31st-1st Hallucinations

Two years ago, when I used to think of myself, I never saw myself the person I am now. I don't know if I'm a better or a worse person, or if the person I wanted to be is the person I am now, or if the person I wanted to be is the person I should be.

Today, I look at the person I am now and I see shattered, broken, confused pieces, trying to get together but so disfigured that they do not know if they can fit together anymore. Their edges have worn off that they do not match each other!

I can't see a person two years from now, I don't know if I could, what should I see!

All I know now is that there is a track, drawn or being drawn, it doesn't matter. There is just a track and a plan that each is following yet doesn't recognized, and doesn't know where it leads!

Goddess of Beauty, Petrifying!

A word creates a world in my imagination but then its flare gets frozen, then struck, then broken, then diminished in my oblivious mind!

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Dare not look me in the eye

For they are my point of strength

And dare not not look at me as I walk

On this dreadful ground, gracefully

Dare not watch me as I wash-up

In the wide, endless sea

And get mesmerized by my beauty

Capturing your evil sneak

Can you resist beauty when you see it?

Perfection, finally attained?

Can you contain your emotions?

And chain your sense of curiosity?!

Let me 

Tell you, 

You cannot!

They say I am a monstrous gorgon

Ugly, with snakes' head and death

Flaring from my eyes.

They are wrong!

I’m a Goddess of Beauty, Petrifying!

I sense perfection, 

I act to it

I immortalize it 

I turn it into a masterpiece;

A timeless existence!

Dare you say that I kill people?

Turn them into stone

When I capture their eternal grace

In a sculpture of white marble?

Let me 

Tell you,

You cannot!

It might look to you as a chaos

What looks like order to me

Nothing is ever out of place

Nothing can ever be!

My blue snakes, sizzling and snaring

Looking for what brings them life

They catch beauty at first sight 

And then beauty realizes its beauty

Reflected in my sky blue eyes!

Fairness gets me mesmerized

My senses get heightened

My snakes’ blue scales are made of glass

That reflect my bewilderment

The scales reflect the beauty I capture

Beauty capture its beauty and perfection

It is not me who marbleize them into statues

Their beauty petrify them!

I’m only their Goddess!

A Goddess of Beauty, Petrified!

Under Their Skin (Demons of The Night X)

Keep the lights on

It scares them

Keep an eye on your footsteps

And another ahead

Run with light feet

Don’t look behind you

Push the ground away

As you try to escape them

Keep the tapes running

And the voice recorders

Maximize the amplifiers

They scare them off

Don’t keep the white noise playing

In the background as you sleep

It invites them 

To tamper with your dreams

Keep your eyes on your path

As you run away

Pushing down the ground

As it tries to grab your feet 

Don’t pause your running

Don’t close your eyes

Or you will get sucked

In the mud beneath

Keep running until you bleed

And the mud turns red

And the trucks of the trees

Keep the lights roaring

And your thoughts swindling

Them into belief that they got you 

Under their skin

To Make You Feel My Love

Disclaimer: This piece of writing might be inappropriate for audience below 18

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I wanna make love to you until it feels safe to be naked in front of you.

I wanna make love to you until it feels OK that you can see every inch of my body.

I wanna make love to you until I’m breathless and I can’t recognize the universe around me because I’m so damned happy that my eyes are tearing in joy and confusion.

I wanna make love to you until it feels alright that someone can see my scars and love and attend to them better than I used to do.

I wanna make love to you until we become undone, losing each other in one another and it becomes hard to differentiate between who is who.

I wanna make love to you until our bodies collide, as our souls collide and we become one.

I wanna make love to you until our time is over, our bodies are over, and our souls are all what remain, floating in the realm of truth.

I wanna make love to you until I feel that I conveyed the amount of love I have for you, even though I doubt I can ever do!

Red Tigress

The sun shines down on her submerged face in the water, projecting itself as lines drawn in serenity. The lines are intertwined, forming a composition of complexity. It is like drawing the lines of a tigress by a fine pen of light; a pen that is determined to expose her inner wilderness in opposition to her blissful face. The water is so clear and tranquil, projecting her inner peace. She defines complexity along with simplicity; a combination only possible when peace mixes with wilderness. If she is to be defined, she is to be a perfect definition of paradox.

Her red, short hair is just as free and graceful as the gentle water that is carrying it, allowing it to float on its aurora colored surface, resulting from the refraction of the sun light in it. The colors cover her as well, making her a composition of light colors and red, a whole world of vibrant red. Her lips are vivid and lively, just as her hair is; a reflection of her flame, that is never extinguished.

She needed this, this serenity, this disconnection from a vile world. She needed to expose her disgust and get free of the negative energy that surrounds her. She is a lively person, not to be bent or broken, but in a world filled with villainy, she has to be a villain. Getting tired of suppressing her innocence that wears off a little every time she gets into the dilemma of existence, she decided to resort to purging. A sort of baptism that connects her with her inner soul of happiness and the innocence that she loses in such corrupted universe. She chose the purist element of life, and the most unpredictable; Water.

Water for her resembled life. There is no green land without water. Fire cannot be defined as ruthless without its opposite; the gentle, graceful water. The wind does not grow into a storm without rain. Water is the core of everything. It is innocence and purity combined with ruthlessness and rage. It is the most controversial element amongst the rest. Water embodied her, and she embodied it.

Every time she goes into her territory of purity and pain, she shivers as a person who is about to die but comes back to life miraculously and unannounced. She is like a person who has seen himself end, but suddenly he is up on his feet, watching his moments of death as a tape playing in agony and fear. She sees her life as a tape that ends so soon, even though recording it took ages of torturous splendors of fear and joy. She gets attacked by a stream of a deserved-to-be-mourned-for memories. She seeks purification, but it is never without a price. There is always a price that she has to pay to be able to reach back to her true moments of joy. It is a price that she has to pay to be able to reach back to her villainy, subdued by rage and vengeance. After all, no one can be vicious without being innocent at first; he wouldn’t tell the difference unless he knew where the separation line lies.

