Finals

I'm scared and when I'm scared I shy away from things. I leave them and block them out. Whenever I have a faint thought about them I panic and become depressed instantly. I don't know but I need to pull myself together. Such times I find the weakness in me most visible. It's so much easier not doing things and slacking. It's easier freaking out. It's easier feeling fed up and sorry for myself. This is it. There's no time to make up if I slack. Every minute I waste cannot be brought back. When will I realize that and act upon it?

Hidden Blessings

Her smile always ready. Always takes the trouble to say hi even if I didn't notice her. Always asks about how exams are and how they went. Her heartfelt prayers are ready with inshallah next year you'll be in Sohar. She's the typical med student who grills lecturers with questions during the lecture, while she does so we relish in a few minutes where we don't have to listen attentively because honestly we don't get her questions most of the time but that's off the point. She's been delayed a year because of her health problems.

Complaining now is as easy as it gets. I rarely talk about anything other than exams and studying. So when she asks me I automatically complain of how hectic things are and such and after she prays allah ywafe8na. I suddenly remember that she hasn't complained once, but always asks how things are for us. I wonder that if I was her, how much would I complain?

Al7amdulelah.

2011 reflections - Failing

They say people always think of bad things first. Somehow when viewing how my 2011 was, one of the first things that I thought of was experiencing failure. Failing. I failed two quizzes and my driving test twice. I managed to get it right the third time, I went by the saying third time lucky.

Today I failed an optional quiz, I don't know what is wrong. Haven't I failed enough already? Asta'3furu allah
I made up for the first quiz I failed in, and the second one I have a chance to make up for it. We'll see how that one goes.

I rebelled and was bitter for days after failing. Studying was of no point I thought. And I let it bring me down instead of motivating me to do better.

I don't want to go on about my family's expectations of me, their discouraging words, failure to understand the situation as it is. I've already said too much.

It's not the most pleasant feeling in the world, they say if you haven't failed then you haven't truly lived. Maybe they mean something deeper than exams. But it's still failing no?

And just so you know that optional quiz, only 2 passed it.

Brushed Aside

I'm reserved. If it's in my hand, I'd keep things inside and bottle everything up.
I feel empty at times, with nothing to offer. No solid opinion or firm voice. Maybe that's why my first instinct is to hide things. I wouldn't tell you how you made me feel. Nor that I cried, nor the fact that your words kept playing in my head. If I had control over myself, I wouldn't show any emotion. I'd just live them out inside and forget. Forget what happened or what you said and how you made me feel and move on.

If I told you how I felt and what I think, I fear exposing myself and have nothing left for myself in the end. I go by like nothing happened. I don't know why I feel this way, why I keep a keen eye on what I share.

Thinking I'd feel less empty if I kept something to myself. Sometimes it's not even that. But I feel like if I shared how I feel it'd mean less than it does. How I felt at the moment, my tears and all of it may seem silly in a way. I wouldn't want to laugh it off if I tell you, just to make light of the situation. Because knowing me, I would do such a thing. That's why I don't say anything, to avoid doing that.

Change

On meeting my school friends whom I haven't seen in more than a year:

Will they recognize me? I wouldn't recognize myself. My inner self tells me to stop this nonsense. It's just a social visit what will they not recognize? They won't penetrate through my soul and see how it's been battered. (Battered? A bit dramatic wouldn't you say?)

But I can't help thinking that they will encounter a different person. Not the impulsive lsanha-metbari-menha girl I used to be back in school. While I had the world's doors all open before me. I don't know why I like to think that I've changed. I'm not a school girl anymore, of course I've changed. I had no responsibilities back then.

They were all the same. I found some of my old care-free self with them. There aren't deep oceans of worries between us. Nor is there any contempt at the world for making us all go in a direction different than the other. We have not that deep relationship where we weep the distance from each other.

Meeting them again brought back the best times I had in a dreary school. The girlish gossip and giggles. Where our biggest disappointment of the day was when one of us asked if any has seen a particular teacher and one confirms seeing her in the morning. And our biggest joy was when a teacher missed out a lesson. Life had a pattern then, we went to school, came back home, slept and woke up again. We knew what to expect.

