I’d purchase a trailer – one of those with beige exteriors, yellowed by too much exposure to the sun. I’d want it used, I’d want that dried paint under its windows to look rusted and pale - too decayed to move, too absolute in its immobiliness to resemble a car.
I’d come across it, and know, that it’s here- the place I’d be able to empty those bruised leftovers that once were potential expressions perishing at the tip of my tongue, unspoken, and behind my palms, unwritten.
I imagine I’d stand there, looking at it until the shades of trees become duller and fuller, because I wouldn’t be able to decide if I’d choose to paint it royal blue or that Indigo of a night spent on the beach.
I’d decide then to smear “Cap ou pas Cap” on one back, with the grimmest of blacks, that of dice dots and “i “ ‘s in contract signatures. I’d dare it then, to show me the life that sneaked out underneath my doors one Monday afternoon while I was too busy sharpening my pencils to look for suitcases.
I’d vacuum its floor right about then, just to hear that sound of it turning into a living accommodation. I’d buy shades not curtains, and an out-of-place looking fridge I’ve spotted once and wondered what worldly sensible house would place an England-flagged item in its kitchen. But there, I’d contain them all- the odd, the misfit, and reject, animate or not. And on its contrived interior, I’d frame,
No,
I’d plaster two photographs; one of a black and white Road billboard of 1930 branch of Dunkin Doughnuts, and the other of a crowded airport gate.
Nothing more to it,
to that trailer I’d drag to the end of the world by its rusty handle. All those acres of forests I’d dreamed of touching upon lightly, and thrift stores in the middle of nowheres, that sell crisps in orange packets and sodas in retro cans.
Nothing more to it than a child, who poured milk in see-through glasses and stepped on charcoal just to glimpse an adventure, an escape, a gateway where stories were told, somewhere out there.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Saturday, May 07, 2011
To: World,
on a disposed paper plane
Look at him, sleeping with a hand over his ear, fending away the thousand-legged spider, and another under the pillow clutching a toothbrush, a keychain, and his Mama’s wristwatch. Behind his closed eyelids, he’s counting, not sheep, but miracles. One, he says – the way my father laughs. Two, he says- the way my bed hovers like a spacecraft in the dark. Three, he smiles – the way my sister pronounces my name.
Look at him, World,
but don’t you dare touch him.
Look at him, placing his dinosaurs all around the house – under the armchair, to shield his Mama’s friends, behind the photo frame, to look out for memory thieves. He sifts them by color, for the orange, long-necked one is the closest to his heart, and the blue winged one, can barely fly after his injury. He cries sometimes, for him, “ But why can’t you move?”, He cries sometimes, for his Mama, “ But why can’t you see?”, and he cries sometimes, for you too, world “ But why can’t I be an object?”
His Mama once told him the story of Pinocchio, the wooden toy, who strived to be a boy. “ But why, can’t I be a toy?”,
And he asks me for a story, about a toy, named Ali. And I tell him, about a universe called Ali. He laughs, and I see my reflection in his glazed eyes.
“ Tell it again,” He says,
Once upon a time, I start
But where is Ali, he interrupts
He’s in the story,
But why isn’t he THE story?
Alright,
Once upon an Ali, I start again
And he laughs, and the laughter never dies down in his throat, and he laughs some more.
In Ali, there lived the most absurd of creatures,
And he sits properly again, and his hands are in his lap, and his smile grows some more.
There was the three-eyed monster,
There was the ball of fur,
There was the crocodile who speak songs.
Because in Ali, there lived the most absurd of creatures!
He shrieks out loud,
And the blue winged dinosaur can fly again!
In Ali, everything flies. I tell him, and he gasps.
Look at him, world, but don’t you dare touch him. Those tiny hands that know not how to build or maim, but how to extract life for life, would one day, be the ultimate change you’d been doomed to neglect.
So, world, take me,
Take all my dreams, memories, and well-built notions,
But world,
Don’t you ever dare, touch him
Sincerely yours,
Sunday, May 01, 2011
“20 Authors under 40” – profile photos depicting the illustrations of those who inked it down, somewhere between their medical school training and insurance jobs. My mind scans in detail - that high collared shirt, that African American afro, that copper necklace.
Writers, I know them – there’s depth in every facet, there’s meaning in purchase choices, there’s a stretch of possibility, there’s a story, there’s a plot right there. There are words in a salesman’s vest, there are words in Fire alarms and cinema tickets, there are words in the mundane; carpools, laundry rooms, and clinics .I turn the page to the snippets of their interviews.
Where were you born? Washinton D.C
Where do you live now? San Francisco
Where were you born? Lima, Peru
Where do you live now? Oakland, California
Where were you born? Nigeria
Where do you live now? Columbia
In precision, I see them. Moving large pieces of furniture in their new apartments, washing dishes after their dozen takeout orders ran out, and stacking plastic bags into corners.
I see them, walking unto life as if on a straight line, a foreign beginning to an unprecedented end. And I see their words- definite, and new; emerging from inexplicable depths shadowing that straight line they walked on.
One life- and they’ve lived.
