Tuesday, November 20, 2012

the ultimate epiphany

Lose faith in everything, even yourself.
Then start all over again.




Sunday, November 11, 2012

بكره هبقى كويس


يعنى ايه حزن؟ و ايه الفرق ما بينه و ما بين القرف؟ و التبلد و الإحباط و اليأس؟ ليه لازم ابقى حزين لو محبط؟ ليه لازم ابقى سلبى لو محبط؟ ليه مش ممكن اكون بس.. محبط؟ وليه لازم اكون إنهزامى لو محبط ؟ ليه مش ممكن بس اكون.. محبط؟ ليه لازم اتوصف بالمطلق و عالعموم. ليه مش ممكن المرة دى يكون الشعور على قد اللحظة، على قد دلوقتى. و مش دايماً و مش عامةً و مش علاطول. .و مش لازم تقلب بوزك اوى كده و انت بتعايرنى انى محبط، او تشفق عليا انى مضايق او كفران. انا بكره هبقى كويس

Thursday, September 6, 2012

little bubbles of peace


Steaming coffee, beautiful Fairouz’s voice soothing into my soul, my new laptop and doing my new dream job, which I actually love and have wanted for so long.

Realization: I’m grateful.

I’m so grateful it brought tears to my eyes. I’m grateful for this moment. A moment which I paused, to revel in. I stop and think, wait, I should enjoy this. I should be grateful for this. And I am. And I think, isn’t this what happiness is almost like? Perfect little details and satisfactions that make you feel alive and thankful to be right here, right now. Then I wonder if it’s a little sad that I have to probe myself to recognize happiness. I wonder if this makes me sad, then realize that no, it doesn’t.  That there is a difference between melancholy and sadness, and that it shouldn’t be sad sad sad all the time, and that a little melancholy is ok, is fine. It doesn’t make you depressing.

Have I been mislabeling myself all this time as sad? Instead of maybe nostalgic, apprehensive or, as in this case, melancholic?. Has a limited emotional vocabulary instilled a depressing image of myself into well, myself? Could I really not be as sad as I sometimes think I am?

All these thoughts and one thing for sure, I’m grateful for right now. I’m grateful for feeling like I belong in a place somehow, a place in my head. Or feeling fulfilled in a way, even it’s just a job.

It feels good. There’s so much magic Fairouz can do to you.


Thursday, August 30, 2012

the elephant in the room


Very few things feel like pain.

Its not even pain. It's that agitation coursing just below your skin. Making you feel like you need to scratch your skin off. Peel. it .off. now! It runs under your skin. Vibrating, glowing orange red. Making you miserable. Making your heart heavy. So heavy you can’t breath. So heavy you automatically don’t think about it. Flick on to something else. An incepted need for a cigarette. Or a hunger that doesn’t exist but that needs to be satisfied.right.now!

You will probably not look back to the chain of events/feelings that landed you here. Will probably forget more than choose not to. You probably blocked it out. Your mind/subconscious/etc blocked it out. Is that a self-defense mechanism you picked up during a lonely, ignored childhood? Oh sweetie!

You have all the best intentions to “fix yourself”. Heal. Find whatever the fuck it is that is keeping you miserable and standing like a concrete wall between you and feeling things. You probably make all these plans to start over. But its useless. There isn’t a place to start. To or a place to go. No map. You become like a little twirling girl in a tutu, desperately going round in circles round yourself. And calling it art. Enjoy.

Pain. Sometimes it’s not physical. Not just a heavy heart. Sometimes, it’s a hole in your soul. Sometimes it's the absence that hurts. Sometimes, you miss being something else you can’t be. Or feeling things you no longer can.

You might feel singled out. For misery. For eternal damnation. For a lifetime of cosmic bad luck. Fine. If it makes you feel better. If it helps you sleep or whatever. Just at that point, when the thought comes creeping into your bed and whispers in your ear that, perhaps, you are the one doing the singling out.

And that’s when you know; there is nowhere to go from here.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

tidbits


You test my patience over and over and over. Today, I have no more room for you.

You take my kindness for submissiveness and my tolerance for helplessness. I will now take your arrogance for stupidity.

I have days when I wake up and feel like not moving a muscle. Just wrap my comforter around me and do nothing but breathe.

Most of these days I make myself get up, shower and go to work. But I don't leave my comforter behind. Nor do I do anything more than breathe.

It is such a liberating moment when you finally make up your mind about someone/something that's happened in the past/ certain life events. You finally figure out the label to put on that memory when it flashes up in your head, and know how to react then. 

Most times, you'll change your mind again every 2 months anyway.

Sometimes, the only plausible thing to say to you would be to go fuck yourself you asshole.

But I worry that you will only pay attention to my audacity and not to how much of an asshole you really are.

There are things that are pretty, and there are things that are pretty because you want them to be. 

The same could apply to who you really think you are.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

flatlining


And watch your dream's slow dissection
As you push yourself from grace
Do not weep
Your alligator tears will go to waste
Beneath the crumbling ground they fall upon
Emerge from hope and life and light
To face the darkness that is your truth
And reunite with your shadow once more.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

no more

I am not going to smile at you,
I am not going to force myself to be kind to you,
I am not going to force myself to be nice to you,
I am not going to consider your feelings,
I am not going to follow through with any obligation,
I am not running any errands,
I am not going to not smoke because you asked me to,
I am not going to work,
I am not going to fake aliveness just so I wouldn’t repel you.