A tigress she is, in her fierceness, monstrosity, persistence and grace. She only attacks to survive; an instinct rooted in humans and animals alike. You can’t blame the darkness of the world on her, nor can you blame her on her twisted ways towards attaining survival. She is the Queen of the wilderness, as the Lion is only the king. She observes, hides, lurks then seeks, attacking her enemies and her preys alike. After all, preys are only a necessary evil that doesn’t match the fire leaching in her veins as she does what she does to sustain her durability and conceal her frailty.

After every blood bath she pursues, she goes to her embracer and her pure reflection projected on a blurry surface of hopes to be attained, farfetched salvation that she dreams of every night when she goes to sleep. She is so consumed by the innocence that fights every night in the back of her unconscious mind, yet she forgets about every day when she is awake and conscious. The water is the only way to mend her fractures and her wounds. It shows her a path towards salvation as it paves for her the road towards hell. It is all a momentary feeling of relief only to ensure an eternal war against suffocation.

In her gracefulness, there is pain. In her light, there is treachery. In every breath she is unable to breathe, she is alive. In every breath she inhales, there is a burning fire only extinguished by blood and death. The light that shines on her is only a comfort she seeks but she cannot reach, for even when she is purified, she is blind to the rays that make her grow in beauty. She is always closing her eyes, allowing herself to feel human, every time the water touches her death stained skin. She is weak in her ultimate moments of strength and might. She is a woman only vibrant in red; the colour of death, love and blood. She is only like any other woman, who is alive in red; the color of warmth, intimacy and danger.

In My Shallows

Look for me at the end of the world

When it becomes undone

Search for me in the shadows

Of what I have become

Dig beneath the piles of ashes

Stiffening by the rain

Find me in the shallows

Of my collapsed restrain

The world has lost its depth

So lost in the wide space

Ruins are what remain

Yet so shallow

So look at the fading stars

Striving to lighten the dead horizon

And when you see a dying star 

Just know that it is me

I’m walking down the curve of glamour

And kissing the breathless sea

As the shadows embrace my ruins
In their extinguished gleam

عن هيبتا

كتابة: رنا خالد

تحرير: محمد هشام

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إنها تلك اللحظات المأساوية التي تُصاحب كل طية ورقة في كتاب مؤلم بلذة ساحقة. ذلك الشعور المرير بكل إحساس ينبعث من كل كلمة مطبوعة علي ذلك الورق الأصفر الرقيق رخيص الثمن. تلك الحروف و الوقفات و علامات الترقيم التي تعتصر قلبك في كل مرة تنتهي فيها من قراءة سطر قصير جدا في كلماته ، سهل جدا في معانيه و مشاعره و لكنه طويل جدا في مُخيلتك. إنها تلك اللحظات التي تري فيها نفسك مكتوبا علي سطور أوراق كتاب يتحدث عن علاقات حب قد فشلت فقط لتعطي فرصة للعلاقة القادمة، الدائمة، في البداية. تلك النهايات التي تري نفسك فيها كل مرة و تبكي علي مدي كرهك لنفسك و عشقك لذاتك في نفس الوقت. كرهك لوجودك لأنه ليس بجديد ، عادي جدا ، تتنبأ به الكُتب و مُخيلات الكُتاب الصغار، الموهوبين. لكنك مع ذلك عاشق لذاتك لأنك قد وجدت أنك طبيعي، تحب بجنون مئات المرات و أنك لست بفاقد للحس أو بخائن لمشاعرك السابقة تجاه شخص ما. تلك لحظات "السقوط الحُرة" التي "تتأملها" في عشق مجنون لكيانك المفقود في قيود العمل و قيود وجودك المادي الحقير في جسد يُشعرك بالأسر و ذلة القوانين و الخضوع. إنها تلك المشاعر التي تغمرك في بأسها و شدتها و جنونها، فتقهرك تحت أمواجها الشاهقة الإرتفاع و سريعة الإرتطام بجسدك الهزيل، فتحطمه بلذة و سعادة بالغة في حين أن تستقبل أنت ذلك الإرتطام بصدر رحب لأنك تعلم أن ذلك الإرتطام هو المؤشر الوحيد علي حياتك. ذلك الهبوط المُفاجئ، ذلك السقوط المُؤلم، اللذيذ، هو ما ياُهبك لإستقبال الحياة كما يجب أن تكون؛ جميلة، مجنونة، مُجزءة و غير متوقعة. إنها الحياة التي تغمرك بعد قراءة كتاب كنت تظن في بدايته أنك ستمل منه سريعا و تضعه جانبا مثلما فعلت مع غيره من الكُتب. إنه "هيبتا"، سبع مراحل، سبعة أحاسيس، سبع أشخاص في أربع حكايات تعود لشخص واحد، كان مُمزقا فقط ليكتمل مرة أُخري عن طريق موته كي يحيا.

Sin

You’re the sin I can’t live with
You’re the one thing I can’t live without
You’re the demons in me coming to life
Every time I think I’m finally alive

You’re the sin leaching in my veins
Creeping in every artery
Mutating my white blood cells
Into a monstrous beast

You are the sin that I can't get rid of
You're the sin I'm born with
You're all of my demons combined in one
Coming to life when I'm done

You’re the only love I’ve ever felt
You’re the one love I can’t put off
You’re the sin that I can’t forgive
The one sin that can’t be forgiven

Matrix

Does it really matter if you’re half dead or half alive when you’re lying down the streets, with frost bitten fingers, with no food, no shelter, in a rainy day that has gone so bad?

Does it really matter if you’re half dead or half alive when you don’t know who you are, what you are, or where you should be, in a grey day with no sun shining, after a rainbow stream that has gone so dim that now it can’t be seen?

Does it really matter if you’re half dead or half alive when your heart fails to beat, your lungs fail to breathe, your body fails to slide down the road so steep, just to feel alive under the rays of a rare January sun?

Does it really make that big of a difference when you realize that you’ve been beaten to death, thrown out of a speeding car, down a hill that is paved with rocks at its bottom, with no aid to be provided and no help to be sought?