One life, and they’ve seen its heights when they waited alone in airports, and skimmed through newspapers with enlarged-metaphors for a name, only writers would scoff at; “ The sun” ,“ The spotlight”, and “ The Voice”.
One life, and they’ve had sharpened pencils everywhere, and they wrote as the neighbor told them about somebody else’s tragedy; and they wrote as they’ve heard ambulances on distant nights, and they wrote as they dropped orange peels from the window, and they wrote as they stepped on sewage systems, and they wrote while it rained, and they wrote some more.
And I envy them some more.
One life, and I walk upon circles.
One life, and I stretch experiences until they break on the rims.
One life, and the potential of words die down inside of me.
One life, and the only certainty I know, is how much I don’t.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
If it was as simple as a clean slate, as flat as an expandable storage box- if this world was as detachable as Lego pieces and as reproductive as Russian dolls;
it’d be easy to slice that part of it I’ve always envisioned to own, and carve a new way through. It’d be just easy, to allow everything outside that slice to self-destruct – every nation with it’s red-taped borders, every alley, every government, every student with a too-void backpack and a too-stuffed lunchbox, every grocery store, every street wiped clean off ‘vandalism’, every teacher with a too straight-lined planbook and a too-relevant lesson, every musician with a too-hollow guitar case, every gift shop, every emergency room, every furniture shop with too-little furniture, every resort, every library gathering dust, and just about everything, as much as the word ‘everything’ is capable of bearing.
Yes, I’d let it all saturate itself into non-existence for then, with my own slice intact, I will no longer care.
In that slice of mine though, their ‘nothing’ would be the core of it all; that insanity they ridiculed would be the coastline of my self-proclaimed nation; their too-shabby artists would be its guards, and their too-cynical, too-curious, too-questioning, paranoid youth would be it’s population of 5000. I’d foresee to it all.
For I know someone, who’d be the Head of Education. Someone who’d create portable Schools, with students boarding trains and Fairies, instead of sitting behind scratched-off wooden desks, 1st graders with their copies of “Joody Moody” clutched protectively under their arms, and 5th graders reciting Lorca and writing lines of Darwish’s final words at the back of their hands instead of patriotic anthems and face-painted flags. I know, she’d foresee to all of that. I know, her students, wouldn’t fathom the chemical reactions of a formula but would know the language of despair in Monet’s paintings, and the undeniable tragedy behind Yanni’s compositions. They’d sleep at night with legends under their beds, and stars crashing down on them, too-few to collect, too-many to wish upon. They’d know, her students, they’d know God, they’d know him so well, and would touch upon him, every time they’d listen to her speak.
I also know someone, who’d be the Head of it’s law; Someone who’d build courts with thresholds made of thin steel instead of Golden Gargoyles, and hire lawyers with Comic-stripped ties, neon-colored socks, and opening arguments rimmed with shreds of door-to-door human interaction rather than prospects of bold first page newspaper titles. Someone who’d build prisons with book-bricked walls and issue personal hand-written verdicts; someone whose law would enable street artists and add new color palettes to their buckets. I know she’d foresee to it all; to see citizens with hopscotch-traces beneath their shoes and fathers impersonating Columbus down the streets. I know she cradles reason with one arm, and that utter raw humanity one weeps in the other; justice, would be that man by the door humming “ Somewhere over the rainbow”, justice would be that little boy writing a riddle for a stranger in the subway, justice would be that woman reading “ Kafka on the shore” next to her stroller. Justice would be, and would for centuries that come.
I also know someone who’d be the Head of it’s politics ; Someone who’d choose to invert meaning, into a new form of creation where politics, wouldn’t be in the hand of that tight-suited politician at the end of the mahogany table ,but in the firm grip of that long-haired musician, who wears a Morrissey T-shirt and vows to bring Kurt Kobain back to life. He’d be her politics; yes, he’d be that authority to bring forth foreign policies and dissect national securities, he’d be that person with ink-smudged thumbnails of nights spent writing lyrics and that person who stands on high podiums and shrieks “ liberty” and “ independence”. She’d know how to rewrite that notion of politics, she’d know how to jumble letters, and make it sound like that delicate piece of music she allows herself to touch every now and then – the voice of a human soul, that piano, that violin, that cello, that hard-rock drum, that politics of hers.
Jonathan Safran Foer once wrote, “If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it heavy walls, and we will furnish it with soft red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweler's felt so that we should never hear it”
Thursday, March 24, 2011
At times, I find myself in Munich,
one summer two years back.
In that apartment we lodged in; located at the far end on the last floor of the building. The ceiling was slightly low - an inverted roof that shaped the space underneath.
The kitchen was in between the rooms- a door that takes you into a more proportioned area than what first met the eye.
At night, I’d lie in bed, vigil, unaccustomed to Insomnia in a barren, white-walled room; No, it wasn’t that familiar Insomnia which usually hauls itself on my chest as the clock pass the realms of 00:00. It was distinct – for instead of the usual rhythm of my dysfunctional Air conditioner, it’s a draft of air – coming from an old-fashioned portable fan , circling the room in a full-round before it lands back on my face; and those bedsheets- their ends too crisp, their surfaces too smooth, like that creased midpoint of a finger ; wrinkling sharply as you lay your hands straight, and evening out like a bland slate as you bend it.
