عرض وطلب

تتضائل المساحات المشتركة
وتستمر فى الانكماش والتقلص
فتبقى متفرج عن بعد، فاشل أولى تنفس
وتستسلم لألم المعدة الناتج عن الفراق
ولكن نعلم جميعا أن اختلاف الاتجاهات
يفسد كل ذكريات النبيذ والويسكى وأفيهات العشرين
كما نعلم أيضا أن مع انتهاء تاريخ صلاحية الألفة
يأتى تجار آخرين لفترينة أمك

بلوك بارتى

نبيذ أحمر من بلدان أوروبية وغير أوروبية..
لم أذهب الى أى منهم.. أو أى من جيرانهم..
لثلاث ليالى وأيام.. متصلين بخيط من الذكريات..
سمكه لا يتعدى شعيراتى الحاضنة لبالوعة البانيو..
عشر أشخاص.. يعرفون اسمى ثلاثى.. ورباعى..
ولكنى لا أمضى معهم أكثر عمقا من ذلك..

لا أستمتع بالنبيذ مع من يعرفوننى جيدا..

حكمة

كل الفرص تأتى مرة واحدة.. فتأتى أيضا متعة عدم انتهازها..

Routine Retirement of a Replicant.

I love you much.

I don't remember the number of slaps both of my parents gave me, neither collectively nor separately. For they were many. I don't even recall any with despair, nor grief, nor self-pity. I don't think anyone who wasn't beaten by their parents is any better than I am. They just had it differently - not necessarily better. I love both of my parents, much.

I get a heartbreak every time I know you are fucking her. I get a reel of pretty good porn running through my mind of the ways you do it. The best porn I've seen. The only porn I've seen. Walk out on me, dear. As emo as that sounds, break my heart over and over again. One day, we're gonna wake up and you'll find no more whole pieces to break, I'll find no heart to feel the knife twist either.

I don't know much.

On nights like these, I realize I am only a Replicant. Copy pasting all my experiences over and over again, never with wisdom, always with pain. But again, I don't blame you, dear. You are just a face among the masses, a clown among a circus, a heartless in any odyssey. I was cursed by a high waist, putting pressure on my stomach making me throw up frequently at your memory. Also making my lungs smaller, less healthy and covered by a paint of French bosom that doesn't go with the rest of my Egyptian body. I was also cursed by a fish memory, one that makes me run to you at your sight by mere coincidence after you've made a vow to fuck me over. I have to live with those. Those are my own problems.

I pray to the forces above, below and even within, though. I pray I remember not to let my guard down. If I never let my guard down, never to expect nor trust, I'll just live through everything like I lived through a parent's slap. Mechanically. Mechanically. I want you dear, mechanically. If I gain back this capability that I lost over the years with silly hope that anything can get better, I'll never have another break not after a million parent slaps, not after being kicked out of a grey Polo belonging to those you let your guard down in front, not after you fuck her sideways, 69, back or front, porn soft or gore.

I never look at you.

How am I looking on your petri dish, you who pushed down the first domino? Am I squirming in pain or is my faking pleasantness getting to you? I don't mind your silver laboratory utensils as you move me underneath the transparency of your microscope lens. Just don't poke my eyes out often with your rubbing in. Pushes through the upper half are perfectly fine for now. But again.. those won't keep a constant supply seeping out of the ooze of my worm body.

Tell me about results, dear. Does the anger and successfully contained grudge give you a hard-on? Or does the strength I wake up in after each of your experiments turn you on more? Feed me in. I can help you. I can help you fake the remaining years of your life. Shall never let down the picturesque I weave you, year after year, that of a grass greener on my side to you, that of something I can never get to me.

The first of a million pushes.

علقة الجنينة

Killing the inside out

All my organs are electrified. I look at them in any mirror and they’re just hung there, rich of electric current webs– that which used to be my blood veins. I particularly have a beautifully lit liver, with a mesh of optic-laser-like wrap. How lit they are making a silhouette of a finely tuned skeleton.