Does it really matter if you know if the cup is half full or half empty, when you’re half way dead thirsty, and the cup is just out of reach?

Does it really matter to know if you’re half dead or half alive when you’re scrolling down the news feed of a social media network, of no remarkable significance, through a tiny screen of an internet page, and posts of children getting butchered, limbs getting obliterated, houses getting bombed off; some people existing in some place, far far away, being massacred by the money you pay to your government in the form of taxes that you cut out of your salary and you deeply need, come along, yet you act towards the posts, the pictures, the news, and the cartoons, showing the irony of the matter, as if they are not even there. You just scroll down, push a button, come along another post that makes you laugh hysterically and you leave your post, your laptop and the news and pictures, which are crying at your idiocy, their insignificance and disregard!

Does it really matter when you realize and believe that your heart is dead, your emotions are dead, your humanity is dead, what makes you you is all dead and you’re left with fragments of pain and misery, disguised in the form of money and dreams that you beat your fucking ass off to achieve and you suddenly awaken from your delusions to find yourself sleeping under 6 inches of mud, covered in concrete and granite, left alone with no regards to your cries for help, to rot and be food for the parasites that celebrate their new food factory, gifted to them?

Nothing really matters when you’re entrapped in a body that has no function but to imprison you, yet deceives you in the illusion of freedom that it creates, and makes you believe that it really does exist, then makes you fight for it till you die and realize that it was never there, and being free is the ultimate prison that you think you’ve broken out from the more you get lost in its maze.

لغات

تحدثت لغة النجوم حتى وجدت النجوم تبوح باسرارها للمجروحين

تحدثت لغة النجوم حتى انطفء نورها ومات وهجها من الالم

تحدثت لغة النجوم حتى اجدتها و بعدما اجدتها ايقنت انها ليست لغتي

فانا لست بمكسورة، جريحة، تبوح بمكنونات صدرها لاغراب

ولست بضعيفة، تنطفيء شعلتها كلما اشتدت الاوثاق

تحدثت لغة الورود حتى اجدت التمييز بين كل انواعهم

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فلكل وردة معنى بهيج واخر مؤلم

تحدثت لغة الورود حتى اكتشفت انها لغة معقدة

وانا لا احب التعقيد، فانا لست بغامضة، انا احب الوضوح و الحرية

تحدثت لغة الطيور، تلك اللغة الشامخة،المحلقة في العنان

لغة حرة، منتطلقة، قوية، فارضة لسلطتها

تحدثت لغة الطيور حتى اختلف علي الامر بين الحرية و القيود

ففي انطلاقة النسور خوف وفي سمو الصقور ضعف

وفي تميز صوت الغربان موت

وانا لست بمحبة لقيود الحرية و لا اتقن هذا التضاد

تحدثت لغة الاغاني، تلك اللغة المشبعة بكل اللغات

لغة الصمت، الموسيقى والكلمات

تحدثت لغة الاغاني حتى اتقنت النوتات جميعا

نوتة الصمت، القوة، الضعف، الحب والشجن

تحدثت لغة الاغاني التي لا تنضب منها الكلمات

فللكلمة معنى و للحرف معنى و للوقفة معنى وللغنوة معنى آخر

تحدثت لغة الاغاني حتي ميزت منها لغة النجوم

و وجدت فيها معاني لغة الورود

تحدثت تلك اللغة حتى كسرت قيود

لغة الطيور الحرة، لغة القوى المطعمة بالضعف القميء

لغة الاغاني تناسبني ما بين وضوحها وغموضها

فوضوحها غامض و سهولتها مثيرة للريبة

و في توهجها الم و في موسيقى موتها حياة

اتقنوا لغة الاغاني، ففي كلامها رموز

اتقنوا لغة الاغاني، فلغتها لغات الكون

Cape

So another day has come and gone

The longest day of the brightening sun

Yet no one called; no one showed

For the funeral of the strongest bird

It used to soar, it used to glide

To shine bright in the morning sky

And glitter with the morning due

As it settles, hidden in the branches

It died alone, sunk in deep

At the end of the horizon of the world

If you raise your sails, you’ll see it

Melting in the dark horizon

Red and blue, like the dark and a glow

The longest day withered so soon

The brightening sun, like an Eagle; high

Enclosed its cape of wild grey on the mourned on world

Like a summer’s breeze, short and soothing

Cold and shivery, the sun went out

The grey went black, and the cape kept stretching

Until there was no more "A Sun" and no more “A World”

Routine

Another bell ringing

Another day ending

Another day waiting

For the beginning

Another story not told

Another pain foretold

Another evening to be spent

Waiting for the beginning

I go home again

My mom serves me dinner

I sit, I eat, I say thanks, then I leave to my room

With my head bent to my chest

My mom asks, "How was dinner?"

I reply, "Delicious, thanks"

My mom says, "Are you ok?"

And I reply, "Yes"

I go to my room, 

Get my books all opened

I sit and I bend my head to my chest

I'm singing the melancholic melody of derision hopes

"Another day ending,

Waiting for the beginning

Khawater

I can’t imagine myself with a man. There is no one who is good enough. I have loved so many men, but I’ve never been in love but once and it’s broken me.  At the moment, I’m not broken, but I am recovering. I don’t know what I’m recovering from. Maybe my hallucination?! Maybe my hectic imagination? I think that’s the problem, my imagination!

Having so many expectations, very high ones, only lead to wreckage! I don’t know If I’m wrecked or if I’m only cracked and I can heal, or if I’m totally damaged beyond repair. I don’t know!

My sister today told me “how come he loved you, what made him interested in you?” she was joking, she didn’t mean anything. Her joke cut so deep into me that I’m crying from the inside for two hours now. I don’t mean to be rude, neither do I mean being so harsh with others. I’m only scared! Under every hard shell, there is a very tender flesh that is being protected. Inside of every shell, a pearl that is entrapped by its fright! Turtles and shrimps are proof of that! I’m not comparing myself to them, but I’m only trying to make the image closer to what I am, how I am!