But then, something happens as dawn settles in , through that rectangular window in the kitchen. There’s this dim blueness, this sifted light, that laces everything it touches – the half-opened cereal box at the corner appears grand all of a sudden.
I remember I’d get out of bed, and to the kitchen. Push that wooden chair close to the window, with my copy of Jodi Picoult’s “ Second Glance” at the time, and read about ghost hunts and Native americans until my bitten fingertips were numb. I’d stop at times and look at the identical chimneys and brown roofs outside, oblivious to the city under the bricks.I remember wondering if they were ever red, and if war, and human terror dismantled their color hues during the sullen Nazi era.
In those confined few minutes, between daylight and the recoil of night – In that solitude, and with that unusual and foreign scenery right in front of me, I felt invincible.
I imagined I lived alone,
I imagined that those items in the Kitchen were solely my choices, that Milk carton in the fridge was for the coffee I’d make every morning, and that table was the place where I laid open newspaper drafts and circled mistakes with a ballpoint pen. I remember, the scenarios I loved to weave, the details I added, and how sudden thuds from the other rooms, dismantled everything as quick as I perfected it.
Today,
Was a March –
A spring day that brought me into existence once,
And, I made a wish,
To have a Munich Dawn, every now, and then.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
These small, few certainties had built a fort around me for the past five years. That soft scent of stale cigarettes and aggressively-washed carpets, which could only be my house; the strange precision in which my name is called, each syllable at a time ,shadowed with a tone of finality; and that sense of selective solitude I’ve created despite it all.
There’s that thick drape I’ve drawn right in front of me; one that walks miles before I do,
Behind it, I’m that girl who stood on the 18th of July, under the rain,
in a country that never knew my initials, nor the weight of the constantly-alternating contradictions I’ve held inside. I’m that girl, that one lone girl, standing, with a soaked Pizza box, a torn plastic bag bearing vintage-covered classics, awaiting the arrival of a transportation bus. I’m that girl, right there, with nothing behind that frail shoulder of mine but strangers slightly urging me back and forth, a pale intensity to every entity I’ve known, a lightness of being.
Behind it, I’m that girl who construct pinnacles of lonesome midnights, a clock of wistful 11’s upturned, and yet no wishes see the peak of light. I’m that girl who listens to tracks of angst and tragic ends, on instruments that’d dissolve under my touch, their transparency, an obstruction to any reason or logic I’ve held dear.
There’s pain.
And an irretraceable ache,
And a fall from a once-cushioned grace.
And an open-ended question : "Why?"
Friday, March 04, 2011
Take it all.
My tipped-to-the-side bookcase – break it down to irrevocable lumps of wood.
Step on it if you must; touch the shards you’ve brought down with that steel hammer of yours.
And those books of mine- dog-eared, frayed, with their laden sheets and penciled-in thoughts- Burn them out, those pages, rip them to the core,those salty tears, those fingerprints, those eye lashes clinging on just about, those days enclosed firmly inside – hotel rooms with white linen sheets withholding runaway schemes, bus journeys, waiting areas and airport queues– burn them, burn it all.
It won’t be an offense, not a felony, nor a crime; those fingers typing official documents with color-coordinated logos , filing city applications, and sending out already-planned requests; they won’t be pointing at you, they won’t see a sacrilege, they won’t know the severity of that smoldering scent of burnt literature and individuals.
Go on then, burn it all with ease; take your shoes off and dance on its ashes. Feel it under the sole of your feet. It wouldn’t matter. There are no mahogany tables, no courts, no stern voices questioning your motives, no justifications, no consequences that’d ripple your existence as you know it, no threats of demolishment, no conscience that’d drag the admission out of you, no substance that’d anchor you down to the ground nor the exact contrast that’d defy gravity and lift you up a bit. There’s just, No Thing. With capitalized emphasis.
So there you go, that’s my hand handing it all to you,
An that’s my soul- under your soleless feet.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Look at you, cradling that blue notebook like a porcelain doll; writing a story about a boy named ‘ Rami’ .
Look at you, measuring the widths of the page with a metal ruler and crossing the T’s, an end to an end.
You know you’ve never read a book with letters spiraling downwards and full stops falling off margins ;. So you sit on your elbows, knitting your eyebrows for hours, making sure Rami’s mother had a capitalized first-letter to her name, and his house, had a triangular red-bricked roof.
And you run, after each page ; my god you run with all your might ;
by the stairs, by the windows, by every discarded toy on the carpet ;
to grasp your dad’s arms and nudge him to see Rami’s smile as he buys his ticket to the moon ; to lay those well-crafted pages on his lap and pinpoint to the vase in the background, to trace the details you’ve prided yourself in,
Your heart is swelling, your heart is a helium balloon, your heart is that contained void in a closed-lid paint bucket; your heart is that dribble of a new basketball.
Your fragile little heart,
And your dad grins,
And he sits with his arms crossed;
And he tells you, with eyes that could only speak in steady volumes never in simple words
“ One day, the world would shudder at your touch, one day, you’d stand and know it all, and one day, every page of every book, would be watermarked by your intials”
And you,
Little fragile-hearted girl,
Believed,
Because you knew, there isnt a world but this – and it’s a just one.
