A Take on Humans

I'm sure you've been bruised before, but have you ever noticed that you often press the bruise intentionally and repeatedly and feel the pain? I don't know why we do this exactly. Is it our constant need for a reason to feel sorry for ourselves? Or do we like the pain? Or are we hoping that somehow the pain will exist no more? We're all desperate. One way or another. And we try so hard to hide it. But we seldom despair. We hold on to the last bit of hope there is even when we show the world that we've given up.

I'm also sure a baby has held your finger in its tiny hand. It felt good, didn't it? We love the feeling that someone in this world is holding on to us. Even if it's just a finger of us. It feeds our ego of being needed. We're selfish. Even in helping others at times, we seek that peace of mind and sense of content.


Do you often look back on you as a child? Marvel at how the world was successful in quietening you up, stealing your boldness and perhaps originality. How we start energetically and slowly lose heart. From crying over a toy we didn't get, to being confused and indecisive.


There are issues, personal ones, we never get over. No matter how old they are. We exhaust them with those around us, after keeping them to ourselves. Maybe we forget about them for awhile. But there's always a trigger that reminds us of them. We ignore and go on with our day. But at the end of the day, when we're all alone, we feel bitter with those disappointments, regrets or whatever they are. And we wish we had someone right there with us whom we could complain to endlessly, even though they've heard the exact same complaints before. But it's hard, because we won't admit that things affect us all the same when we pretend to agree with the notion that claims that time heals.

Dismantled Syllables

Fingers tingling with words crammed and unwritten. But where is that silver hue that connects all the dismantled syllables and kidnaps them from their warm and lazy sleep?

Teach Me

Teach me how to warm up the gaps between my words. How each ending letter wraps itself around the word that resides next to it. Teach me how words smile, frown, and eventually stay put in their place, content with where they are.

Teach me how to bring out the words in my heart. How to write each word there distinctively without being shy of them. How to nurture each comma so it supports the preceding and brings it forth bravely to the eyes that are reading it.

Teach me how to be patient as I write up each syllable without rushing it. How to be content with what I have as long as it doesn't tell a lie. How to put down feelings that cost me tears without fearing. Without fearing anyone stripping me bare and finding out what I'm all about.

Teach me how to guide each phrase of mine home, maybe one day they'll take me there on their own.

Childhood Memories in Iraq

A college friend posted photos from her childhood. I viewed them with envy. I wish I had pictures of my childhood. Maybe I have some but they're in Iraq. And then I started wondering if I had had a fun childhood. I've lived 7 years of my life in Iraq. All the memories I have of that time are very dear to me. Me and Noor running to welcome baba when he came home from work and he'd drop the bags he's carrying and carry us both instead. This had to be somewhere before 1997 which means that I was 5. But I remember it still. I remember our friends coming over and playing in our garden but my sister was annoyed by their voices and kicked them out. I remember that big swing that turned over while 10 of us were on it. I remember my brother locking himself up in his room as he acted out the teenaged rebel. I remember being the girl who always fainted, broke her hair slides when she was angry and was the evil twin.

I remember leaving my friends and going to Jordan when I was 7. I remember writing to my best friend (who stayed in Iraq) letters and sending her pictures. I haven't heard from her in years. When most Iraqis suffered from power cuts, I never did as the house we lived in was supplied by the same supply for nearby factories. I remember how my grandmother, may her soul rest in peace, used complain of her eyesight and still be able to recognise actors on tv. I remember when it was damp after a light pour of rain, we used to go out in the garden and find colourful ladybirds on bright green leaves. I remember sleeping in one place and waking up in another and being convinced that I sleep walked. I remember being excessively but weirdly shy of our neighbour's son who was married to a Huda.

But I never learnt how to ride a bicycle, how to swim, how to dance ballet. I've had best friends who left me or I left them as either moved to a different country. I felt like an outsider. And that stayed with me for a long time. I still remember leaving Iraq in 1999 and how we stopped in the middle of nowhere because we ran out of petrol. How my sister buried her face through it all because she didn't want to leave Iraq. I remember the whole neighbourhood gathering and going to the nearest farm as they were afraid of a rocket shattering their houses. I assume this was in 1998, maybe the only experience of such kind I had, as we lived in a safe area.

Maybe these don't qualify my childhood to be called happy but I wasn't sad when I was a kid, I didn't know any better, and going to exotic places doesn't make it a 'happy' childhood. When my older siblings talk about the wonderful playful childhood they've had as they lived in better times and my father was there with them more than with us. But still the fact that I spent 7 years of it in Iraq brings me immense joy. I love it whether it was boring or not.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Oman Mobile!

ذكريات

يتسلل خفية بابتسامةٍ  شقيةٍ  

ذلك الشعور الذي يملؤني حنية

يذكرني ببعض من أحلامي الوردية  

و ماذا اقترفت من مداعباتٍ فتية

ثم يعيدني إلى زمن الخواطر السرية

عن هذا و ذاك و ما فعلنا سوية

و عن تساؤلات كثيرة حول الهوية

يردد على مسمعي 'ما بالها تلك الصبية؟'

للحظةٍ أكاد أن أخبره 'يا ليتها كانت قوية'

لكنني اكتفي بـــغمزة سحرية

و أتركه ليسافر بعيدا عني في هذه البرية

فقد نلت نصيبي منه و أريد الحرية

صمت ...

الى من وصفتي بانني "قلم نادر.. قليل من يفك حروفه"

صمتٌ توغل جميع نواحي حياتي

و أصبح أبرز سماتي

صمتٌ يلاحق جميع حروفي

يتركني لحظة ثم يقلق ثنايا رفوفي  

يجمع شتات الامي و خوفي

هل لك أن تبعد و تتركني و دمعي؟

لا تخنقني... توقف عن قمعي

Iraq in 2002

She was confused. He stared hard at her after asking her what did her mother do for a living. Even though it was clearly stated in her passport. A housewife. How did an electrical engineer end up with a "housewife" on her passport is quite another story. They weren't even at the Iraqi borders. Her mother was there to submit her son's university application. Baffled, the little girl scaredly said, "I don't know". Thankful that this man didn't think much of her answer, afterall she was only a 10 year old girl, she let out a sigh of relief. However, it was so traumatising to this young girl to be attacked in such a crude manner that she, a now 20 year old girl, was dwelling upon this incident for days. How was it related anyhow what her mother worked as? But no, you mustn't question anything they ask, it all serves a great purpose that you can't grasp with that limited mind of yours. Were they suspicious of her mother's changing her occupation in the passport? I don't know why but until this day, she thought it highly unlikely.


Now back to the little girl standing in line with her mother. She was feeling the urgent need to go to the bathroom. Where could she go? Now that the whole building who was filled with officials had a stinky bathroom; as stinky as the regime was. Such uncivilized men, she thought. Instead they were directed to go to a house nearby. A rather fancy one. The girl couldn't help but to assume the house's owner being a high-ranked officer. Although she only got to see his wife, she was intimitated by her. Supporting her argument, who had such a fancy house during his regime? When most were living under poor conditions except those whom he took under his wings.


Those men practised what little power they held on people beneath them. Maybe it was to let out the rage they held against those who were superior over them and  who also might be venting on them as a way of getting back at those in power above them and so on... Corruption is everywhere and that's no excuse for it.