Into The Rabbit's Hole

1-
Let's all agree that I'm fine.
I know that because I still know the few steps to follow to get inhaling done and how to exhale what I breathe.
and if that's because of something then it's because I've never been as breathetakingly in love as I would desire to be.
It's because I never mistaked her scent for air and air for heroine. I never got addicted enough to refuse exhaling her away.
So I'm fine.
My insides are clean.
My organs are in place and I feel like my ripcage is doing a great job keeping my heart intact, and that the rhythm my heart makes is not yet off-beat despite the few trips and skipping it childishly made.
I know that my stomach still functions the right way and that it digests everything between its walls and makes use of it, including the butterflies she sends in me everytime our eyes meet.
see I know that being in love is having cupid piercing your heart with a needle then injecting your own blood through your veins and fooling you into thinking that it's a drug.
See I was told to beware of Cupid. That he's a redneck and asshole and when you stop paying him enough attention he puts his bow and arrow aside, tears off his wings, then strokes his beard.
he shoots you with his shotgun, runs over you with his car which is usually a tractor, or a starship, or a... bloody dinosaur, then buries you in the back of your head and justifies what he did by telling everybody you trespassed on his grounds.
I'm fine.
I still know how to pump my very own blood through my veins,
I manage to keep a distance from things like drugs and conangels like cupid,
So I'm fine.

2-
I lied.
I would love to say that I don't know what it feels to have your inhales and exhales dressing up as suffocation and sighs,
That I do know how to get rid of the sweet hint of decieving words stuck at the tip of your tongue but...

LOVE(a):
is an abyss. You standing on the edge of a cliff with eyelids too tense to drop, feet too held to the ground to drop, a heart beating too fast to stop. A coward who wouldn't take the leap of faith on his own until he
finds a cowardess whose hand soothes him enough into falling in love.

LOVE(b):
Falling in love is exactly like falling in the rabbit's hole from wonderland. It may not be as significant as it is pictured but its rockbottom catches you off guard once you stop believing in its existence, too.

LOVE(c):
There is no joy greater than crashing on rock bottom. Love is starting to mistake pain for pleasure and heartaches for euphoria and blood for wine.
Love is losing your sense of time and you mistake the years you wasted staring blindly into their eyes and waiting on your broken bones to bend for the one second you blinked and broke eye contact.

LOVE(d):
Love is using your bare fingers to scratch the tiny rocks of the walls around you just to build a cozy room in rockbottom because deep down here it feels like home.

LOVE(e):
Love is not blind. Love is a sadistic manipulative sick motherfucker, and that's okay.

LOVE(f):
Because of her.
Everything she says sounds to you like the hint of passion in the sighs of a love poet.
Every imperfection she tries to hide you'll find just as fast enough to have one more reason to be in love with her, and it's not like you need any.
She'll look to you like a metaphor a poet should be proud for coming up with.
She makes love with all the cruelty it beholds and the ugliness it hides between its letters worth a try.
You wouldn't want to go home when she's around because home is not home anymore.
Home is not a place anymore.
Home is where she is.

Saturday 18 April 2015

This Poem is Called the Greatest Love Poem Ever and I Apologize in Advance Because it Isn’t




Whoever dares to write a love poem about you must write the greatest love poem ever written or not write at all.
Also if someone was capable of writing “the greatest love poem ever” they must write it about you or never write it at all.
Let me put it this way:

The greatest love poem ever would probably not have a beginning, an end, a chorus, or a bridge and maybe no verses or lines at all.
It could be a mess that begins in the middle of a sentence.
Then ends with a preposition.
or a loud shout that comes out of nowhere.
Or a whisper that is only heard if everyone stopped breathing for a while.

Either way, because of you, the author’s heartbeats had already made a sound loud enough for its waves to hit the boundaries of the extending universe and echo for eternity even if the source stops beating.
And there would never be enough silence in the universe for people to hear what he completely wrote.

The greatest love poem ever would sound so good that the ring of it would awaken Lennon, Freddy Mercury, and bloody Mozart and make them resurrect their instruments and compete on who can compose a melody damn good enough to be played as background music while the poem is read.
Yet no music would be good enough to interrupt the greatest love poem ever.



For the greatest love poem ever would sound like the holy mess that would occur if the blasphemous voices in your head signed themselves up in the choir of a church.



