Frustration

 

Frustration! This is all what I feel, profound frustration, I just wish we did not meet, life was much simpler, much straightforward and much familiar. Now, I hate you and hate myself million times more, and it is needless to say that I resent every moment of love, happiness and hope I had with you or dreamt to have with you. I hate Cairo, that grey dusty depressing city that we both call home, with other 22 million desperate souls. Our God Osiris was cut into 14 pieces, and each was wickedly thrown in one of Egypt’s regions, his beloved wife Isis, roamed our land and gathered the torn pieces, used her magic, I mean her love, recreated her beloved Osiris for one night, they made love and created Horus. You cut me into several shreds, threw mw all over Cairo, to make sure that Im in pain, severe pain wherever I walk, or drive. You did not need magic, and of course you did not need love, to turn my life into an eternal abyss of misery, anger and regret. Every street and every neighbourhood in our dilapidating city carry a memory or a memory to be. We said we will visit these places, when the weather gets better, we will go to these monuments, what else can be done in Cairo, right? We mentioned felucca rides, in Maadi and also near down town, Ah downtown walks at night, that Pizza place, that tiny famous one, may be visiting the Museum before it loses all its belle epoque charm. Every where in Cairo has a piece of me, my love, my hopes to visit together, and my anger that we are not together. I should leave Cairo and its people in their destined defeat, and live my own tragedy. I need Isis to gather my torn pieces, all the pieces except my heart, I don’t need any more pain. I need Isis to blow her sacred breath, recreate me, a stronger man, a man who does not believe in love. Isis, I need your magic, and let your love be my last encounter with love. I need your love to bring me back to my old life, my familiar life, where I did not lose myself into a one-sided love, where I did not love someone who enjoys her life while I am dying every single day. Isis, the goddess of mourning, I beg you mourn my life and mourn my love till you feel that all this pain, all this sadness and all this anger deserve a new life.

I am frustrated, I need the magic of all the gods and goddesses together, I need to return back a year ago, before meeting you, before surrendering to love, and before losing myself. If this is my test, quest, or challenge, I admit that I failed in a legendary way. Isis, my goddess of mourning, wisdom and magic, why don’t you help me? No mercy for this lame man fooled by love. Why don’t you send Set to burn this sad city with all its humiliated inhabitants, why doesn’t the God of war, chaos and storms revenge for me, for my naivety, my love and loss. Hate, has such a strange taste, strong, irritating and disgusting. Im whirling within a tornado of hate, anger and a sheer need of revenge. I need my life back; I need it badly. You gave me memories, invaluable feelings, overwhelming emotions and then what? Left me with all this agony, awakened me and threw me to a horde of zombies. Why am I blaming you? It is me to blame, it is me to hate. No my love, no, today allow me to hate you, to hate you as much as I love you, to hate you as much as my heart can bear.

 

Good Morning

 

I sent the daily “good morning” message, I hesitated a bit while picking an emoji, a smiley face, or that one with the hearts, the face with the red kiss, or just the childish sun with its silly rays. I waited for your reply, you wake up early, I checked my mobile, after brushing my teeth, I checked my mobile after praying, I checked my mobile after taking my shower, I checked my mobile after preparing my coffee, I checked my mobile before picking my bag and leaving and I kept checking my mobile along the way. You can’t be that stingy with eleven letters, you could have sent an emoji, anything, you were online 10 minutes ago, why didn’t you check my messages? A few hours ago, we were together, in one of my vivid dreams, talking and talking and now you don’t even care to send one word.

I remember one day, in our beautiful beginning, we came up with a crazy idea, cant remember if it was me or you who suggested it, I was usually the crazy one among the two of us, but on that day we decided to pick a random day, a very random day, and if we are still together on that specific date, both of us will make tattoos. “But I hate tattoos…I can’t stand them” I screamed in a funny theatrical way, “no tattoos for me” I repeated while looking at my skinny arms and waiting for your laughs. You said in a decisive tone, “If we are still together, we will have tiny tattoos, may be the first letters of our names…” She smiled and added, “maybe you write my name and I write yours”.  We kept laughing for hours, about the shapes, sizes and fonts of these future tattoos, and we discussed where to place them and who will see them, and then all the laughs stopped suddenly, disappeared, collected their echoes and left. Yes, at that specific moment we realized that there are others, others who will need justifications for these names attached to our bodies, these names which are not ours, but we insisted on taking them with us to the grave, these names became parts of us, of our beings.