Purgatory is the finest shape of Christianity

The only man who can make a woman happy is unhappy. He is going back and forth through his mind. He is wretched to the extent that he asks me for advice. Like a hermit, he lives in a bleak desert with dark haired Filipino nurses, haunted skyscrapers and a father whose only deed is the half an hour he took to be his father. But even there, as poetic and unreal he is, he manages to weave details of life out of those ghosts.

Hated by the Sun

There is a garden. By day, it has all sorts of plants I don’t know the Latin names for. Even though it’s hated by the sun, it still manages to look beautiful from afar in the light. The lights suck you in. You know there are four militia standing on the top of the four trees, found at the four corners of the round garden. Thirty two naked men are blindfolded, running around the garden as the militia whip the skin away from their flesh. The garden, unlike the Sun, is Sisyphean; the light seems to get weary and fade away, yet the whipping continues…

398 slaps received

Not everything that happens needs time. Time makes it easy to prove something existed or happened. Elapsed is an art and history is the masterpiece. But every time I am pulled into this pitch black room and I am slapped by hands that can’t be that powerful and made of human material at the same time, I know time is a luxury for those who can keep track of it. The slaps are followed with an angry monotonic gush asking me to man up. I ask how. I scream how. I burst in tears. I burst in blood. All interrupted by world class slapping asking me to man up. The organs are never lit in this room.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s

I lived my life staring at a stage of human acquaintances trying to show off how much they achieved, how much money they made, how needed they are, how the world will stop if they ceased to exist. Everyone seemed to be motivated by a goal, seemed to achieve it, and seemed to be satisfied too – for why else would they show off what doesn’t bring satisfaction? As I faked cigarette breaks outdoors, I made imaginary friends. One day, I read “I met a genius” by Charles Bukowski carved on the hidden part of the wood of the stage door. The next day I met him, younger than I am, faking cigarette breaks and making imaginary friends. He told me it doesn’t have to be this way. I never kissed him but I walked away from the stage building as I felt him, behind my back, lighting a cigarette and reading the poem carved on the door.

Of sweat pores, Samia Roushdy and Hamid Sinno.

If there is to be a wonderland inside of Cairo, all the bastard fairies would have chosen Shoubra. A city inside a city with rules unspoken, only known to those who reside it long enough. That’s how my first love affair was like anyways.

It was always summer restricted, even though winter is the season when girls shop for love affairs. That was the only season I survived staying up late in that first-floor balcony on a very quiet street. Across the narrow street was another building, full of Shoubra residents. Some were noisy and veiled, some were old and retired and read newspapers in balconies during mornings – let it be winter or summer. I preferred all the noisy and veiled people in the neighborhood; they smothered us with food with and without occasions. On the last floor however, lived the family of Samia Roushdy, with the whole sons and grandsons formula.

There wasn’t much to do in the summer nights of the early nineties. If you were noisy and veiled, old and retired or a Samia Roushdy grandson, you spent your time guessing which pores will your next humid sweat particles come out from. Nobody used air conditioners in Shoubra. Not in the early nineties. Some do now, but the bastard fairies are working on killing them quietly in their sleep and giving back their place of residence to those worthy of it.

I usually waited till my grandmother found her balancing point in her sleep, and my aunt found hers on the sofa in front of a Mervat Amin movie on TV in a dark hall with a couple of flies making love on the light of the screen. I would then sit in the balcony, pretending to do nothing – and yes, that is doable, but I was really staring upwards to the third floor at the window where the Samia Roushdy grandson showed up sometimes. On the very few occasions he lit the room, he was never by the window, but probably doing something inside the room – a purpose he originally needed the working neon lamps to serve, with more than two flies gathering up and making love on the lit-lamps occasion. Thus, I never saw his face on the times he decided to quench my thirst and show up by the window. All I ever had, was a scene of the upper half of a man, lit by faint poor street lamps, resting one elbow on the window, smoking a cigarette with the other arm, topless and guessing which pores will his humid sweat particles come out of next. As he blew out smoke that eventually fell upon my hair, his radio blew endless tunes of Alphaville, Whitesnake and Supertramp, which were carved in my head.