The greatest love poem ever is going to be a biblical cheesy mess;
So full of metaphors and clichés that were wrongfully used to describe people who weren’t you.
because you…
you really do have eyes (GOD BLESS) that resemble the reflection of moonlight on an ocean.
the way you sound is like the way a person would sound if god forged their vocal chords out of stars.
And sometimes I happen to wonder if god dipped his brush in the shades of your skin to color mahogany, rosewood and ebony trees.
And I know…
I know this not an exaggeration because if you look close enough you can see that the strokes of his brush look so much like your eyelashes.

And I’m afraid I’m not yet lost enough in you to write the Greatest love poem ever…
So I want you to drown me in your existence and sink every ship I ever anchored close to those ports beneath your eyelids.
I want you to stick your fingers between my ribs and release whatever I hold a prisoner in that cage and clean it up.
I also want you to entwine your hand around mine and lead me into a maze from which I can never escape.
Stare into my eyes in all the right ways so no wrong can come out of my mouth.
Redecorate me wholly, and build me up, so that one day it would be I that writes about you...
The greatest love poem ever written.



Friday 10 April 2015

A Night in The Presence of Planes



Sana’a, Friday March 27, 2015

3:00 Am



I cover my head with a blanket, forgetting that it would not turn into a shelter if the walls and ceiling decide it’s time to crumple on our heads. It’s okay to forget that, though, you tend to be forgetful in times of war.
What is it that makes me this scared, now? It is not my first time crammed and paralyzed in this narrow corridor. The very same narrow corridor on which I held my little torch and flipped through my schoolbook pages, studying for the national exams the ministry insisted on running on what was left of the city four years ago. I was not this scared back then, not the shaking walls, the gunshots, or the cannon blasts did scare me back then. Nothing ever sent a shiver down my spine like this.
What is it that terrifies me tonight?
I guess it is the planes.

The whistle the planes make draws closer, comes nearer and closer, it is now too loud you can feel it right above you. It, the plane, is right above you, and you, tiny poor you, are laying helpless here beneath. You close your eye for a second, hoping that you will still have the ability to open your eyes in three more seconds later. You open your eyes again, yet your head is still covered under the blanket and you’re not sure in this darkness if your eyes are still closed or open, you cannot see either ways. The only sense you still have is hearing, since in this darkness you cannot see, and in the corner your limbs grew numb and you cannot feel, it smelled like gunpowder and ash for too long now your nose cannot smell. You can only hear in this situation.

Silence…

The whistle went far, and then even farther, Or… was it I that went away?
I always wondered if I’d hear the sound of my bones crushing, my muscles getting mashed and the blood in my veins leaking. I wondered if I’d feel each and every particle and tissue getting shredded apart or is the Missile that’ll kill you is like the bullet that would go through your head, would be too fast for you to hear?

Silence…

Am I dead? I haven’t heard the whistle, the anti-aircraft weaponry or the sound of a deafening explosion in… say…
Three seconds?

It blows my train of thoughts up, the deafening explosion I have been anticipating tosses me down to earth. I am alive, yet I cannot feel the vibrations on the ground beneath, for I can only hear. I hear the sound of the missile collapsing with the ground, I hear the sound of the explosion colliding with the mountains all around us, and the mirrored echo shaking the walls of our house. The vibrations on our windows make cracks on them that I can hear, as I also hear my heartbeats quickening, My little sister who’s clinging to my leg’s heartbeats quickening, my sleep-pretending brothers heartbeats quickening, and my terrified mother’s heartbeats quickening, too.
What is it that quickens our heartbeats so much this time that was not here last time?
It is the planes. It must be the planes.
I guess.

A door in this corridor of ours takes you right out to the fifth floor’s hall of this building, right across from it is another door that takes you to a corridor identical to ours. I know the family across the hall are crammed in their corridor just like us, I think about them when I hear the terrified cry of one of their four children, or even more… They are many, those neighbors of ours, how are they holding up? I wonder.
What of our other neighbor, the doctor?
Was she able to steady her breaths to calm her little two girls?

Where did the latest explosion come from? Was it north? What neighborhood is in that area? Which of my friends live there?
Is anybody dead?
Is any of them trying to crawl out of the ruins to continue living?