I don’t want to be the harsh and dull girl. I'm also unable to be the girly girl. It’s just not me! I’m not that kind of a girl. I’m the one who builds a fortress around herself and fire fucking hell fire on whoever and whatever tries to breach the walls. That’s what I am, how I am!

Chain (A Short Story)

It is this stone hand that squeezes your heart and strangles your veins, blocking your vessels and chocking your airway; suffocating you. It is this tremble and this shake that prevents your heart from beating, as if you’ve been electrocuted. You’re breathing heavily, if you’re breathing at all, and your eyes are watery as you lose control over yourself; over your body and soul! You’re losing sense of time and getting lost in existence as everything is put on fast forward, they are going very fast that you think they’re being played in slow motion. You’re entrapped in an illusion, which is created by your hallucinating mind, which is providing your body with an excessive amount of adrenaline, making your state of hibernation a state of euphoria! You’re transcending, yet bounded to the ground. You’re dying slowly and being skinned with no anaesthesia, yet you’re numbed, cast out of sensation! You’re crying, screaming with pain; soundlessly! You’re broken, torn apart, shattered, combusting, and bursting; all of them yet nothing of them at all! You’re chained, but you can’t see that you are. The chains are being stretched, pulling you apart, like a stiff log of wood that kept burning for months by a fire generated from its interiors that it is now standing as a mountain of burnt out coal. It refuses to break, although it is already a pile of ashes. You’re so strong yet so fragile!

Someone Dead

We’re descending the stairs

Laughing and giggling

About things we don’t know

We’re making assumptions

Laughing at people

Making fun at what they do

I look at you with glistening eyes

Happy and laughing 

Like I’ve never laughed before

I enjoy steeling glimpses of you

When you’re not noticing

I’m unable to take my eyes off you

It’s just when I look in your eyes

I see a whole new world that I never knew

It’s when I realize that 

I love you!

You take me out for a drink

We laugh and we giggle again

I ask you to lean forward

To come closer

I have my arm on your shoulder

I’m holding your head in my palm 

I feel your hair going through my fingers

And I’m feeling shy

I lean closer to your ears

And with a shy smile and a blushing face, I whisper:

I love you!

I move away

Still smiling, still blushing 

I finish my drink and I’m happy

You drive me home 

You’re stunned 

You tell me “be safe”

You never show again

I never hear of you again

You never pickup your phone

Years and years later

I’m playing with my daughter 

I’m hugging her, sliding my hand down her hair

I feel her laugh and her joy

She picks a photo of us when we were together

She smiles and asks me:

“Mom, who is that, you’re so happy and smiling with?”

She is the most perfect, happy thing

I hug her close and tight

I look at her father working in his office

I smile with ecstasy and teary eyes

I look back at her and say:

“Honey, he is someone who is now dead to me,

I love you!”

I hold her up 

I walk towards my husband

I kiss him and I hug him and I say 

I love you! 

Just one day I woke up forgetting all about you
I had a life better than what I thought I’d have
I'm happy and I'm never looking back
And whenever I’m asked about who you were; I answer:
He’s just someone who is now dead!

جري الوحوش

اجري، اجري، اجري، اجري

متبوصش وراك

متبوصش قدامك

متتلفتش

متتنفسش

دور زي الطور في الساقية

واعطش وانت شيال المية

ومش عارف ترتوي

اجري لحد ما نعلك يدوب

وكمل جري وانت حافي

متقفش لما رجليك تنزف

انزف لحد اما تبطل تحس بالالم

انزف لحد اما الاحساس يروح

ابقى لوح 

و مع كده، متبطلش تجري

اصل النزيف تكفير ذنوب

فصفي دمك من الهموم

صفيه من الحُرقة والوجع

ده مش دلع

دي محاولة لترجيع الحقوق

بعد السكات على العفن

بعد التفشي في الركام

بعد السُبات، بعد الندم

اجري جري الوحوش

ورا الخلاص المنتظر

بس اوعى توصل

اصلك لو وصلت تموت

ولو وقفت في نص السكة برده تموت

تتفرم تحت الجمال المسرعة

نحو السراب الملحوق

فاجري يا تعيس زي البهايم في القطيع

علشان كده بقى اسمها

جري الوحوش

Fractions

DISCLAIMER: The quotes inserted are written by my friend Rou'a Nafea. This piece is dedicated to her and to all of those who has lost loved ones.

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"الالم و الجرح و الوجع و الحنين و الشوق و حاجات تانيه كتير فوق بعض بتبان و تجرح في القلب لما الناس تنام و تفشل محاولات الصبر!"

The pain, the nostalgia, the yearning, and so many other things, hurt in the heart and manifest when people go to sleep. That's when all trials to be patient seem to fail!

Every night is a fight now; it is a war. I am afraid to go to sleep that I’d die out of desperation. Every breath I take, every move I make is just another blow from my gun towards oblivion; towards me. The thing is; this war, my war, can never end until I die. You cannot survive without your mind and you cannot keep fighting it unless you lose; the mind never loses. I know what my dreams will be. I am scared of them. I’m fighting in the morning the monsters I never kill at night. I may wound them, may overcome them by interrupting my dreams by sudden shakes and wide open eyes. But still I sleep again, and I dream again, and I’m in this war again; a war I’m dragged into. 

It’s just a blast of memories that I try to repress all day long. What I kill in the morning is what is killing me at night. Every toss in my bed is a reminder of what I’m coming up against after perhaps, if I’m too hopeful, a couple of seconds! Every blink is an eternity of misery and every breath is a mile towards either desolation or salvation. 

