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.