I think about Mahmoud Darwish’s A Memory for Forgetfulness, a book I read recently about the siege of Beirut back in 1982. Was coffee really all what Darwish could think about that night? He’s amazing, that man; How is it possible for one to want coffee, or anything else, under such heavy bombing? How would you crave something when you’re not sure if you’re still alive after each explosion you hear? How addictive can coffee be for it to be able to take your thinking off searching for the life in your limbs into thinking about coffee and nothing but coffee?
I wish I was a coffee addict, or a smoker, or a junkie, or anything that would make too busy suffering from its withdrawal symptoms to be terrified.
Wouldn’t craving cigarettes, or coffee be better than thinking about death?

Thinking too much made me too busy to hear the whistle of the plane, and the explosion caught me off guard this time.

Dear god,
my mother recites Quran verses under her breath, my brother fake snores, and my sister tightens her horrified grip on my leg with every explosion.

I think, and so the explosions catch me off guard, then I think, and I stop thinking on my own then tell myself to anticipate the next explosion for it not to make my heart fall apart, but it does.
My heart falls to my lower limbs, and my feet swell and I feel the pulse in my toes. My heart gets up, pulls itself together, collects its shattered pieces and climbs up my bones, slowly.

Another explosion occurs before it gets to my chest, and so my heart falls down again to start its journey over.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, thrice, a hundred times, and it is a thousand shame on me.

(“A believer does not allow himself to be stung twice from one (and the same) hole.”)
And it seems the war is taking my faith away.



Wednesday 4 March 2015

What's Hidden Between Our Strands





If it ever gets to the scene where I rest my restless head upon your lap,
And the tingle of your cold fingertips stumbles across the valleys hidden between the white strands of this hair,
 remember that those cracks are god’s best piece of creation. 

You see, it all happened as an accident.
One day, when you were not there to protect me from his wrath,
god sent his clumsiest angels to nail those eyelids to the skull behind
and then toss me into one random night. 

You see, it all happened as an accident, but god does not make accidents, and those cracks are his best piece of creation.
Those cracks are the windows that I opened to let the smell of the smoke that broke our promises out.
Those cracks are the windows that let the light into the torture dungeons in my head in which I kept myself locked.
Those cracks, god’s best piece of creation, were the holes that let all the words that I never wanted inside form poems in my head and escape,
all the rotten thoughts that you and I never wanted in form songs in my head and escape. 

If we ever come to a time where the tingle on your cold fingertips stumbles across the canyons hidden between what’s left of the white strands of this hair,
Remember that those cracks were not mistakes,
But god made them seem to be.

But if we don’t,
if your stitched eyelids do not meet my stitched ones.
And you come to a scene where the tingling on your cold fingertips gets lost between the strands of a head that has no cracks,
and his chapped kisses implant nothing but weeds on the cracks on your head,
If the smoke of his cigarettes slips through the cracks and layers on the insides of your head,
if the voices outside your head turned the cracks into gateways for them to reside inside,
if the noises of the large cities you loathed replaced themselves with sound of the streams that you lullabied yourself to sleep with,
And you could not sleep because the stitches on your eyelids fell down and your pupils broke open again,
remember that those cracks could have come to a scene where they are god’s best piece of creation.
remember…
that what seems like an indulgent is not an accident nor a mistake,
But god made it seem to be.  

Tuesday 17 February 2015

The Small, Abandoned, and Out-Of-Their-Minds 2.0





I, unlike everybody else, but also like everybody else, watched as her enormous red boots pedaled down the road. I hoped that she does not run over me, but that did not matter much. I was too busy staring at the movement of her boots and the enormous waves of flying mud and water the giant tires of her bicycle made as she easily pedaled.
You do not see many bicycles in this city. You do not see many girls in this city. You never see girls wearing enormous red boots in this city. And You definitely do not see a girl with enormous red boots riding bicycles in the roads of this city. So I watched as she drove down the road, like everybody else did, but not like everybody else.

After forever of watching her pedaling down the road, coming closer to me, her enormous boots growing larger and larger, I started sincerely worrying that she might run those giant but thin tires over me, or that the enormous waves of flying mud and rainwater would cover and choke me. It is not like it mattered, but I thought it would be painful, and I do not want mud all over me, the enormously hot sun would make it dry and glue me to the bloody pavement even more. As if my life was not already hard enough with me laying here, abandoned, small, and out of my mind.
She did not run over me. Which is good news, but her tires splashed mud on my body and it filled my eyes and mouth, which is horrible news.