I’m going to pray,
God knows I need someone who knows what they're doing.






The happy post can fuck it.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

because you dont understand..

I was angry and hurt and I wanted to get away, from you. So I did. I needed a space without you, without the toxic effect you’ve been having on me lately and so I created the space. I went about my life, saw all the usual and not so usual friends, went to all my usual and favorite places, and did whatever I wanted when I wanted to. I redefined every part not in terms of you, but me. I took away every possibility, every chance from you to disappoint me and ended up vanishing you. I did a lot of non-bitter thinking about you, us. I had so much perspective I’m afraid it made me into the third person, remote and detached.

And I realized. I realized I can breathe without you. I realized I can live without the comfort blanket I sometimes borrow from you. I realized you are not irreplaceable; you are as irreplaceable as I make you out to be. And I realized that romanticized version of you in my head, is probably of my own making. Unreal.

I realized all these realizations and it gave me strength, it gave me confidence to make the right choices for me. It made me less susceptible to disappointment because now I have the right picture in my head. For a while, I was very Gloria Gaynor.

And then it came crashing down on my head. For not all my reason and new found wisdom could stop those... those pangs. I miss you. No matter how much unscrewing you do and all the crap I have to put up with, I miss you so much. I miss you, the you I knew and love. The you who could make my day, my week. The you who loved me back in terms I could understand, could appreciate. The you I picked and decided that fuck it I’m going to love this you and I’m not going to hold back and I’m going to make it fabulous. Make us fabulous.

I failed.

You're my home. And I'm afraid in losing you, I would lose yet another home. So I feel like screaming my head off and stamping my feet and wailing so loudly that I want it back, I want you back goddamit! Because I know, what is lost cannot be brought back no matter how many talks we have, how many promises we make or how long you pretend you’re still into this, into me.

I waited for you to prove me wrong, but I’m tired of waiting and I sometimes secretly wish you just never happened at all.

p.s, I promised myself a happy post soon!

Friday, March 9, 2012

the truths that pepper your silence

And I fail to understand. How can you love someone when they are nowhere near perfect, but not when they are?

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

the powers of the powerless

Recovering addicts are asked to make a list of the people they've hurt/destroyed throughout the period of their addiction. Then they're asked to make a list of all the negative, unhealthy personalities in their lives. The first list, they're asked to make amends with, apologize for their mistakes. The second list, they're asked to eliminate these individuals from their lives. The purpose is to start a new phase of the addict's life free of damaging influences that may cause a relapse in the recovery. I think it is also to help forget and overcome the associations of some people with certain destructive behaviors and acts, break patterns.

I would, for all intents and purposes, consider myself an addict.

If you consider the wider scope of addiction, not that just confined to substance/alcohol/sex/food abuse, you will find me right there in the middle of it. Waving miserably.

Back to the lists. So I sometimes get this thought that maybe I should clean myself up, clean my life up and start afresh new page.. bla bla bla. And this leads me to the lists. I start thinking about the people in my life, who would I like to apologize to and start with a clean conscience and who I should cut away.

The Apology List is not long. I don't know if this attests to my integrity, or to my self-denial but whatever. It has my father in it, and my grandparents. And it has him. Although when I think about how I can do that, the pictures I get prompt a wave of panic. 

The Elimination List is a mile long. I have, proudly, succeeded in assembling an excellent mix of all-the-wrong-people-to-have-in-your-life. Excellent I say.

Some of them are friends. Those who really offer nothing to me in return and just suck the life out of me. Those who make me feel like I need to pretend I'm someone else, someone worse, when I'm with them. 

And you. At the top of the list, there's you.


And so the lists are kinda pointless and snobbish. And honest. I like to revisit the lists. Keep them in my head for periodic updates. Maybe I like them for the sense of power they give me over my helplessness, the illusion of control over my life. But then I never do anything about them which makes me feel more helpless, and it's the same cycle all over again.

Didn't I say I was an addict.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

morris code

I understand how much you admire yourself,
I understand the way you surround yourself with people who will only tell you what a work of art you are
and applaud your every move.
I understand you don't feel the need to be a better person to those who treat you best.
I understand.
However,
I'm finding your selfishness extremely disagreeable.

I'm beginning to really not like you anymore.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Error

And then there were boxes and boxes
then none
the lids so tight, outside light shunned
colors, pink and black
and slashes of loss.
Prearranged chaos,
endless parallels
and a double invisible door.
Confusion?
a starless night and a heavy heart
and answers that refuse to come.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Le world


My world, with you in it, is upside down. Nothing is where it should be, and everything is where it shouldn't be. It feels wrong. Forced and unnatural. Like breathing through your ears, so you don't breathe.
And yet, without you in it, it's dark. Menacing and odd, devoid of comfort. And love. Dark and menacing and odd and devoid of comfort and love and yet, mine.
Mine. Not ours. Mine.
You push me to rebel. Against you. Against myself. Against everything that holds us together.
Or maybe I'm just pushing myself.
My world, with you in it, has a me that I do not know.
I do not like.
My world, without you in it, is big, spacious. And forgiving. Challenging, inspiring. Egging me to get up, pick myself up, get out there and do it.
My world, with you in it, assures me its quiet ok to stay down. Whats out there anyway. We have us. What more could we want?
I have all the answers I need. Right here waiting for me to pick them up.
I have none of the courage I need
And nothing more to give.