I might not see them again in a year or more. Maybe an occasional shlonech text but that's it. Seeing them in person makes it all up. It's like we're school girls again making fun of each other and laughing over silly memories.

My flaws

My flaws
like pins grazed in my skin
I look around
see someone stronger
and feel a pin go deeper
Some have sunk further
and are scratching my bones
Some are staring at me in the face
While others are hidden
which only sting when pressed

Good night

Silence
It's all so still
Sinking lower in my bed
I hear some voices
No longer as cold as it was
Still no complaints of the open lights
Nor of the noises I make while typing
My eyes are complaining though
Of this screen
So I'll leave it in peace for now
And say good night

لحظة ضعف

خرجت جرياً. قابلني كرسي خالي عندما فتحت الباب. رميت بنفسي المهزومة عليه و أطرقت رأسي و لم أشعر إلا و دموعي تفاجأني بسقوطها المتتالي. عادةً انتظر لأطلقها فيما بعد و لكن في تلك اللحظة لم أستطع أن أحبسها. خرجَتْ من تلقاء نفسها دون أي استئذان مني و عندما هرع من حولي باتجاهي و بدأوا بمواساتي نهضت من مكاني و مسحت دموعي و جهزت نفسي لأخرج من ذلك المكان بأكمله. لم يكن من المفروض أن يحدث ما حدث و لكني لم أندم على لحظة ضعفي تلك فلم يكن بوسعي منعها من الحدوث بأية وسيلة كانت.

Nonsensical ramblings

An open empty black bag on the floor. Will leaving this place make me feel better in any way?

Lights are peaking in through the holes. I lean in to see them shyly adding colour from far away to the bleak street.

Wind is fighting with the curtain and pushing it as far as possible from the window. Could it be jealous of the curtain being this close to the window? When wind is a part of the window, more than half of it actually.

Just come

Counting the minutes for you to come. Ticking some away by the flow of ink from this pen. Won't you come already? This ink will survive for a long time but that is not such a pleasant thought at the moment.

The world is spinning around me. Still. Until when? I don't know. If I could sleep it all away I would but I cannot. Falling asleep alone requires an effort. Tossing and turning in bed is more tiring.

Just come and take it all away.

Bread

Fresh hot bread. It's too tempting to resist breaking a piece from it and tasting it. Here are some incomplete childish memories about bread.

I have a very vague memory of me and my mother buying bread from the bakery in a gloomy day and heading to the bus station near it to go home. In jordan I remember walking to the bakery with my sister, proud to be running an errand for the family when we were only 9 years old.

Once I went to get some for breakfast. Standing in line waiting and suddenly yellow scenery is all around me. An early memory of my morning dizziness. What happened next? That's all I remember.

There's one set back with bread though. The horrible sound of two loaves scratching together. I'd cringe when I hear it. Two set backs not one in fact. The second is touching it when it's covered with flour. I am weird perhaps. But those things are what I remember from my childhood. With bread. My mother would shake off the flour on the bread before giving it to me because she knew how much I couldn't stand.

Today they were talking about bread. El9amoon el3era8i to be specific. How it's been so long since they've tasted it. That brought back all the memories, perhaps insignificant to you but I am attached to any memory I have as a kid specially when I was in Iraq. And to my quirks as a kid.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow
How about you delay yourself?
I have no energy to go through all the motions of you
None
Just the thought of you has drained me completely
Thank you
Leave me alone for one day
Is it such an impossible request?

زاويتي

مساحات الغابة الواسعة؟ أين هي؟ أنظر من نافذتي المكبوتة بذلك الجدار و لا أرى سوى شارع تعبر السيارات خلاله باستمرار. و أين ذلك البحر الأزرق؟ هو ككل شيء اخر، لن أراه إلا إذا ذهبت إليه، فهو لن يأتي إلي و عبثاً أن انتظره فلن يطل عليّ حتى من خلال نافذتي هذه.
آه من نافذتي البعيدة و الضيقة. لقد أصبح القمر أبعد مما كان، لا ألاحظه عندما ألمحه و لا أسلم عليه إن أطلت النظر فيه. نعم أنا هكذا، ألوم ما استطعت لأبقى في سبات من الراحة الدائمة.
هناك في تلك الزاوية المظلمة، أريد أن أجلس و لو للحظة و أغمض عيني المتعبتين و أرجع خلفي إلى الوراء و أريح ظهري و أنسى هذا و ذاك و كل ما حصل. أين هي تلك الزاوية؟ هل هي خلف ذلك الباب البني المفتوح أم في ذلك الممر الذي يبعد خطوات من هنا؟
دعني أذهب إلى زاويتي المفضلة و أركن عندها فلا حاجة لدي لتلك الزاوية المظلمة التي تخيلت بأني في حاجة إليها