Most nights I try to lay awake, so as to recover from those hellhounds; ripping me. It is either I’m too strong that I get pass them or they are too persistent that they bind me to their underworld. It is not their fault; I created them. I created those memories that got torn apart from me so suddenly that now I’m just too lost without them. Every day in my life is a reminder of what I lost forever. There is no going back, there is no way out of it, and there is nothing but this fight that I’m dragged in. I miss everything about him, about her, about everyone I lost along the way. I’m now even scared of another loss that I try to either enjoy every part of the second and make new memories that perhaps would wipe out the old ones, or I just disconnect myself from everything else to avoid getting attached to something so much that I lose another part of me if I ever lose them, like I lost their counterparts. It’s a never ending cycle, a genocide in which I’m the attacker and I’m the attacked.

At some moments I really do miss each and every little thing I used to do with him. I miss those things so much that I even miss those things which used to make me disgusted. At other times, when I go through the photos, yearning for those old, sweet times, I feel like "what the hell was I thinking when I first loved him?" I feel like I miss even the way he used to run his fingers through his soft, brown hair. I miss the way he laughed and the way he got angry at me for overthinking about things that he told me before. I remember every photo we took, every second we spent together and it’s just too hard letting it all go so easily. It’s just too hard to forget. I’m too indulged in our memories that I can’t remember to forget him!

The same goes with her! I miss how she used to tuck me in bed and sometimes cuddle me until I fall asleep. She used to stand up for me; she loved me and showed it every time she took me in between her arms. I remember her smile, her illness, her laugh, and her yelling at me when she wanted me to get something done and I find it too nagging that I yell back at her. I even miss when I used to yell back at her! I miss her smell, even when she smelled all like medicine, her hand sliding down my hair when she used to brush it, when I was a little girl, and the conspiracies that I used to make with my dad just to get her a little bit mad at us to have something to laugh at later in the evening. I miss it all too much that now it’s gone; I miss the bad memories before the good ones. 

This is what happens when you have so much going on in your life and then suddenly you just have it all taken away from you. I’m not grateful to those memories, neither am I ungrateful. I can’t imagine that I would have come that far without them in my life. Similarly, I can’t imagine that I would go any further with them in it. I can’t let go and I can’t keep on holding on to the emptiness they left in me, after they are all gone. No one will ever fill in the gap that these people used to fill in my life, yet now they are not here, I have to find someone else with whom I can continue living. 

"Death is an integral part of life. It enhances it, so appreciate its significance. It is a slap; a warning. It says “Life is too short; it ends so suddenly, grab at it, work on it, and try your best every day.” Give people their due NOW! If you're mad, tell them and fix it...If you love them, tell them...people should realize their importance in your life! SPEAK UP! You never know what may happen next, so tell people how you feel about them; speak from the heart, take chances, trust more often and love more deeply."

This war can only end when I realize the necessity of living with and without those memories I’m carrying around all the time. My mind has to function for and against these fractures in the same time. If I lose them, I’m lost, and if I keep my life only for them, I’m also lost. The only thing I can do now is to appreciate them, then move forward. Any other option will just be a negligence spell that will backfire! Appreciate death, understand it and live with it!

Oblivion (A Short Story)

Disclaimer: This piece may contain explicit content for some audience. Please DO NOT READ if below 18.

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Created 09/ 05/ 2013

Finished 11/ 07/ 2014

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I woke up in the morning to a very hard kiss on my lips like the ones I always fantasize about. I didn’t know what to do or how to react. I am sure that it was a dream but I have no idea who kissed me in that dream. The thing that made me feel the most insecure is that I started fantasizing about the anonymous person who kissed me and I kept bringing into vision a multitude of scenarios the kiss would have taken place with.

I closed my eyes only to try to recount what could have happened. Was that only the weaving of my hungry mind? I need this, this feeling of appreciation and love and need. I need to feel loved and wanted and sexy and attractive and a whole big bunch of feelings that I’m yearning for. Could my brain be that kind of desperate that it created an alternative set of emotions that I can only experience when I let go of physical existence. I’m into a virtual life in which I can have whatever I want! It is a brain consuming thought, but it’s all worth the time and the energy.

I delved into the black, trying to reconcile the fragments I have of this person. I ran on its concealed path and got those partial memories; emotions, coming right at me. I’m hit by them as if I’m being hit by fragments of my own that helps constructing me; keeping me whole. I have a touch, a kiss, a move, a pair of bright eyes, and the strongest of all a delightful smile that made me ecstatic. I built on that vision a man as crazy, as delightful, and as bright as I am. It was like he was a male version of me. In his perfect stature, he was only a reflection of my own spirit set in another body.

I stopped running but the black oblivion was still rushing towards me. Now, it is empty of any memories, emotions; everything. There was just me, standing in the middle of the path that I can’t see, and there was that incarnation of that person, another part of me! I approached him, examined my lover and was bewildered by my weaving. I was stunned by what my mind is capable of. It was enchanting. I looked into his eyes, a deep look with a deep breath that I held in me. It was euphoric. I smiled at him and he smiled back. I was slowly and carefully raising my hands to feel his lovely face. I laid my left palm on his cheek when he started disintegrating. The oblivious darkness that was moving against my current is now moving with it; taking him away. The image that was just standing before me is now wearing off like digital data being eaten up by a virus that transforms it into little, senseless squares, apart from each other, useless! I ran after it, reaching out to it. Sobbing and angry I screamed “No, no don’t leave, don’t wear off; don’t leave me after I’ve found you! Staaaaaaaaaaaaay, pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase.”

I kept running until I was out of breath. I started stumbling and I fell to the ground when the left of me, being taken away by the ruthless current, exploded like a dying star. It was bright then it was dark again. The explosion wiped off everything in its way; my memory of his love, my emotions, my yearnings, and my exquisite happiness. Everything got sucked into the nothingness from which it was originally born. I was down on my knees, surrounded by nothing more than the static black that was suffocating me by its wideness. It was not moving in any direction anymore; it wasn’t moving towards me or with me! It was gone. Oblivion got sucked into oblivion, leaving only the oppressive space behind. I ended up in a black nothingness, lost in the high levels of my dreaming mind. I found no way back, no way in, no means to reconcile my once again lost pieces. It was only the emptiness one more time, the crucifixions one more time, the shivers, the pain, the shimmering, the breathless, blown up lungs one more time, with no means to overcome it. It was oblivion in the beginning and oblivion in the end and a lost soul hanging by a thread at the finish line of a marathon that can never be finished. 