Look at you,
Covering your eyes with the back of your hands; as the couple on screen kiss. You lower your head, willing time to tremble forth; the script to move along from that scene; it’s pitch dark behind your firmly shut eyes; it’s daunting to fear the loss of that grace they instilled in you ; it’s blasphemous, it’s the day of doom and those bones of yours would soon be igniting the core of hell.
You open your eyes, and you breathe ; that cold air of safety from within, the story is still intact without the kiss, it’s only here and there, that detail falters , but it’s alright ; you’re capable of justifying it all – Humanity sans kisses is the ultimate utopia.
Because you,
little fragile-hearted girl,
Believe,
Because you knew, there isnt a world but this – and it’s a just one.
Look at you,
Emptying your pencil case, searching for the thickest ink. Trying to scribble over that illustration at the bottom of the page ; it’s a six-angled star, gaping at you with that immorality and evilness they’ve warned you against ; you squint to shape it out, but you know it’s somewhere here, you’ve been taught to find it’s corners on architecture, t-shirts, mugs, blankets, ceramic patterns, and you can’t ‘unlearn’ such criticality. You just can’t. So you scribble, and scribble some more. And turn the page over; look at your hands, and hope that what you’ve heard them call ‘Judaism’ isn’t contagious. But it’s alright, because your Science page had been cleansed now, and that conscience of yours is polished. And words such as Zionism, Holocaust, Religion with an ‘S’ at the end; are merely concepts of someone else’s dictionary.
Because you fragile-hearted girl,
Believe,
Because you knew, there isn’t a world but this – and it’s a just one.
Look at you, now.
A fool,
weeping for a world,
that was never yours.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
I’d like you to know it’s mine – that Quill & Parchment Bookstore,
I’d like to imagine you coming upon it:
Walking down that damp street; lifting your gaze slowly to the corner, and finding yourself touching your glistening veins in an unconscious attempt to test reality.
In your eyes, I’d verify its existence; that picturesque passion I’ve poured into this creation; that tiny sharp-edged scrap of my heart ; and a thousand ghastly days turned inside out.
It’s exterior is Aqua-blue. That distinct shade of late January; That shade of disparities: hostility, fragility, stillness, and chaos all at once; that shade of ripe fruit bowls and embroideries found in cribs, nurseries, and vintage jewelry boxes.
Yes, it’s that Aqua- blue. The one that comes to mind when I remember Tom Sawyer’s raft or Kindergarten lunchboxes. It’s the shade that streaks over childhood; over days spent using waterpaint on used-newspapers and drinking Horlex out of Lipton complimentary mugs.
.
The rims of the store are Golden, just here and there; a pale gold that refuses to shimmer but remains resolute all the same. It outlines the edges of those nine small, well-proportioned squared windows at the center of the door. It also refines those cursive ends that form “Quill & Parchment” on the high left. The words glide; the words shatter; the words break down again and again.
The window; an octagonal corner, branching itself outside, forming a peach seating area from within. Just like Boo Radley’s gift-bearing tree in “ To Kill a mocking bird”, the side door is carved with empty cubicles, where poetry and paper swans are left every now and then.
I like to imagine you, walking inside:
You look at the carpet, and remember how it feels to step on something that yields beneath you, you remember how the insignificant details, can make you feel alive again. You stand by the door; your heart tries to take it all, and you whisper “ A legacy, “. You look at the shelves, and you extend your hands, stroking one book after the other, because you know, they wept for you sometimes. You know of the ache that streams down their pages, and you know they hold my lonesome soul amidst their typewritten texts.
You look at the walls, and you know they’d never know the obsoleteness of unliving things. Frames upon frames of raw entities scraped off my lifetime, Van Gogh’s starry night upon Edinburgh’s skyline, upon E.E Cummings words upon Joss Weldon’s fictional creations.
I like to imagine you, placing your palm on one of the dangling single light bulbs, thinking of the days I vowed to bring back their worth without camouflaging them with feathers and crystals. You smile as your ears fall upon the instrumental melody of the Beatle’s “ Yesterday”, and you wonder why, I chose piano over violin; and you wonder if time is capable of changing vowels and tendencies; and you wonder if I still miss you.
And what came together in my head, will then fall apart.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
My little sister; she had a too-featureless scrapbook for an 8 years old– one of those with glazed pages that smelled like newly-bought school textbooks and fresh-off-the-stand magazines . She’d stretch its empty pages out on her Dora-imprinted blanket and place her little palms on the surface. “It’s too heavy”, she’d claim, “ I always run out of pages,” ; and the pages knew how to hold the pretense of containing it all ; a twist of her reflection, her always color-coordinated glasses, and that epic toothless grin.
