I'm not a mailable item

I'm not an item

I'm not made for folding

 several times to fit 

I won't fit in an envelope

Unfold me

I'm not a regular shape

You can't wrap a paper around me to perfectly cover my edges

I'm not a square

I'm not a triangle

I'm not an item

I'm not to be stained with ink and hand smudges 

the marks of regret you smear on something

Even if I were mailable

Don't send me off

away

Don't seal my breath

because

I can't breathe

And if you were to attach me to a pretty gift

and shove me in a box

then post me off 

to a decent address

where I'll stay

and breathe

and 

unfold

Hallelujah

Hallelujah's my favourite song, and you remind me of the ugly jagged lines I ran after Sylvia's words: "I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it." I really wish I’d straightened those lines. And both you and I while I was at it.

Harry and Hermione don’t belong together. I just say they do because of you. You are the flaring, begrudging flame that makes me heave when I see Ron look at her the way he does.

Honey, I feel dreadfully inadequate.

There’s nothing on this hell of a world I hate more than the premature sore in the throat. It makes my chest burn like I just lit both my lungs on fire using three packs of cigarettes. The pain’s not there altogether yet, but you know that you’ll wake up tomorrow hearing your own cries trapped inside; your ears aren’t clear, your nose’s running, and he hasn’t vacated your mind yet.

The antibiotics don’t make it any easier. It’s not my first time.

Baby, I’ve been here before.

I should just smoke on those cigarettes, it won’t really make a difference.

I wonder how your current victory march’s withstanding.

I really hope it isn't.

Because, honey, I’m one cold, broken Hallelujah right now.

     






      Yes, I know we're constantly growing, and that even if we're seventy with saggy boobs and wrinkly butts we will continuously grow up until we're gone. But right now, this sort of growing up I'm going through is kind of different, it's the only kind I'm living really, but it's pretty fun. You know, when you no longer need your parents to drive you everywhere, and when you have a fully dominating grip-ok maybe not that dominating- over your life choices, it kind of sugarcoats the whole process.         

       Unfortunately though, I got to realise that the fun part of it doesn't exempt you from one atrocious revelation, though it may last and agitate your whole being in what is barely even a split second. You just cannot fucking pinpoint when and where everything went, not wrong, but not the way it always used to go. 

       On which day exactly along this long, yet very short, forgotten year did all of this come into being? And you vividly remember how, just a year ago, on this exact same day, you sat there, surrounded by people and faces and conversations that immensely differ from all that is happening right now. 

    And not in your faintest ideas would you have imagined that you'd make it where you are right now. 

     I'm not stating that the time it took to get where I am was long or effortful. I did not feel a single thing, everything just happened on its own. And it's not that I'm not happy with how they did take place and how things have, well, changed (dammit, I tried so hard not to use it). I'm very happy, and a bit surprised. 

It's just that this single, horrifyingly tedious moment that reigns over you is so fucking overwhelming. It's awful. 

"Oh my God. How did I get here...When did I get here?"

And then it just...well, it just goes away.

You can't just break a person down into subcomponents and run around scrutinizing the way they snort when they laugh, or trip on their own steps, or loudly chew on chips. 

You don't need a pertinent explanation to why they chose the red-framed glasses when the black ones were plainly better-looking. 

Your faith in a person should not be shaken just because they insist that their wife isn't dead. Just give it a second, maybe they did have brunch earlier today, even though that man's wife's six feet under. 

You don't have the right to claim that a person is descending into madness. 

They saw what they saw, they did what they did, there's a reason, and they've had it. 

Why do you curve the vertex of your V?

Tighten your grip.

Why are you reading a book about homosexuals? 

He's gay.

Straighten up your posture. 

Who are you? What are you? Why did you do it?

Fuck you. 

Because I wanted to.

It doesn't take that long for me to climb three steps, two actually because I always triumphantly skip one, before my foot slips on a concrete surface of air and I realise I'm dead asleep and far away in a dream I won't really care to remember when I'm up later, which won't be that far either. 

It takes me exactly five seconds to end a phone call.

And the sandwich toaster's set to have my panini ready after about sixty seconds of inexistent waiting. 

But I really don't know how long I spend on pulling myself back together. Never kept track.

 I do, however, know that I try too hard to put, whatever it is that needs to be put on hold, on hold. 

I know that I would waste my days in bed because that's where I feel safest, and leave the parts where I  read to nights because I get scared. 

And if I don't, I think. Which is scarier. 

Days are pretty slow and nights are pretty long  when someone who should be there, isn't. 

And they're even slower and longer when it hits you that they'll never be. 

If a book holds a hundred pages waiting for you to read, they will be read and get done with. In a matter of two weeks.

But something you once told me was scribbled on a piece of paper during some long boring class, it's somewhere in my room now, and I will read it again, and again, and again. And always.

I'm reading it right now.

And one far day, I'll pass it on for someone else to write down on their own piece of paper. 

A flight to Spain takes four hours to get there. 

Which is enough for me to reconsider a few major life-changing decisions: promising myself I'll be a better person, doing something wild with my hair, whatever. Things I won't do because those four hours of a flight won't last enough for me to keep this striking firmness of purpose forever. 

And speaking of forever, if any of us has that long of it anyway, it takes a person forever minus the last day, to figure things out and wish they'd done them differently. 

Because if we could just grasp the fact that at a certain point things just stop being things, in our lives at least, we would all have figured things out a whole lot earlier than we usually do. 

But we don't. 

And I wish I'd known that.

I would've done everything some other way.

And spared a few lingering forevers. 