Episodic Dream (Demons of The Night IX)

Originally written on 30/ 04/ 2013

Edited and published 10/ 07/ 2014

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Worms are eating up in my head;

Crawling in my brain

Leaching in it

A ghost child; thin and frail

With black lips sitting on a chair

Pale yellow skin with eyes sinking in their holes

At first I thought “he is sick, stay away”

But then I knew

He wasn't human, not a child of earth

Maybe an abomination;

 A conception of a bad sperm

In my thoughts I wasn't wrong;

To my calls he didn't respond

In my eyes he didn't look

He only sat on his chair

Shaking his legs in the fourth lane

In the always sunny rest room

On the first visit he didn't move

His chair was set in the corner, he didn't leave

To the bathroom I went and then I left

But being there gave me the creeps

On another visit I saw him again

I am much distracted by his looks

I scream at him, I shout and curse

But still to that he gave no response

Girls, horrified, decided to leave

Only two, caught up by curiosity, stayed

This time the boy came out of the lane

Stood in a corner with his body shaking

His right leg hitting against the wall

While I scream: “a ghost!” and I point

No one sees him but me

The girls, in horror, look into my eyes

A man rushes in, taking the boy away

I was stunned, the ghost is taken out!

The man wore an olive green garment

With brownish yellow hair and a big moustache

He takes the boy then rushes in again

He apologizes as I scream

His greyish green eyes go red

He looks at me in anger

To the ground he kneels

Into the floor his hand goes

Flooding the sinks and closing the doors

The girls and I are trapped inside

No one can hear us on the other side

To my screams I wake up, horrified

It's four minutes to sun rise

I am sweaty and shaking

Bewildered and lost

Was that a message or only a manifestation?

I’ll never know!!!

Perhaps it was my mind;

Seeking unity in its mess.

That Was Her

She was that and that was her

Insane, imprudent and so impure 

Sinful, apparently strong and tough

as a pile of ash in the winds that're rough

so heavy as the rhyme of these despicable lines

so in rush for an upcoming life

senseless to the edge lines of despair

and so a simulator of inexplicable pain

that she brought upon herself

for having such a nutshell brain

that was her and she was that

a mad woman in love with an equally mad man

the only man that her kind of women couldn't have

because that is her and she is that.

The Death of Woolf

Disclaimer:

This piece is a piece of pure fiction based on the death of Virginia Woolf. It DOES NOT tackle any real pieces of information. Everything is deployed in the favour of dramatic effects. Her suicide note, as found on the internet, is quoted but nothing else can be considered as a real piece of information about the life or the death of Woolf. 

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“Dearest,

I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.

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She wasn’t mad as they called her, she was only a radical. She wasn’t a psycho as she was accused, she was only insightful. She had her emotions heightened, only more elegant and more refined than others’. She was an artistic human. She had no voodoo mumbo jumbo going around in her life. She wasn’t an associate of the devil. She wasn’t old. She wasn’t young. She wasn’t anything but some thoughts that had a hard time getting explored. She was only a compilation of suffocating words that she expressed through her handwriting on pieces of parchments every time she had the urge to let something out. She loved her husband, she wished if she could bear his child but she wasn’t so lucky. She was dismal in her world. She lived in the agony of being a slave to her own fantasies. The worlds that she created, through the words that should have been her liberators, worked backwards. She was enslaved in her own freedom, a slave to her own alternative life.

She had the thought in her head that one should be different. She only failed in being so. Not because she wasn’t different, but because she was too different from the world that surrounded her. She was a radical, which categorized her as a rebel, which she was, but also for which she was regarded as a curse to her life.

Growing more dismal every day, growing desperate for the liberation she has always sought, she gave up on the conventions that she wanted to reform. She decided to only reform herself. The only way applicable is to embrace the fact that death is the ultimate liberator from every squeaky, loud voice in her that is trying to pull her from what she is towards what others think she should. She was even a radical in the way she saw things, not only in the way she thought of them. She didn’t only hold a new perspective, she also knew how she can act on her own. That’s why she aroused anger during her time.

“It is only another hardship another day in which I’m crazy. It’s only another day of detachment in which I feel overthrown by the large waves that do not seem to cease standing between my free spirit and my physical existence. If I am to be free, I’m to give up my body, which will be a worthy price for my liberation.”

On another dreary day, grey clouds and suffocating sunrays unable to penetrate through the fog and mist that have taken over the atmosphere, she headed over to the sea. She had her house, as vast as a grey palace, inhabited by the screams of her heart and the shouts of her mind, and as artificial as the cold, extravagant, white marble that had covered every inch of it, looking over the sea; her savior and her doom. She has looked at it for every day of her very short long life and has always pictured herself hugging its cold, comforting sand bed and laying there forever. She used to look at its soothing, gentle waves from above, from the balcony of her west wing, where she had protruding from the body of the palace. Whenever she was there, she felt that she was standing on the sea, in the middle of it; no directions, no right, no wrong; only nothingness; only peace. Only this day, she had approached it through walking on its shore with bare feet. She put on her raincoat, very heavy and very dark, and filled its pockets with crushed pieces of white marble, along with sharp, black stones. She carried in her pockets the screams that had drowned her every day. She carried along her misery that has led her to despair. She has just given up but a woman like her never goes down alone. She brought her murderer along down with her.

"I wasn’t alone in this. I had his smile in my head and his gentle eyes on my mind; I could see them as I walked into the water. I felt his lips pressing hard against mine; bestowing on them a last kiss, and his hand placing my stranded locks of hair gently behind my left ear."

She walked further and further and smiled harder and harder until She disappeared in the vast water. She never came back up, neither did she make any sound. 