Every time she’s asked about it’s contents, she’d circle her fingers around the borders, and say with utmost confidence,“ But don’t you see it? It’s where I keep them all; the kisses, the hugs, and the ‘well-done’ pats,” She’d take you then back to page one, and guide you all the way to the back cover ; million of off-to-school morning kisses, thousands of I-love-yous crowding unseen margins, and a whole world of smiles : her oldest brother tying her shoes, her dad trying to unscrew her nailpolish bottle, her 2nd grade teacher giving her the largest performance star; she’d take you through them all, until you’re left breathless,
That’s her scrapbook,
Mine, however, had no pages – for I wore it around my neck like a string of impossibly-knotted beads – strung together with such sacredness, such delicacy-that without it, one would easily wilt to the grave.
It’s made of that 8 year old girl, and of them-
Of that 12 year old boy- with his Pikacho Pijama pants and dream-cake cravings- how he chases that lonesome rabbit out of its hole, towards the carrot crumbs; how he sits infront of the barbeque fire with hands copying his English Homework and eyes watching his roasting marshmallows; how he flips on that unguarded trampoline with mischief and undoubted expertise; how he runs with all his might with someone’s gift safely tugged under his arms; how he giggles while reading the latest copy of “ Wimpy Kid”; how his heart is wrapped with an unfound tenderness, how he brings life, to life.
Of those random-outing days with my best friend – with car-filled conversations amidst crumpled cd covers, heavy scents of broken perfume bottles, and university booklets – how we tread topics like equestrians on the run, how we mount to utter joy, fall to complete devastation, and then mount again ; how we outline café visits and embrace papercups; how we condemn trivialities over plates of salted-calamari and mozerella salad ; how we drown in detail; how we drown in music, how we drown in ‘now’, ‘then’, and ‘because’.
Of that trail of memory I leave between the pages of my books – with lines; strands of them, emptying that well of nostalgic indentation within me; how hollow it makes me feel; how beautifully it carves the images of those I’ve grieved, of those who’s loss I’ve never learnt to quell; how it brings forth those long summer days with premium vividness, how it brings forth sidewalk laughter and rainy afternoons.
All of it; all of them- this sacred scrapbook, this personal rosemary beads of mine- had dismantled my nights and left me weeping in the wreckage- this fragileness of it all, this proximity that lies in the slash of Everything/Nothing, takes my breath away so vigorously; I can’t lose sight of it anymore. Not for a moment, No.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
I wonder: if we peeled off this stain-smudged blanket and blue swollen walls– if we shook these pillows out of they’re stupor, would they flood the room with an abundance of intricately-fabricated dreams? Would that massive framed Manhattan Bridge photograph ever cease to gape at us with malice and softens instead, at our touch?
One day- we’d wake up to find ourselves under a glass dome that has hinges to it’s sides; we’d find ourselves amidst heaving typewriters, crumpled news clippings, jammed calendars, suitcases and stacks of well-written books. That quote-bearing table would upend itself and we’d carry its scribbled words under our skin.
Promises of a day like this; and million others we left in this room.
Monday, January 03, 2011
To Fajer – with apostrophies, parenthesis, and every sort of emphasis <3
I keep thinking about that protagonist I want to pen out in my futurely-written novel: I try to sew it’s parts together with open eyes and pores; stitch each fiber with a certain preciseness that only an artist with tragedy at his core could possess. I wanted a character; that refracted double-edged intelligence from humanity and spitted out kaleidoscopic beauty into existence; just like light through a prism.
I sifted through the collection I’ve soaked up over the years; characters that inked themselves on my skin, my brain cells, and all over my being.
One of them was Olivia Duhnam, the protagonist of the Sci-fiction series ‘Fringe’. I’d like my character to have her eyes; her daunting eyes that depict a raw unceasing cacophony of memory and notion; the inconceivable cruelty of human suffering that laces everything with sadness; and the intense desire to exorcise it all.
Then there was Zooey Glass, a member of the glass Family, created by the literary phenomena, J.D Salingar. I’d like my character to have his sentimentality and discernment; his cynical perceptions that defiantly shreds human behavior into pieces only he can digest; tiny little tragic truths.
And Jason Gideon, the lead of the fictional BAU team in the criminology series “ Criminal minds”. I’d like my character to have his outlet of ideas; his ability to gather the totality of being alive; being consciously aware of one’s own insignificance in this blob of mystery; and his heartbreaking tendency to behold the rotten parts of the universe and trace out their tenderness.
Rudy Steiner, that lemon-haired German boy in Markus Zusak’s novel “ The book thief”. I’d like my character to have his heart. His beautifully-crafted heart; shelled with a kind of fabric that’s only existent within those who are too sensitive to everything tangible; who feel too deeply; and who’s short life thickens every time someone’s soul is touched by them.
But amongst all, I want my character to be like you.
No,
to simply be- you- .
Your ink is the boldest, for it isn’t tattooed, it’s blood and bones- the fluid that flows within me, the fuel, and the disparity that keeps the term – leaving-, a merely italicized term.
You know, how unbearable it is to feel the burden of living too powerfully; to house within you a complexity of emotions that varies from extreme melancholia to wonderfulness to confusion to brilliance, and to radiate all that through flesh, knowledge music, and ideas. Or at least try to, every single day of our lives.
And by that – you forced me to reconfigure this world as a whole and live it on different terms. The possibilities that stemmed from the newly confounded universe rendered us both jubilant and hopeless at the same time; and just like that; we became tangled, somewhere only we can access ; a place only we can define.