I heard her bike breaks fighting the slippery road until finally the squeaks her pedals made and the way her tires shook the ground came to a halt. I heard her jump off the bicycle and I heard the mud splashed as an aftermath of the earthquake resulted by the collusion of her boots and the ground fall back to the ground again.
I heard the sound of her wet boots colliding with the ground with every step she made towards me, and I heard my own heartbeats quickening and growing stronger.

(Conclusion: When you are extremely small, too heavy for your own legs to carry you, your eyes covered in mud, and glued to the ground; your hearing becomes much better.)

I heard the cracks her vertebrae made as she bent her enormous back an enormous bend down to pick little, abandoned, out-of-his-mind, I of the ground.
I felt her enormously hot breath melting the snowflakes that glued me to the pavement, and I felt the giant cracks of the fingerprints on the tip of her fingers brush the mud off my eyes.
I saw her large eyes stare at the little, maniac, and abandoned, I that was now laying between her palms, and observe me, wholly.

She finally took me back to her bicycle, her red bicycle, as I can see now, and bent her back again, as she took out a small box, not so small, I could fit in… Opened it, and put me inside of it. She then stuffed us, the box and I, back in her bag, and abandoned us in there.


I thought to myself that it was sad that my first journey away from the spot I was stuck to for as long as I can remember, and my first time being less abandoned, and not on the ground was in a small box, in a red bicycle, ridden by a girl with enormous eyes and enormous red boots.
I then again thought to myself, “why exactly was it sad?”, and to that, I could not find an answer, so I thought that maybe if I take a nap, and wake up, maybe then I’ll know why was I sad. That or the sadness would be gone.
Sleeping my way to solutions is a method my advanced calculus teacher showed me back when I was not so small, less abandoned, and a little closer to my mind.
Back then, I took advanced calculus classes, and learned three different languages, and I wanted to become a painter, but I ended up a receptionist clerk on a desk, and then there was no desk, and no such thing as a clerk, and absolutely no one to receive, which is quite melancholic.

I woke up to the pop of the box as it opened. My eyes burnt with all the light that suddenly filled the box and heated the cushion I was sleeping on. I wanted turn on my stomach and hide my face from the light and the heat. However, I think that after all of this time being asleep, and laying on cold hard ground, frozen and glued, I forgot how to use my body, because I tend to forget things after not doing them. Exactly like how I forgot how to solve advanced calculus problems after years of sitting on the reception desk, which now, I forgot how to do, too.

She finally saved me as two of her fingers grabbed me, supposedly gently, but actually not, and put me on her legs after she jumped on an old couch in her house and turned the TV and tuned in to a harry potter movie.
I know it is a sofa, and a TV and an old harry potter movie because I had a sofa and a TV exactly like those, and the very same DVD player on which she is playing the Harry potter movie.

I sat there on her lap for two hours (I remember they used to be two hours, I do not know how long are harry potter movies now that I am very small, and very out of my mind). I ate all the chips crunches that fell from her chips bag every time she sticked her enormous hand in there, taking out a few to eat. I also mumbled the hexes, jinxes, spells and charms along with the wizards on the screen so I could impress the girl whose lap I was laying on, eating potatoes.
Yet, she did not notice.

When the movie was finished, she got up, after picking me off her lap, and carried me down the corridor to her room. She abandoned me, again, on the still of the sole window of her bedroom, the exact seat window of my room a long time ago, and went to bed.

You know what time I hate the most? Post-midnight.
I did not sleep that night. I thought to myself that this could be because of the cold weather, and the fact that I had slept all day long inside of a much tighter, much cozier small box, where I was abandoned, by a person who was awake back then, and whose snores did not fill the silence of the room, back then.
I then remembered that I had this issue for a long time, this not-sleeping-at-night issue.
Long before I started spending my nights laying on one of my sides staring at empty roads and the doors of closed shops, with only the company of baby dogs, puppies, that tried to take care of me and lullaby me to sleep, but fell asleep before I do, and gave up at last. I used to spend my nights staring at a blank ceiling identical to this of this room.
I had colors and many canvases on which I finger-painted everything.