It was a quite death, just as the quite life that others wanted me to have. Although my death has raised controversy and debate, I had an eventful life, just as my fierce spirit. Along with my other "victories", the way I chose to die is the ultimate victory of all. It’s just another way of saying I’ve lived to the fullest even when I was "wasted". I’m not wasted, I’m a phenomenon, I’m Virginia and that was my death. 

Son of Sun

Close your eyes…

Listen…

Silence…

Listen!

Go into the black;

Walk into oblivion,

Through it!

A pinhead?

A haystack?

A light?

Death or Life?

Are you dead or are you alive?

Lost at the road?

Lost at the choice?

Close your eyes…

Listen...

You’re alive, but dead!

You’re dead, yet alive!

The pinhead is the light

Of a planet of a Black Sun;

Revolving around it!

Your palms tickle

By the wheat flower

That they move across 

In a warm winter day

In which you can see the Sun

The Son of Sun is day

And its cousin is night.

And as you caress the Son,

The cousin caresses the Sun;

Eclipsing the warm light

To end up the life

Of a hefty, dark day.

Close your eyes…

Listen…

Birds… 

Chanting to the life

Of day and the death of night

The eclipse is over

The son is sun and the sun is son 

Day has come 

With a warm winter sun

So open your eyes

And sing the song

Of the death of the hefty Black Sun 

And the birth of a new day.

Empty Impulse

I’m sitting in front of my laptop, all set to start writing something that I don’t know. I have the impulse to write, the motivation, but I lack the essence; I have a feeling that I can’t clearly define. I can’t pin point its name but it’s there. It’s like a feeling that is empty; an empty impulse! How can an impulse be empty? Can a heartbeat be empty? Can a breath be empty? And if there are empty breaths and empty heartbeats so can there be life? What kind of life can be there if all the motivators of life are declining towards extinction! How can I be all set and ready to take matters into my hands; write a story that has never been written before, and still be all empty and null! Am I not supposed to be a writer? Am I not supposed to question life; the universe, and its exquisiteness? Am I not supposed to be an interpreter of motions and gestures? How come I want to write something that I don’t know? It’s like once I come near my keyboard I’ll figure out what needs to be written, what needs to be out of my system, like a sin, and I’m chocking upon. It’s very easy to get a feeling, an emotion that motivates you, but you can’t define it. But is it ever easy to try explaining the thing that you cannot define? And if I cannot explain it, does that make me a sloppy writer? And if it doesn’t make me a sloppy writer, can a writer ever be motivated by an impulse that may come and go? And if he can be motivated by such impulses, what would he do if these impulses just stopped coming? Would he cease being a writer? Would he cease seeking the perfection, on which he triumphs, which he brings to existence? Would he stop seeking oneness through his claim of ownership over the produced piece that he never thought he would tailor in such a perfection? Would he really give up all that he was, is, and will just basing on an impulse that has given him up? How could it be that easy? How could it be that depressing?

My impulse often visit me when I’m angry or depressed, which is most of the time my mood. In case I’m neither of the cases, which is probably when I’m sleeping, and not even quite often then, I’m in the mood of “what if…?” Even when I’m not writing, I’m always creating an alternative life that involves me and my friends. I find uniqueness in it. I’m unique because there is something that is only mine, not available to be shared with anyone but with my reflection in the mirror. That reflection that reflects my monstrosity, mingled with such an innocent face. That reflection that has a sight of the devil in it. You can always see it through those eyes when they are determined on doing something to take over something that she knows it is never hers to take. That light of darkness that breaks through the dark sky of my head, bringing the darkness of my abyss on top of the light that is trying to fight it back down to where it came from but it can’t. It’s those moments of strength that feed my infuriation and depression alike, allowing my impulse to dance on the grave of my words that are becoming dead just seconds after their birth. They are born as I’m typing, and die as I’m reading what I wrote. Their short interval of life is as long as eternity; they will be born through every attempt of reading them and will die with the last letter that is read but will be engraved in the unconscious of the reader and will then find another death with his own. 

The impulses are always empty yet saturated by words that will never be known to the writer until he tries to discover what he should be writing. He will never understand his impulse until this impulse comes to life through his words then die through his attempt of understanding it. It’s a life that comes and goes and gets born then dies then gets born one more time then becomes immortal in the endless time. A writer’s impulse tends to be born out of nothingness then live as short as seconds and as long as eternity. 

Here (Demons of The Night VIII)

P.S. This poem features some lines from OneRepublic's "Secrets"

I was here.

Those handprints are mine;

The ones you wiped off before you could even see.

This life was mine, for I was here.

Those mumbled, jumbled, scattered belongings

Flying in the air, unconstrained.

This sweat, its smell, all are mine;

I was here!

I see you rejoicing in my absence,

Smiling that pain-dipped smile.

I know you can’t see me, you can’t realize

That I’m here, hearing your laughs; your painful tears

Tearing me!

You got no reason, got no shame

Nor a family that you can blame

You just want me to disappear

Not knowing that I’m actually here

Tell me what you want to hear

Something that would free you of your fears?

So scared of all your insecurities, your insincere?

I’m keeping all your secrets away!

I’m here!

I feel all your pains, laughs, and tears

You’re fearing making friends with me?

I’m the only friend who you mustn’t fear!

I am here!!!

I’m a shadow, I’m a ghost

I’m held hostage by your choice

Hounded always by your past

You’re keeping it from me!

You want to make me disappear

But I’m not keeping from you anything!

Gonna tell you all you wish to hear;

I am here!