Winter would come. His closed window would leave me lonely and my pores would leave me bored for no sweat particles would come out at this time of year. I would only depend on Khaled Habib and Nevine Shoukry and the Classic Rock show coming out of poor Casio radio speakers, knowing this is what the Samia Roushdy grandson is listening to behind that bleak closed wooden window.

Years passed and the bastard fairies couldn’t hide me for long and I was plucked out of Shoubra. I went to a lot of other places, which forcibly had air conditioners. I got introduced to people who were not noisy and were not veiled but who smothered themselves in Koky chicken nuggets and McDonald’s home delivery. And as time passed by, I blended in and eventually forgot the Classic rock vows we took and the two-floors apart love we made.

But here I am, in a time that can no longer be called the nineties, sitting in a room that had no air-conditioner, with Hamid Sinno’s voice pouring out of speakers that were neither poor nor Casio, and sweat pouring out of pores even though it’s a winter night. He would open his mouth to tell me how beautiful I am, but I ain’t listening. He would ask me if I intend to say anything witty from my “How about..” series, but I sit there doing nothing – not pretending. I would actually see his face in neon light, hand-memorize it in the dark and see it again in early morning light. I don’t seem to listen to any flies making love now. However, this is not Shoubra and those are not my rules, so I just fine tune and restrict the love I make to the amount he is willing to take – unlike what I’ve done with the Samia Roushdy grandson.

Hung up.

I was counting the white stripes the other day,

Passing under the car, like I usually do,

On them winter nights,

When I heard Creep playing on the radio.

I held out my hand to press a button,

That had a plus sign on it, like I always do.

He tried to hold it as it was on my way back,

To whirl my hair that's been straightened the other day,

For the sake of passing time on a winter afternoon.

I pulled it away.. He asked why..

"I don't know, I am with someone now,"

I said, with my hand on my lap.

But I don't know if that's true, I didn't say,

He believed me and tried again.

bely bely bely.mp3

بمناسبة كومبو الأعياد

وأنه كلنا هنروح عند ستو

نأكل لحمة أو نفرقع بيرة

كل سنة وانتوا طيبين

واهداء خاص

أغنية الأستاذ طاهر صالح الجديدة

بجد نفسى العب

من زمان ملعبتش

بلى كشرى وبلى عادة

وجعليظة بلى سادة

كل دى أنواع

(البلى البلى البلى)

عايزة تطلع عايزة مهارة

فيها نيشان وانا الصنارة

وهى دى حلاوة

(البلى البلى البلى)

من يوم ولادتى من طفولتى

وانا بالعب عند ستى

كنت بأغلب كل الحارة

كنت شاطر فيها بتارة

مفيش عيل فى زمانى كسبنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

محدش كان يقدر يهزمنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

بجد يا ناس البلى وحشنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

بجد نفسى العب

من زمان ملعبتش

لعبت طسة وترنجيلة

مثلثات وترنجانة

وهى دى أنواع

(البلى البلى البلى)

تركيزها بيبقى مية مية

عايزة سرعة من اللى هى

وهى دى خطورة

(البلى البلى البلى)

مليانة لحدى محدش قدى

غلبت عبد القادر وجدى

كسبت جوايز أخدت ميدالية

وكأس كبير على شكل بلية

مفيش لعيب فى الدنيا يغلبنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

مفيش واحد قدر يهزمنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

بجد يا ناس البلى وحشنى

(البلى البلى البلى)

Death is the road to awe.

The counting of breaths and trees,

The Clint Mansell/Radiohead competition,

Falling in love with men and women on billboards,

Drunk dialing and above all,

Playing Zuma in wet eyes.. and winning.

It will all come back again.

In a heartbeat.