خذني

ألّوح بيدي الممدودة إليك
علّ و عسى تراها و تأتي إلي
و إن تَعِبتُ من التلويح
فأعرفُ بأنك ستشعر بحاجتي
إليك و إلى لمستك
خذني من نفسي و أطلق عنان همومي
خذهم أينما تريد بعيداً عني
و ارجع لي سكينتي

Similar

I'm rather like him in a way, or that's what I've been noticing lately. I never actually took time to actually try and figure out his personality. I know he's loving caring and generous. But his sensitive, easily offended, bottling-it-all-up self, that I have come to see up close recently, I haven't noticed before. He was there the whole time, why haven't I noticed before? That is quite irrelevant.
But his frustrations have their way out, perhaps that's why I haven't noticed before? He lets it all out to her and shows only to her how deeply things affect him.
They say poets especially feel things deeply, does that add up to his sense of everything around him?
What I know of him growing up is that he has a temper. Maybe moments of anger blind him like they do me, there lies again where we are similar.
I wish I had it in me to finish this post, but my flow of words has still not improved.

Iraq

Perhaps he'll strip away some of my father's deep sense of exile. Maybe he'll see iraq in him.
But that is not my iraq. My iraq. It's the air engulfing me and filling up my lungs and then reaching every cell of my body. It's the ground my feet stand on, be it rough or smooth. It's my ears being filled with iraqi words wherever I go.
Call me romantic if you will. Or tell me that I have a wrong notion of iraq or that I know nothing of how it really is there. I don't care.

حنيني

بما أن يدي أخذت على البدء من اليمين مع قلمي هذا فسأكتب هكذا هنا أيضا.
سيقتلني الحنين. نعم أعلم أني أدخل بالمواضيع بدون أي مقدمات و لدي المقدرة على اللف و الدوران و الدخول في طرق متفرعة تبعدني عن مغزى ما نويت أن أكتب عنهالعفو فأفكاري مشوشة من هذا الحنين الذي لا بداية و لا نهاية له. .

الحنين! حنيني لمن؟ و لم سيقتلني؟ دعني أوضح لك أولاً ثم سأجاوبك عن تساؤلاتك هذه.

أستطيع أن أقنع نفسي بأمور عديدة حتى أستطيع المضي في حياتي المريحة لذا لا أكدر صفو معيشتي بالتفكير العميق بما يزعجني فأتناساه و أنساه في النهاية.

لم أنسى سؤالك لا تخف. حنيني إلى أضلع و أذرع ذلك النور الذي يضيء حياتي. إلى ذلك الصدر الحنون الذي ينبع الدفء منه. سيقتلني الحنين لأن هناك ساعات و أميال و بحور و شطئان و غابات و وديان تبعدني عنه.

لكنني أصحو كل صباح و أنام الليل و أغمض عيني و أفتحها عليه. أما الآن في هذه اللحظة حنيني قد ترامى على مساحات شاسعة وصلت إلى أبعد الحدود.

سأكون هناك يوماً. فاهدأ يا حنيني. سنكون انا و أنت هناك، أعدك بذلك.

Fragments

I think I've let some of myself go along the way. I'd stare away the time and block every possible upsetting thought. Thinking I was capable of withstanding disappointments and the evaporation of any possible hopes. Dreams? I don't think I've had any solid ones. Perhaps fragments that broke to smaller pieces before they even formed a complete dream. If there's any trace of blame or bitterness it should be directed at me. I'm content standing here in the silence keeping to myself, smiling politely when needed and nodding.
Maybe these are just dismantled thoughts from the past seeping in on me.