ماهو لو كان عليَ

مكانش اللي راح جه من أصله 

ولا كان زمان في ليل

بضلمته

لو كان عليَ

كان الزمن هيعرف حده

بدل ما في أيام بتطول

وتعجز

واحنا لسه

كنت هانسى

واناسيك

وأقرا 

تاني

أول مرة

ومبقاش هنا

I was always on the verge of blowing up into shattered pieces of glass, or anything else that sorely bruises. But I never really exploded, or even came nearly close to having a slight crack that'll grow and grow and grow until I finally got broken. Never. I just kept it in and provided a safe shelter for all the anger and frustration and other bad things that wake us up in the morning from our sanctuary. It started growing life, I could feel a big blob moving inside me. Black. A big black vibrating blob. Right in the middle of my chest. I'd see myself cut through my skin with a scalpel just to get it out of me.

I was so angry and I couldn't do anything about it. 

So I painted, and I wrote, and I forgot.

Little by little. 

I drew sketches of lost bodies and empty faces. Because I was lost and I was empty and those bodies felt the same. And I painted them in black and blue and gray and white. I wrote about how much it hurts. I looked for words and words I found. They spoke for me and for how aching it is to feel so angry and helpless. I wrote it all and they spoke it all. I kept painting and I kept writing until I couldn't feel it anymore. It was still there, I mean, it's always there, isn't it? But I couldn't feel it. I forgot until I read the words I wrote and saw the paintings I stained. And they once again reminded me that I'm still so fucking angry.

:قريت في كتاب رغبة في النسيان لمريم عبد الجابر الكلام ده

"أن تصحو على مكالمة تليفونية في الرابعة فجراً وتعرف أن أقرب صديق لك مات فجأة، وتدفنه، وتراه جسداً ملفوفاً في قطعة من القماش الأبيض في قبر تحت الأرض، وتعود إلى بيته وتغلق على نفسك غرفته، وتحتضن كل شئ لمسه يوماً وتبكي، وأنت تردد بصوت غير مسموع وحرقة آلاف المرات هيستيرياً سؤالاً خبرياً واحداً: "ليه يا رب؟" هذا موقف قد يجعل منك يوماً كاتباً جيداً." 

هذا موقف قد يجعل منك إنساناً آخر، إنساناً في قمة الضعف واليأس والقوة. 

من عشرة أيام أو أكتر كنت قاعدة في بيت صاحبتي، الناس داخلة خارجة بالأسود بتطبطب على كتفها وتقولّها معلش، وأنا قاعدة بتفرج عليها بتعيط ومش عارفة أعمل حاجة عشان عارفة إنها مش عايزة تسمع كلمة، مش عايزة أطبطب عليها ولا أحضنها عشان كنت مكسوفة إن أنا مش هاقدر أعملّها أكتر من كدة، وهي تعيط، وأنا مابعملش حاجة.

شمس من أقرب الأصحاب ليَ، ومن عشرة أيام أنا كنت واقفة قدامها ومش عارفة هي مين. أنا شايفة شمس بشعرها الكتير "المتناثر" في كل الاتجهات، وكحلها الأسود اللي من كتر ماهو اتحط في عينيها بقيت باشُك إنه لزق ومابيتشلش، مش عارفة أكلمها، ماعنديش حاجة أقولها، انتي مين وهاقولك إيه؟ 

بعدها بأسبوع، ومن حوالِ خمسة أيام، شمس كانت قاعدة معايا بتحكيلي عن اللي شافته؛ 

الصريخ اللي سمعته

العياط

التغسيل

القبر

وجدتها

حاكتلي إن هي الوحيدة من أخوتها اللي دخلت تشوف جدتها، اللي كانت قاعدة بتضحك معاهم الليلة اللي قبلها،

 بتتغَسِل، 

و

"في قطعة من القماش الأبيض في قبر تحت الأرض".

قلتلها ماكنتش المفروض تشوف كل ده عشان ماتتعبش. (أنا مش عارفة أقولّها إيه) 

"يا سارة أنا ماكنش عندي وقت أفكر أعمل إيه وماعملش إيه، إنتي لما تبقي عارفة إن دي آخر لحظات هاتشوفي فيها حد لآخر مرة في حياتك، هاتعملي أي حاجة عشان تفضلي معاه." 

روحت وفتحت كتاب رغبة في النسيان وقلِبت فيه عشان أقرا الكلام اللي فوق ده. 

أيوة الموقف ده ماعملش من شمس كاتبة، شمس مابتعرفش تكتب، هي بترسم،

بس وهي بتعيط

 والكحل سايح

وهي بتحكيلي

أكنها بتحكي لنفسها لأول مرة

أنا شفت منها بني آدمة تانية

عمري ماشفتها قبل كدة

شمس

في قمة ضعفها.

وفي قمة قوتها.

الله يرحمِك يا سونا.

Most of the time it feels like I'm not even there. I still hear you though. I hear faint sounds of your very loud and excessive and very uninteresting ranting.

Distant I hate hers.

Someone's too good for another's liking.

School.

Period cramps and whining.

School.

Her hair.

His body.

Everyone's boyfriend and every other one's ex.

School.

God, I hate it. 

And the background chatter.

And I'm not even there. I'm detached from wherever and whenever it is.

I'm inside my inside.

I don't know where I am or what I'm talking about or what I'm supposed to say. Somebody's cupping my ears, and I'm breathing, and the rest of me, every piece is functioning on its own accord.

I wish it was always like this. Me not being there; anywhere at all. Completely uninvolved and away from what I want to be uninvolved and away from.

Because,

in these minutes of detachment from the real world, in these very few very precious minutes where I'm alone, I can think. In these minutes of incredibly calming confidentiality, every other goddamn thing, the whole goddamn world

just

stops.