There was a girl I used to know. She had the inextinguishable fire in her eyes and she grabbed life by the balls. Of the few times I met her, she was telling the story of her divorce, as she tried hard to keep the smoke of her cigarette away from her 4 year old daughter. She shopped for groceries after a long day at work, carried at least four big bags of miscellaneous items nobody really needed, her handbag, and a bottle of wine, and finally climbed the four floors of her building till she got to her apartment’s door. Breathless as she was, she chose not to put everything on the floor and get out the keys from her handbag… as not to dissipate her remaining energy on dos and re-dos, but rather to ring the bell instead and just fling inside to the kitchen. Once… twice… three and maybe four times. Her husband, who was watching TV inside, opened the door and shouted outrageously at her for ringing the bell. Ungrateful as he was, he found a bottle of good red wine being shattered into pieces over his head. Their marital relationship didn’t really pick up since then.

Unlike everyone on our table, her reaction seemed completely natural to me, the normal consequence to impatience, intolerance, non-cooperation and non-controllable lust for putting the blame. But everyone thought that wasn’t the right thing to do, probably even my mom… for she never did it.

Severin, Severin.

How about you call me Venus as I dress in animal fur?

صحيت فى ميكروباص... شاكرة جدا، حطيت سماعات الام بى ثرى – اللى كنت اصلا استهلكت اخر بطاريته بمنتهى الشهوة فى الليلة السابقة – فى ودانى، عشان اتفادى اى استظراف أو استلطاف متوقع تجاه أى شئ يرتدى حمالة صدر فى ميكروباص – بغض النظر اذا كان يحتاجه أم لا. يفرق بينى وما بين السواق رجل بيقول على مراته "الجماعة" ولابس اخضر فج... ولكن السواق كسب نقط احترام، مش بس عشان اخد غرزة ما بين تلات تريللات من غير لما يشد اهتمامى... ولكن ايضا، عشان ضيع كل رصيده على السواقين اللى وراه بيشرحلهم ظروف الرادارات والكمائن...

وعادى يعنى... يستمر سواق الميكروباص فى أخدان الغرز ما بين التريللات ويتغاضى عن الثلج اللى بيزحلق العربية تحتيه... فهو على رأى المنادى... برنس الطريق... فيقرر الشاب الفج فى أنه يخدش الكادر الكوول للسواق ويسمح أن موبايله يرن برنة صراخ واحدة بتولد والموضوع بيقلب أن هى بتضحك بهيستيريا... بديهى جدا... كلنا اتسرعنا... وبديهى جدا سرق الشاب الفج الكادر من برنس الطريق... فزى اى راجل لابس أخضر... هو عاشق تافه للانتباه...

كنهاية طبيعية لأى اتنين مصريين فى الموقف ده... انتهى الأمر ان الشاب اللى عنده "جماعة" بيسمع السواق نكت عن البلديات من الموبايل... وكل الركاب... كأى ركاب مصريين طبيعيين... سمعوا كل النكت للأخر وبلعوا البضنة بمنتهى الشهوة...

وعلى اخر الطريق كدة... على الغرزة الأربعتاشر... الراجل اللى ورايا لقيته بيقول "يعنى انت ينفع الطريق كله كدة تشغل نكت عن البلديات؟" ننظر احنا التلاتة... أنا ، ناسية تماما انى المفروض باسمع السماعات اللى فى ودنى، الشاب الأخضر فى بداية احراجه ، وسواق الميكروباص فى المراية الأمامية.

يجلس خلفنا راجل وامرأته وابنته... صعايدة... وصعايدة يعنى صعايدة... جبهتهم واسعة ، تكاد تكون كارتونية... وعينيهم واسعة... وجلدهم قمحى بيلمع من اللون اللى مينفعش تبصله باستمرار... فيرد الشاب الأخضر فى منتهى السسّينة... "انا مالى يا عم ده هو اللى بيقول مش أنا..."