ورقة شجر

كل شوية، شوية هوا يحدفوها في حتة
وساعات تعدي عليها رياح خماسين تجيب داغها
وساعات تانية هي اللي بتطلع سلسفيل ابوها
بس منين النِفس؟
حتجيب نِفس منين وهي قرفانة من الهوا
قرفانة من المكان والزمان والألم والدوا
حاجة بلا
هي ورقة خنقها التراب
وحبات الرمل اللي بتجرح فيها
كل ما السما تقرر انها تزوم وتغضب
فتبعت عواصفها وقت اما يحلالها
وهي خربت مالطا؟ لا ماخربتش!!!
ايه اللي جرى؟ الست متضايقة ففشت خُلقها
هي يعني خربت مالطا؟ لا ماخربتش!!!
هي الورقة بس اللي اتداست
تراب، رمل، طين، مطر، اعاصير تنخر في جذعها
نشفت الورقة!!!
بس يعني خربت مالطا؟
لا مخربتش!!!
ايه اللي جرى؟ شوية هوا؟
ايه المشكلة؟
ولا أي حاجة.
يادوب دي حتة ورقة
اصفرت ونشفت من النحر في قلبها
جدرها اتكسر من الريح اللي بتدوسه
وهي مش لاقية مكان يتاويها
هي اللي غلطانة
ايه اللي جابها هنا؟
هي مش عرفاه ونفوذه؟
اقولك؟
انتَ صح، هي بنت كلب
لا، دي بنت ستين كلب
عارف ليه؟
علشان افتكرت ان الريح حبيبها
وتقدر بحبها تفوزه
بس اهو ده اللي صار
ونشفت الورقة وماتت
ومضت الريح في طريقها
تداعب اللي يحلالها وتفعص اللي يقف
في مهب الريح

Walk on Air

Look at humans passing you by

And thank your creator for not making you one

As inanimate, as you are now, you’re very alive

For when you breathe like humans, 

You should know that you’ve died. 

Reach the heavens held above your head

Capture its glow through the skies

Encapsulate its happiness within your soul

As the stars shine and fade away

All you have to do is walk on air

Run as fast and as gracefully as a deer

In the vast meadows 

Embrace its life in the blowing wind

Open those glistening eyes, 

Ornamented by those massive lashes

Glow and shine as diamonds 

As the stars in the sky you behold

Walk on air, just walk on air

Enwrap its clouds, as puff as cotton

Within your woundless soul

You’re not a human 

Which makes you more human 

Than the best human can be

You’re alive within the silence 

And only dead when you breathe

So hold your breathes and stay alive

All you need to do is walk on air, 

The air is all you need

Whispers to the Mountain's Rocks (A Short Story)

"From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize that you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry." Elizabeth Bennet_Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Soundtrack: Your Hands are Cold

The mountains are so soothing, although they are made of rocks as sharp as steel, and as heavy as a raging sea wave, bursting from the womb of an infuriated undersea volcano, at the moment of its scream, while giving birth to its assumably monstrous lava. It’s the cursed child of Hades, who decided to expel his unborn child, his combination of death and fire, from whatever he names “world”. His so-called merciful, dark eternity, which he thinks better than the light of day that this fire shall encounter through the cold, uneasy birth it’s about to soon witness.  This presumably abominable birth should be so painful for both the mother and the child alike, especially after being torn apart from each other arms in so young an age, but still not as painful as the pain I’m bearing within my heart.

The sudden transition from the fire within to the coldness out; two mediums, which are too contradictory, yet too perfectly aligned, can break anyone, and I’m no exception. The ignited, passionate fire within anyone, when interrupted by a sudden greet of an ice cold misery, can turn their heart to a headstone, petrified in time, with a ridiculous posture and a texture of a recently polished marble. My pride and love are inseparable yet this pain will never die. Rejecting the only love that you’ve ever come across for the sake of pride is more painful than any abominable birth ever mentioned along the history of mankind, and mythology are not excluded from such an equation.

Feeling those rocks, as strong and as unbreakable as I wish I was, and as harsh as I wish I could be, creates within my heart a dilemma of perfect imperfections. A revolving cycle of truth and hindrance so astounded by my rebellious thoughts and unperishable voices hovering about my head. Every blow of wind that hits the standing straight mountain hits me with equal velocity and magnitude and stings me as a thousand black arrows piercing my heart at once. It’s a moment of thought and regret and a hope that one day these uncomfortable feelings, these feelings of disgrace and guilt and shame and sorrow would perish along the dirt, within the folded layers of the dear earth to me that has never spilled away my secrets. These layers of dirt and mud contain within them the tears and pain of so many unspoken words to the public, yet whispered to their dear, little ears that would listen and sympathize and show affinity and compassion to one's wounded soul.

Each time I seek salvation, I come to these rocks and lay on their hard ground. I lean to them, approach their sovereign, and speak to their unfathomable wells of secrets, getting crowded by the words of people just like me, filled with passion and vanity alike. I take a bunch of their dust in my hand, rub my hands against each other, and feel each grain of sand scratching against my soft skin, taking away the pain of the words I’ve been yearning for so long to utter, but prevented by the dull knife severing my courage of declaring my weakness to the only one person so dear to my heart, yet enormously far.

I wish if I could just turn back in time, grab the chance whenever showed possible, fall onto the ground; breaking apart, as I am now, and say it all at once. I wish if it was possible to tell him how much I love him, just as much as he loves me. I see it in his eyes, in his air when he talks, on his lips when he speaks, and in his complicated manners, reflecting in his gestures, when we’re both around each other. I wish that he would know that I love him despite of all the venoms we spew against each other in the last encounter between us. I wish that he would know that if he hadn’t thought so low of me and so unforgivably stupid, I’d have forgiven all of his follies. But what would those hopes be of any good now? What change can ever possibly happen? It’s a dead story, carried away by the wind that hit me so hard and carried on its way so far by its will. It’s now all bygones of fate and destiny, which deaths may occur at any better chances of prudent survival. Let us just hope that we shall never meet again, for each encounter with such chocking emotions within would kill me a million times per second if not spoken of immediately. Let us just hope that the wind, travelling so far, wouldn’t return with the same agony carried away through distance, established by scruples of nonsensical deviations.

Although I’m standing here, lamenting my misfortunes of severed courage and unyielding vain, caused by my unbounding pride, I look at the rocks, which I wish I can identify with, close my eyes to the cold blow of wind against me, enjoy its sentiments and its promises of relief, and breathe in its soothing smell, and lose all my pains in its arms that hug me so tight, comforting me in the sense of a moaning mother, who has just lost her child to the vanity of his treacherous father.