I had forgotten how to do everything, but my fingers tell me that I can still paint. So I get up, as the first movement I do in ages, and climb up the window pane. I stand on my light feet, my knees trembling, cackling like silver spoons, but my fingers finally reach out for the fogged up glass.
As the tip of my index touches the cold glass, I realize that I do not know what to draw.
I ask myself, “What do I draw?”
-“Try a hangman noose!”
“Why?”
“It’s fun to draw.”
“It’s not.”
“Yes it is, don’t you remember? Come on, just draw it.”
And so I did.
“Now who do I hang?”
“No, we’re done with hanging.”

I then collapsed, my knees could no longer stand, and I was very tired, so I slept. Shaking, cold, and no protection for my bare skin from the freezing air and exposure. I slept. No blanket for me but my little maniac warm dreams.

I woke up at a dawn when the snow on the rooftops of houses down the empty roads I could see out the window had melted.
The red bicycle parked right below the window was now tied to the ground with vine roses that tangled it and grew between the spokes, tying them to the pedals, and up to the rims, making it a colorful sculpture of red, greens, and flowers’ colors.

The enormous girl’s snores had stopped and turned into small, calm, breaths.
Now in the light, that I had my dose of sleep, I could finally solve the equation to why I had been feeling like I was going through a very long, very vivid session of Déjà vu. It is because I was.
This room, that TV, this window, and the street outside of it… everything in here was a mine when I was bigger than this, and a little bit less maniac.

I finally got up, stared at the reflection of those black round eyes, the purple hair strands that are still glowing, the round ears on the top of my head and I thought: “Dammit, I look familiar.”

When she woke up, she finally put me inside her cabinet to watch over her clothes while she abandoned me and got away. But the abandoning didn’t last for long. And I now refer to myself, most of the time, as the small, taken-care-of, maniac, talking-to-itself teddy-bear.

Saturday 14 February 2015

ضربٌ من الحب، أوالجنون... ما الفرق؟


مشهد 1:


 يعتلي أحد المجانين حاجز اسمنتي وضعته الحكومة قبل فترة لتغلق شارعنا وتمنع عبور السيارات "لأسباب أمنية"، ويبدأ بغناء، وبصوت مِلؤه النشاز، احدى أغاني ام كلثوم، وهو يلوح بكوب الشاي البلاستيكي بيده، يحسبه منديل.
يجلس الخبّاز، الذي جُن قبل شهر، أسفل الحاجز الإسمنتي، ويستمع بإنصات، ثم يدندن بعض الكلمات التي يحفظها من الأغنية، ويسكت في حين آخر، ثم يهمهم مع الأوركسترا، -التي لا أراها، ولا اسمعها-، الموسيقا الخفية بين كل جملة وأخرى، ينضم اليه بقية عُمّال المخبز، وموظفو نقل الثلج بسوق السمك، والبقّال، والأطفال الذاهبون الى مدارسهم، وطلبة المعهد المهني سيئو السمعة، وبائع الجرائد، ذي السابعة من العمر، وفتية حارتنا، والحارة المجاورة، والمعلمون، وعُمال السكة حديد، والهاربون من السجون...
ينشب الشجار بين فتية الحارة وفتية الحارة المجاورة على المقاعد الأمامية، تتدخل قوات مكافحة الشغب، يواصل المجنون الغناء، يصيح الخبّاز المجنون: "الله!" في نشوة، يصرخ أحد العمال في الجميع آمراً إياهم بالصمت، لأنه يريد ان يسمع، تواصل الأوركسترا عزفها رغم ان الحاجز الاسمنتي ارتطم بجبل جليدي وانهار، ويطلق افراد مكافحة الشغب النار في الهواء لتفريق الشجار، يهرب الجميع، يبقى الخبّاز يدندن، والمجنون اعلى المنصة، يغني.
واخيراً، يطير كوب الشاي من يد المجنون ليقع على رأس الخبّاز، يقف الخبّاز في حماس ويصيح وهو يصفق:
 "هل رأى الحُب سكارى...
سكارى مثلنا؟!"





مشهد لا موقع له من الإعراب:


أقف وسط الشارع، وبين أنصاف البيوت وبقايا الحرائق والخليط الرمادي اللون من الحديد، والزلط، والخرسانة والطوب المذابين جميعاً.