تنظر المرأة الصعيدية أمامها ، وكأن هذا الصوت يصدر من حشرة خضرا... لا تستاهل رحلة الى عبوة الفليت... بل فقط غمزها فى قعر أقرب قبقاب... برضه من غير أى انتباه من عينيها... فتقول...

"هو فى رچالة غير فى الصعيد؟ هو فى مرچلة برة الصعيد؟"

وكأى فتاة قاهرية تافهة ، من أصول صعيدية لا أعلم عنها الكثير... توقعت أن ينظر سواق الميكروباص والحشرة الخضراء الى زوجها ويوبخوه عن ما صدر عن "جماعته" أو يطلبوا منه أنه يلمها... ولكنهم غاصوا فى صمت... وتبللت جبهتهم ، الغير بواسعة كثيرا... ولم يجدوا الجرأة أن ينظروا اليها فى عينيها...

كسر سواق الميكروباص ذلك الصمت بمنتهى التردد والتهتهة ليقول "أيوة يا... ستى... أنا أصلا... عندى... أصل صعيدى"... فأنهى أقوى مشهد سادى رأيته فى حياتى.

Sea of Beads.

For some reason I’ve been lying in a quick sand of beads for as far as I can remember. It’s been there ever since I was born. I choke on beads, eat beads, shit beads, and breathe beads. I have never had a good sleep… never with eyes closed, back stretched and legs in sloth… beads can’t make beds, can’t make pillows either. I took it for long enough now. Yet something has changed, since early last year. Somewhere along my skin where my hands cannot reach, a hole was created and the beads flood inside of my body, making me heavier, weaker, not fitter… not happier… like a pig stuck in a cage, sometimes on antibiotics. And no amount of alcohol can help me believe the lie I’ve been enforcing upon myself… that I am as strong and I am doing a good job grabbing life and people by the balls, as I always did before… and always survived.

I never stayed long enough, not to call those beads – or anywhere – home. The sea of them beads flows mercilessly and forces change. And I’m sick of change, of light bags, rental houses, evil omens and lie-convincing alcohol. Now all I wanna do is stand right in front of you, look you in the eye and spit out an avalanche of beads right at your face. To be specific, I want to bull-eye your eyes and create holes somewhere along your skin, where your hands won’t be able to reach or sew, and I will fill you with beads… make you a pig dead… in a cage… with no alcohol.

Nosferatu.

There is no camouflage in the air. Not at all, no. For I stand, a flapper, naked under a short black dress, mounted by a glittery tilted hat and with weaved spider-web stockings around my thighs. There is not even color in the air. It’s all black and white, even my red lipstick… even the black smoke coming out of my cigarette. Passers-by don’t quite grasp it, for they look at me and spit out remains of chewed tobacco at my flapper shoes and look at me with disgust. It’s quite understandable; they are pretty much disappointed at the uncountable Tom Waits strippers I failed to become. I don’t really care that much, lonely towns make lonely flappers.

From time to time, F. Scott Fitzgerald gives me a call on my old 1918 Nokia. I am always standing by that same corner when he calls. I tell him not to worry too much… “Fitzzie, ye need not worry too much,” I always say. He never listens to me, always has to check on me. He’s a nice guy… His sister Ella too. They live uptown now; don’t get to see much of them anymore. Ella sings too. Ella is the flapper all other flappers follow. It’s a lonely lonely corner ever since the Fitzgeralds left. The whole district can agree except that they have them Tom Waits strippers now.

It was a black and white humid Monday when he passed by my corner. It took a minute or two till he spotted my eyes under the piles of black liner I have on. It took less not to spit any chewed tobacco, but a little bit longer to get me on my knees. “All `em Tom Waits strippers you failed te be,” he said as he smeared the lipstick off of my lips, “don’t know what ye will become.”

But Parov Stelar knew… damned well.

Berserk.