That’s why, my protagonist,
is you
for I can’t possibly write something more True and vivid than that.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Tribute to My Uncle Eissa, the epitome of life and living.
He was that kind of boy; with dog-eared schoolbooks and neatly folded clothes. His curly hair was combed precisely at each end, and his wide eyes were always wandering. They say he was the most sophisticated of them all in appearance; buttons buttoned and shirts always tucked in.
But he was also that kind of boy; with stolen marbles in his pockets and cons up his sleeves. He knew every fallen stone in the neighborhood, every hiding corner, every wounded animal. He knew which gum wrappers held the ‘winning’ photos they’ve all collected at the time, and which ones were merely candy delights. He knew of traps, of knotted ropes around handles, and of buried coin jars. He was that kind of boy; with a raging fire within him that’s never out.
He was that kind of man who stacked pale stamps and faded photographs; who loved to record every distinctive sound, moment, joke, anecdote, or conversation, in that leather journal he kept so close. He was that kind of man; who would start a fire, just to watch the red flames engulf the blue within them, and to hear that hypnotizing crackling sound of the woods crumbling.
He was that kind of man; with condensed dreams tucked under his arms and a million tomorrows beneath them all. He knew how to weave aviation strategies without looking at a plane; and the beauty of unraveling worlds within worlds undersea. He knew the worth of self-fulfillment that shadows a risk of following an intense passion. He knew it all, and died knowing it.
He was that kind of father; who scrapped off words from every surface, and redistributed them as stories to his five children. He knew how to heal a wounded knee with mockery and laughter; and how to turn mundane trips and gatherings into endless theatrical plays. He was that kind of father; who wrapped values within parodies and instilled morals with an easing sense of humor. That kind of father, who gave everything; just to preserve every ounce of childhood, innocence, and life at every corner of the house.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
And so he goes,
another beautiful soul;
And so does that still world I’ve once believed I gripped; falling deep into an abyss I no longer see;
my loved ones, and their crooked smiles,
my loved ones, and their ridiculous sense of being
my loved ones, and their snippets of comfort,
From here on, in the clinging stench of death, and as the last breaths of those I’ve held so dear had ascended to the circus of the skies, I knew that these things I know for sure, would no longer be, and everything that we’ve built, breathed, and loved, would crumble. This ceaseless suffering year after year, would eventually fold everyone it touches like a choking weed. And, how after this, would one dare to love again?
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Dedicated to those who know the sound of “ Clocks” by “ The Black Pipers” with their eyes closed.
Some days never die .
they glaze our existence like a scented-phantom, trailing behind us wherever we step.
Those July days:
They’re here and there, at the core of every facet that make up my Todays.
At the bottom of my Navy converse.
We took a walk in that eerie forest,. Twigs, crisped leaves, misplaced belongings, branches tied with torn fabrics and one horrific garden. “A lost soul”, one of us said, “A psychotic lunatic, said the other, “ or perhaps, a creative artist.” Half-buried gnomes outlined it’s entrance, broken-winged butterflies and hanging garments, toys and statues marked every wooden pillar of the fence and marbles found their way around our feet. Something, somewhere, at the threshold, rendered us immobile. “ Don’t you realize, that we try to create meaning, when there isn’t any? Why is it, we believe, there is a story for everything?”
On that white luggage tag: " 123”.
They warned us, “ never leave the fire exit door open” ; for intruders could be lurking around in every corner, and history had proved that dead bodies could be hidden in trees for days. But Room “123” is right above “ 219”, and efficiency downsizes fear of theoretic stories we’ve heard. We grabbed our blankets and pillows, tiptoed our way to that red door we became accustomed to, and held our breath as we went downstairs to that sleepover we promised. And if I could break it down, those snippets would be the loudest, “ How have I never noticed, how large your toes are?”,
“ I had a dream, about a Tree”, and
“ That Alarm ringtone, is deathly”
And they’re there, in that gold-rimmed Ray Ban shades
“ Ocean Terminal”, she said, “ That’s where we’re headed tomorrow, I have a feeling, it’s a magical place”. And on we went on that sunny day, from one bus stop, to another, to another, from moderately normal-sized buses, to two-leveled ones until we finally reached, that salt-scented town; they called “ The Ocean Terminal”. “ Well, im slightly disappointed,” she said, as we stood in a bland mall, that held no promises. But we found our ways, in between the stops, to a Pizza Hut, right in the middle of a bar-infested area. And those conversations we exchanged over a Blue-cheese pizza, were the beating heart of that infinite day.
“ Don’t leave a tip, keep it for the needy”,
“Don’t tell me you expect me to drink your coke after this lunch we had?” and
“ I can’t believe we entered without waiting to be seated.”
But I know, it wasn’t the words; it was them.
And they’re there, tracing my purple Ipod.
At the back of the bus, we sat. “ Let’s play 20 questions,”, ,. From start to an end, and an end to a start, we found ourselves, unraveling political views and weaving worldly arguments, “ Jamal Abdul Naser you say? I would agree if he didn’t use the rich to fulfill the needs of the poor!” , “ And what about those Turkish Policies? Where do you stand on that? Public imagery versus true intent? “
“ I don’t think so!”