أتنهد، فتستثير الرائحة قواعد بصيلات شعر ذراعاي عند عبورها من انفي وأصاب بالقشعريرة...
 تلك الرائحة التي اعلم انها ليست فقط رائحة الأراضي المُسقّاة بدماء الأبرياء من المقتولين، ولكنها أيضاً رائحة الكبريت والبارود والرماد النابعة من حناجر التنانين التي تنفث الكراهية، تلك الرائحة التي يدّعي الجميع الاعتياد عليها.
تحرك التنانين اجنحتها في السماء فتأتي الرياح محملة بقصائد الرثاء والهجاء والمقدمات الطللية من القصائد الجاهلية اللعينة. حين أغلق عيناي لأستمع فأني لا أسمع الألف سيمفونية التي اعتادت الرياح حملها، واعتادت اذناي عليها، ولكني أسمع الاف الصرخات والتهليلات والتكبيرات وقرع الطبول البربرية كطقوس لذبح اجمل فتيات قريتنا، التي كنت أحب، قُرباناً للرب!
أسمع دقات قلبي، وقلوب الآخرين، المتسارعة بفعل الأدرينالين الذي، كبقية هرمونات الحزن والاشمئزاز التي اصبح جسدي لا يفرز سواها، ادمنت عليه تماماً كما ادمن الجميع على القهوة والسجائر.
نعم، الجميع، كل من حولي يتعاطون القهوة والسجائر، ويصابون بالصداع إن لم يفعلوا، كل من حولي هم زُمر من الفرسان والمحاربين القُدامى والهاربين من المعارك المصابين بالإحباط والهبوط الحاد في الضغط والسكري... فهم يتناولون القهوة والسجائر ويجلسون على المقاهي وأرصفة الطرقات ليمشطوها بناظرهم فقط ليصيحوا: "انت السبب! انت لم تقتل التنين!" على اول المارة.


من المذكرة: الرابع عشر من فبراير في أحد الأعوام:

قرأ صديقي ان الأحمر لا يستثير الثيران، وأنها اسطورة.
صديقي الحزين جداً، والثري جداً، الغاضب من كل شيء، والذي يعاني من مشاكل في الثقة، قرر التأكد مما يقرأ بنفسه.
الكل يرتدي الأحمر اليوم، لا اعلم لماذا، او ادّعي ذلك، وانا اعلم جيداً ان الأحمر قد لا يستثير الثيران، ولكنه يستثير صديقي.
صديقي الغني جداً هو ابن جزار حارتنا. وهو غني جداً، ويأكل اللحم كل يوم، ويزداد وزنه في كل يوم، ولكن ذلك لم يمنع فتية حارتنا من معايرته بكونه ابن جزار عندما كنا – لا زلنا – صغاراً.
واليوم كل فتية حارتنا يرتدون الأحمر، والأحمر، الذي اعتاد صديقي على رؤيته في مكان عمل أبيه، يستثيره، جداً.
يدعوني صديقي لأشهد على تجربة عملية بمناسبة وقوع يوم الفالنتاين واليوم العالمي للهروب من الثيران في يوم واحد.
 صديقي يعلم بأني انفصلت عن حبيبتي، ابنة جيرانهم، الأسبوع الماضي، وانا اعلم ان صديقي سعيد لأنني انفصلت عنها، وهي تعلم جيداً ان صديقي دعاني اليوم ليدّعي تضامنه معي، وترتدي الأحمر، وانا لا ارتدي الأحمر، وادّعي بأني لا اعلم شيئاً.
والد صديقي الجزار منشغل بالشرب والغناء والاحتفال بالحب، وصديقي سرق مفتاح الحظيرة، واطلق الثيران في الحارة، العشرة ثيران، التي يتفاخر بها والد صديقي في ذات اللحظة في احد المجالس.
تستثير الثيران أطفال الحارة، فيرجموها بالأحجار، فتستثير الأحجار ثيران الحارة ويجرون وراء الأطفال، يضحك الأطفال وهم يلعبون المطاردة مع الثيران، فتية الحارة، الكبار، منشغلون بإهداء الورود الى حبيباتهم ولا ينقذون الأطفال، اخوتهم الصغار، الذين استثارتهم الثيران واثاروها.
يضحك صديقي ويقول: ثيران ابي لا تعبأ بالأحمر!
يخرج والد صديقي مذهولاً من اختفاء ثيرانه!
تراقبنا ابنة جيران صديقي من النافذة وهي ترتدي الأحمر، يلمحها صديقي، ويغمز لها رافعاً ابهامه -دلالة على النجاح- ادعي بأني لا أعلم، وابتسم انا لصديقي المنشغل بالابتسام لحبيبتي السابقة.