Let’s lie down on the wet grass on an autumn morning with my sweatshirt stuffed against my back, allowing damp greenery to ache my stomach strip. Don’t lie on your back, but rather on your side, allow me to be in your sight. Balance your head on one hand and hold the e. e. cummings poetry book with another. Read a poem for me out slowly, as I puff my smoke at God. Give me the book. I shall read one too. By-passers will not grasp my attention and will not interrupt the flow of words out of my lips… nor the smoke.

Allow us to go shop for groceries and buy chocolate bars and coffee jars. On our way home and as you drive, I will remove the branding tickets off of everything we shopped for – for we promised to keep our kitchen brand-free. I shall not litter any street with those removed tickets – let it be ugly or beautiful. I’d keep them in a plastic bag and get rid of them in the trash can on the sidewalk on the right of our house’s door.

Shower. I won’t. I’ll leave the coffee jars in the bag, grab two chocolate bars, and throw them on the table by the sofa. I’ll put on some music and intentionally list two or three tracks to play before “Private Investigations”. I’ll lie again on the sofa with my damp sweatshirt stamped against my back allowing the warmth of home to soothe my stomach strip. By the time you are next to me, it will be one track away from Dire Straits’. By the time we are half way through the chocolate bar, it plays. Lips.

Let’s make babies so that on the days you choose to ignore me, I’ll drive across town to get them to spend time with Omar. He will teach them what they cannot be taught in schools and what they can’t learn from you or me. There is no need to bring up Omar when one of them is always putting ear-speakers and so-not-depressingly feeding on Salinger. They got that from me.

I’ll drive back across town and shop for wine bottles that I shall let the baby in the backseat remove the branding ticket for. I’ll secretly get some bourbon too. But before I throw anything in a trash can, and before I throw any chocolate bars on the table and definitely before I prepare any playlists, I need you to know… My hands are scarred from touching all the wrong people.

Self-closing Tags.

The younger sister sucks on my knees without any consideration to the bone joints her teeth are carving into. It’s been years since she was born and breast feeding has never really been her thing. She sucked the life out of our mother’s breasts and now years down the line; my knees are the only source for her to feed, to breathe and to smother her ugliness with further life. I throw my head back, at first glance; it looks like it’s out of ecstasy. My upper body on that wooden chair might look like that of a woman getting her long-awaited treat, but when one looks closer, my hair is falling on the floor – out of frail, my lips are growing whiter – out of motherhood. I wish I have the strength to let that groan out. I wish my moans were any audible to express the pain. They’re not though, gratefully not making her misunderstand my pain for wanting her to halt. She never stops; she smothers her lips with blood, teeth with flesh and body with gluttony.

Outside there is night. The suckling sister wolf-runs outside when she hears the footsteps of a man. I fall off the chair, thirsty and drained. I jump unconsciously back and forth between the white light I see when I close my eyes and the sounds of my younger sister being humped outside. I fall for the white light again and she brings me back. Orgasm after another, my little sister saves me for that light was pulling strongly… enough.




Beware of the old lady who brings apples to your house. She stands before me with the classic basket of full ripe apples in her left hand and her fake smile in her inviting right hand to pull me off of the floor. I bite off her hand and spit it inside the basket she holds in her left hand and thus her smile goes back to her more familiar smirk which in turn goes back to her face.

By the time I stood up, she vanished into thin air. I go outside the already open-door and run at full throttle on my four limbs. My hands give me a strong front force as the asphalt cuddles the wounds on my knees and increases them. I run not for very long away from the house but I find myself getting back to it. When I wondered how could I run away from something and still get back to it… I was answered that this world is small.




Whenever he is around, I can’t look at his face. I look down at my naked stomach and I find red rays of sunlight coming out of it. There… there it is my definition of love. The red rays wrap my fair body and choke me against them. When he decides to hold me, I don’t feel any arms nor body – for the rays and straps of light are already pressing too hard on my skin.

I open my eyes to find me still lying on the floor, this time – naked. The rays are gone but a certain pain down there suggests there has been a man – one I have never felt. This time I don’t bother to get off of the floor but I could hear my sister licking the rest of the mud off of my knees so that she can have her brunch.