And the world slept, while we dissected it.
Some days, never die.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
It’s always the same terrifying dream – a projection of a future that presses itself against my consciousness, leaving nothing but the residue of what once resembled life.
It’s a madhouse, a white in white madhouse that holds no one but those who fell off the grid somewhere. I can’t move around because everything in existence is stifled there; laughter that failed to escape its realm and tears rimming eyes like withering organs. Their voices are crushed questions; ones the world held no answer to, and their bodies are stories of an overturned subconscious. I wonder if the horror of human ignorance had anchored their limbs to the ground, or perhaps it was the weight of knowledge, the burden of –knowing-, that emptied them of the vital promise that enabled humans to breathe: the prospect of tomorrow, the possibility of meaning. They’re immobile for they no longer wear their ideals on their heads like woolen hats; they exhausted them in the process of trying to shake the world out of its stupor. And that’s when they were deemed unfit for it; that’s when they disintegrated into fragments which could’ve fueled the earth but perished instead.
It's always the same terrifying thought - is ignorance bliss?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
They’re all over your wardrobe doors; sketches and portraits that were scraped off your skin. I look at them, tucking away a shiver that ran through my veins. Your edges are no longer smooth strikes of a sharpened pencil; they're smears of dark matter.
" Why , is it, do you choose to sketch misery? Why is it, do you choose void, and not that liveliness I know you possess?”
You look right back at me, with a smile that speaks of childhood afternoon quests and watermelon seeds contests. “ We’re hollow, and you know it. Do you see it too, when you close your eyelids? That shapeless memory, of midnight shrieks and pains? Of endless heaves and agonies? Can you, for a second forget, that we sat there, watching a soul break down into so many shards, until there was nothing else but nothingness itself for death to claim?”.
And I thought you knew how to wrap your heart up in paper-bubbles, to guard it from days that we chose to tie a knot around. But there you are , a broken-hearted man, sketching an ache only you knew of, while living life as if it was one of the funniest jokes you’d ever heard of.
Monday, October 11, 2010
She held on to the roll of ribbons she’d been handed. “ Cut them into pieces, cross-tie them, and show your support for the October cause”. After all, she was that house precisely built with beautiful, patterned deck cards; that pale streamer with smeared grey letters jamming the window, and that featureless Toy solider discarded behind the fridge. They had feet to stand on; she’d been knocked over one day, and went on with loose limbs and organs; waiting for the world to put her back together.
She took the ribbon roll and dragged it swiftly behind her to that corner where a a dream-looking autistic child sat hunched over a piece of paper, folding it and refolding, as if time had turned into a short-spanned loop. A glass shell of a boy, a nonexistent shadow, a condensed bundle of non-expressed lives within lives. They tampered with the universe, and touched every core with their feet soles, but who knows of you little boy? She tied the ribbon smoothly on his wrist, and continued her way with what’s left of it. To a street corner where a young woman is unraveling the sky with her hands, trying to locate stars, or maybe just a star. Her bloodied finger tips barely reached; her battered abused body fragilely breathed,; and her insides, were turned, once upon a dreadful night, into frozen ghosts. She pulled out the ribbon roll, and turned it into a beautiful bow, and pinned it softly on the young woman’s hair. She moved along to that little boy, whose lightening sneakers weren’t fast enough. She ran behind him as he ran with an extended hand trying to grab the tips of his mother’s outline. But the outline wants to inhale a life, and a life, doesn’t include, little boys with brittle hearts and limbs. She embraces the little boy, touching his nose and eyes, tracing invisible seams of lost childhoods and psychopathic tomorrows. She pinned the ribbon on his front pocket next to a threaded shark. She was tired, and the stops had no finish line. She knew that, and she knew that her roll of ribbons was now a mere carton that cracked under her firm hold.
To human kind, she gifted them all.
Pink ribbons would cure Cancer, when sparrows wouldn’t fall off trees because the branches were taped together; and when human hands wouldn’t scratch of veined-surfaces and mistake it for a loving touch.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
I know,
that I wont ever come across such a place in this world- in here, where things exist with reason, where things are bricks upon bricks of science and logic, where things materialize merely based on the dependence of being real. It’s no place for us to meet, it’s no place for you to be – not here, no.
But if there was such a place, where miracles swift by like morning birds; where time is a thread we weave into sweaters and quilts; where dreams become people, and people are a palette of colors- If there was such a place, somewhere on the fringes of this life we stand on, I’d meet you there.
But then again, what words would I give you after all this time?