Trentemoller`s Moan.

There are not a lot of things I do for distractions - that is because I don’t do distractions. Yet there are those who master wars of silence and magical powers of killing you with their detachment. Those people exist, and they consume you and eat you out and ruin your day.

One of them actually pushed me to do distractions today. My first trial was Jack White – knowing me, and how all my friends are named Jack. I asked him to wake Meg up and meet me down their alley. It wasn’t long before we were in London, exchanging roles to play Jack’s favorite Bleeding-on-Red-Stripes shooting thing on dull forsaken rooftops. He killed me twice and I confused Meg for having her period several times too.


After lunch in Paris and coffee in Rome, we had the afternoon stroll in Prague. I was walking next to Jack and we were not holding hands, he wasn’t putting his hand on my shoulder and I wasn’t putting my arm around his back. In fact, we weren’t physical at all – knowing me and how odd that is with all my Jacks. He asked me if I was as ugly as he is and I expressed how relieved I was with the fact that he was Meg’s brother, and how this way, I can be comfortably and intensely attracted to both of them – be manipulated by them, enslaved by them, enslaving and sexualizing them with all possible permutations of 3. He let out a brief grin and called for Meg – who was a bit ahead of us. She walked side by side with him, he put his hand on her shoulder and she put her arm around his back.

Meg asked if I talked to Heath today, she didn’t even glance at me as she asked – which made me think her words were drumsticks on my ear drums. I had to disappoint Meg soon and tell her how the person I thought was Heath was only a fake bastard – but I chose not to, I only replied;

“Heath Ledger is dead. He’s expecting us in a few.”

She let out a comfortable rare smile of hers and I thought I heard her say “Okay.”

I went back home to find the fake Heath eaten out by an army of white ants that happens to live under my bed. It made me happy and I kissed the ants one by one because I don’t need to do any distractions anymore. However, I thought I’d still give the Whites a call in a couple of days – after all, I was wearing Meg’s bra.

raison d`etre.

you do it as if it’s natural,
like the puff following the drag,
or the breath following the dive.
you do it as if it’s unnoticeable,
you can even speak in the background,
look around, glance and smile.
you do it and you’re unaware.
you are completely unaware,
that when your finger runs on my skin,
the world stops,
time pauses - my heart stops - my breath stops.
your touch is natural,
like an e. e. cummings poem.
it is my raison d`etre,
yet you are completely unaware.

The place we can be alone.

It’s bloody simple really. Never own a wardrobe nor a fancy big mirror in your house and you`ll never have trouble. Don`t spend any money on hanging posters on the four-walled white room and do not… I repeat, DO NOT… hang your clothes properly after you come back dead and tired after a long day. It can be a lot easier, if you stop thinking about owning a dog or a cat or an endangered family of Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing Butterfly… and of course, don`t even consider plants. Always remember that things that run on electricity are better than those which need fire, and those that only need your hands are even better. Don`t cook a meal you don`t want to wash the utensils for. Don`t cook at all, I mean, what`s really better than food that you bring from a third party that only needs you to throw away some bags and cartoon paper after you`re done – kindly forget about the associated environmental guilt. Remember that every few months; you will be invited to a place with full fridges and some fancy almond-fudge-and-rosemary-hinted dip for your movie crackers… never get comfortable. Don’t feel uncertain about inviting people over, only if they don`t come from a full-fridge background – and trust me, most people do. On second thought, invite whoever. Do not envy them. Do not whine. Do not compare.

Kindly note that clothes are recyclable – as you buy new ones, remember you did so because there are old ones that you do not need – and there is someone who does whom you can give them to and can gain you extra points on whatever religious/moral schema you`re following. This makes you pack a lighter bag. This makes you move easier and faster. Do not own a bar, only a bottle or two if you need cocktail them together – I mean, how would you feel if you threw away most of them, or even worse if you had to carry them? However, never make your place void of wine. Red Wine. Dark clothes. A lot of dark clothes. Bleak colors, which match anything and everything. Remember that fashion does not determine which clothes to wear, but rather how tolerable and match-able they are – what good will an orange brown-polka-dotted chiffon scarf do you if you need to wash it every time you wear it?

Friends are recyclable too. Friends are determined by a few dimensions – space, time and money. Don`t get over too intimate with people, because if you lack one of the previously mentioned elements, this intimacy will not be maintained. Thus, don`t feel bad about it and don`t re-evaluate your metrics and standards of whom you should trust or whom you shouldn`t. Everyone is a passer-by and it`s never proven otherwise.

Remember that you are in a position that everyone else wants to be in but they can`t. Think that way. Think that way with a lot of Nutella and the previously mentioned red wine. Whatever you think, just never feel home.

Hell is not hot.

Save all your efforts. It makes me feel more paralyzed seeing you squirm in front of my eyes, trying and failing and repeating. Everything I fake, I fake it for you. I don`t mind doing it, but I mind you believing it. It makes me feel as if I am acting – which I probably am doing, but I don`t feel it till I am believed. Kindly lie down next to me, let`s watch the stars and hear each other breathe. Let`s pretend we are interested in what we tell each other, it`s ok – we can nod too. I`ll lend you one of my speakers and I`ll let you think now you know what I am all about. Let me lie to you and tell you how I`ve never met anybody who makes me feel like you do. I can linger on about how my life was in its particular normal time frame before you came. Please don`t ask me if I ever smile though, I haven`t memorized those lines yet. Forgive me if I pause for a few seconds before I return your emotional revealing, sometimes I just need to – recollect. I am only here because I have nowhere else to go. You can do all you wish, I am the puppet in your realm that shall not object. But whatever you do, kindly only believe me when I reveal that… I am as ugly as I seem.

Cat Blues.

All of us have grown hearing to all stories about victims. Black people are victims of a go-way-back history of racism. Women are victims of violence, harassment, sexual exploitation and a bunch of big-worded titles that I am not interested in recalling. Palestinians are victims of… of basically everything you can think of. The result behind living such a childhood full of such Utilitarian slavery, is that I am simply not moved anymore. It gets really awkward sometimes, when people are all sympathizing around me and everything, and I can’t help control the muscles of my grin. Furthermore, what’s even worse, is that I get really tense when I find people around me still get “surprised” by things. I don’t think anything in this world is neither surprising nor original. All things have been said and done before so recurrently – like those stories of victims – to the extent that even paying attention to any happening scenario sounds just silly – let alone, indulging in any so devotedly.

Apparently, that’s not the case in the other side of the world…

Now call me a racist, but I am sure all of you have noticed how Americans living in Egypt get all hype, excited and enthusiastic about the dumbest things. I don’t get to deal much with any really, but on the short occasions that I do, I let my friends do the talking. However, last night I was sitting with an American on my right and an Eastern-European on my left. None of who was hot, to at least take away from their unjustified excitement about everything. I was asked if I like cats. I told the truth – “No, I don`t really like them, but I happen to be one.” The American twisted in his chair to look at me as the Eastern European asked how that was possible. I declared that I firmly believe I have cat genes and all, that I carry the whole cat-like attitude and manners in addition to physical traits like my eyes switching color according to mood and light. They were all so impressed and I was suddenly surrounded by gasps and no-ways and wows and all. I tell you, it filled me with goose bumps. So I fought back by simply continuing to hold my serious face and controlling my grin’s muscles on a very rare occasion… and I said with question marks all over my cat-like hair… “I am not so sure whether it was my dad or my mom who decided to sleep with a cat though.”

Their wows and no-ways faded into a very awkward situation that their waves of sudden silence could not mop away. That’s it. Nobody laughed. Nobody found humor in what I was saying. So I just kept my serious face and turned the whole thing into a really serious wondering business of who my cat male and/or female ancestor might be. I tell you, it’s a rough rough world out there.