Maybe, I’d tell you about that page I memorized from “The perks of being a wallflower”; and how lines slipped off the paper and became phantoms; ones that still hover somewhere inside of me. Yes, I’d tell you about it. Maybe, I’d tell you about that Eid day, where for a single,magical,infinite moment, we were all intertwined; as if that bukhoor-scented living room, that laughter resonating from Grandma’s sorrowful soul, and that clinking sound of bicycle bells coming from outdoors, had made everything around us; absolutely weightless. Yes, I’d tell you about it. Maybe, I’d tell you about your brother, about the moment he became somebody’s someone; somebody’s everything; and how his weary eyes, sparked with unshed tears, when he heard the words “ You’ve got a son”. Yes, I’d tell you about it. Maybe, I’d tell you about that song I accidently heard on the radio that day, and how it’s unusual lyrics drifted around me for days; leaving me breathless, only to discover in the end, that I had simply misheard it. Yes, I’d tell you about that. Maybe, I’d tell you about that day, when I boarded a plane alone, with a head filled with somewhere and a heart swollen with tiny specks of achievement. Yes, I’d tell you about it. Maybe I’d tell you about my other family, and how they’re made of ever lasting star-matter; glistening eternally over me, holding my seams together. Yes, I’d tell you about them.
And Maybe, I’d tell you about tears, about vanilla-scented fabrics, beauty salons, frilly-handwritings, furniture stores, newborns tucked in strollers, heels, money jars, branded handbags, life-sized paintings, nachos left on cinema seats, musicals, desserts, songs, key chains, belgian chocolate, morning buffets, animated screensavers, pink hallways, and an endless string of days. I’d tell you about it all. Yes.
And maybe, I’d tell you nothing at all.
I’d just touch your face. Trace it with my fingertips.
Put my ears against your chest; listen to that heart of yours; beat again.
Just that.
Only that.
Once more.
Yes, just that.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
I’m lying at the bottom. Skin to tiles, tiles to skin. My palms pushing against the ground underneath, unsure of what’s holding what. Somewhere out there, there’s a life. If only I could be wave of sound;
a trail of smoke ;
anything dissipating,
anything that could take me through.
Take me back, to it.
To that cloudy morning; walking to the bakery in town; the sky shedding it’s rain upon us. No invisible strings pulling us back, no hands tightening our wrists. Just us, our umbrellas, and a beautiful day waiting ahead.
To that mystical afternoon; Standing on the upper deck of that boat, mist brushing our cheeks, like fallen wishes. Entangled, we were; amongst myths and legends, starring deep into the abyss of Loch Ness.
To that sunny day; sitting on those steel benches, looking down on the endless series of stairs and the outline of a faraway city. Tracing clouds, and wondering how they could look like wandering turtles and floating dragons at the same time.
To that evening in the highlands; tiptoeing on sidewalks, kicking pinecones along the way; laughter engulfing us like a magical halo. Taking away the weight of the world that was once lazed on our shoulders.
To the million lives we lived, in a span of a month ; I could call a lifetime.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
The girl with the lopsided smirk- I remember her. Always dressed in a traditional Jalabya; her dark black hair tied in a high ponytail. She was my closest mate at that intensive-long, excruciating summer school we attended in the British Council. She’d pull her chair right beside me in class and sit on the edge; as close as possible, her workbook almost overlapping mine. She’d watch me scribble letters on my workbook, and try to distract me with the glittery stickers encircling her page. Odd, the things that find their place around my memory now. Her name, I cannot recall, but I can almost sketch that smirk of hers, and the prominent mole above her lips. I don’t remember what school she came from, but I know with foreign intensity how much she idolized her older brother. And, most of all, I remember how she taught me the art of stealing books from the ‘walking library’.
“ It’s Okay,” ,she’d say “ They want us to read them anyway,”.
And I bulged, and I believed, and I stole.
The concerned High school English teacher- I remember her. Walking into class, starting her lesson by asking for our daily journals. Her voice stern; laced with expectations and genuine concern. Always, trying to keep everything intact, always trying to peel off that cavernous immaturity which plagued us at the time, Always trying to extract that single quality that outlined each one of our characters, making them distinguishable, in hopes of envisioning a change in the future. Her grammar lessons had evaporated, but her “ How is everyone doing this morning?” still rings in my head. I cannot remember her ways of teaching, but I recall her reply to every work I submitted, always repeating “ One day, I’ll hear your name somewhere, and it’ll be somewhere big”.
The boy next door – I remember him. With his light brown hair, round face, raspy voice and stuttered speech. How he loved to play ‘pretend’. He’d be the fish, I’d be the fisher, he’d be the eagle, I’d be the snake, he’d be the judge, I’d be the criminal. I don’t remember when he moved or where he moved; yet I recall his absurd obsession with Ketchup. I don’t remember how many siblings he had, but I remember vividly how he hid a knife in his pocket one afternoon and taunted me with it.
The black-haired girl of the driving school- I remember her. With headphones in her ears, and grey eyes wandering about. She had a detached aura about her, which seemed odd in a driving-test waiting room. I don’t remember if she had an accent, but I recall our conversation about “ Sophie’s Choice” with haunting accuracy. I don’t remember if she passed the test or not , but I know of her fascination with Orchestras and how music could move her to tears. I don’t remember what she was wearing, but I remember the peace sign charm dangling off her bracelet.
Somewhere, along the line, they subtly come into your life ; molding some parts of it, reshaping some future outcomes, giving away shards and pieces of themselves here and there ; a word,, half a lifetime, a tug at a heart, a moment, a memory. And as swiftly as they came, they leave. And Somehow, you become; because of them.