Still waiting for that reply, while trying to respond to all the messages of the “others”, those who clung to my life at different stages, those who became part of my life, shaped it, and owned it. They have rights in my days, and in my future, in fact they perceive them as their days and their future, these “others” wake and sleep reassured that I am there for them, and that they know all my feelings, dreams and hopes. These “others” did not know that I was struck by love, unintentionally, struck by love and I could not resist. These “others” fill my days with their needs, problems and noise, I am sure your “others” do the same. I will check my mobile, may be you send a reply.  

Christmas in Europe

 “Christmas in Europe…. You said before adding, “a crazy idea”. I love crazy ideas, what’s life without some crazy ideas every now and then.  Let’s go to Europe, let’s enjoy Christmas there, the cheerful decorations, the cold fresh breezes, the happy smiles and the picturesque old towns. We will walk for hours along the narrow cobbled streets, may be it will rain a bit to complete the magical romantic scene. We will take photos infront of every ornate cathedral, stop by window shops, pick a small mirror or a ceramic statue of an angel, or a small antique colored glass vase. Even in our dream, we know that when we return to Cairo we won’t have a place to house our tiny souvenirs, but this did not stop us from picking one. This is the beauty of dreams, they are beautiful, spontaneous and fulfilling. We will kiss under every tree, we will be lost in these kisses just as they do in the romantic movies. Long lustful kisses that will redefine the boundaries of love and love making as they call it.  We stare at the view while spending most of the day lazy in bed. No rush in dreams, no running from one monument to the other as I usually do, no exchange rates, no limitations on credit cards, no boundaries, no restrictions, no taboos. Only love and it’s freedom, our cultural baggage won’t burden us in this trip, all the people who fill our lives while disappear for these few days, they won’t leave any trace or a memory. The whole world will be you and me, and the old towns of Europe will be celebrating our love, this Christmas will be an excuse to celebrate love, to celebrate freedom, to celebrate dreams. Cups and cups of hot chocolate, loads of croissants and gateaux of every flavor, we both have sweet tooth my love.  We will sing together walking along the river, there will be a river in our dream, there has always been a river, we will sing cheerfully, our voices will sound funny, lots of inaccurate melodies, but we will be happy. We will be in the ( here and now) as all my therapists used to advise me. We will forget Egypt, our people, our lives there, we will forget the past and the future, we will choose love and only love to be our guide, companion and path. Years and years after this “Christmas I’m Europe” trip, we will keep remembering it, when we followed our dreams and lived as we had to, when we realized that nothing in life, nothing at all is more important than love, and when we decided to give love a chance, even for a few days in a magical setting. 

I don’t like what I am becoming!

Ages ago I read a sentence in a novel, I never forgot it and now I am surprised how applicable it is, “I learned how to love you and hate myself”. I can feel the metamorphosis, I am turning into a wreck, a huge ugly wreck surrounded by a tsunami of profound and furious feelings. I am frustrated, all what I need is to forget the whole story, and be able to return back to my life. I have been bungeeing between these two worlds for so long, and its exhausting. I stare at people with half dead eyes, greet them with broken smiles and wait, wait for something that will never happen. Then I remember that I have wasted my best years waiting for something good to happen, inshala it will happen, just be patient, stop being hasty, patience…patience, and frankly nothing happened. Or to be honest, a lot of things happened, may be more than I expected, and all these things created a life that I am forced to live, a life that suffocate me, a life that I have to be grateful for, a life that lacks life.

Will you ever love me? Will you re-love me again? I stuttered but you heard me, your beautiful eyes, your beautiful dark eyes met my tired eyes, not for long, you swayed and I asked, “have you ever loved me?” with a shaky tone, I added, “not even for one day?”. You stood up, said in the coldest manner, “you sound nervous a bit today”. “A bit” I wished to scream as I have been screaming on daily basis, I wished to tell you that I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and that I am just legitimately curious to know what happened. How did I live before my downfall? What did I do…. Questions, questions, questions,… and now I feel that all the words have lost their meanings, they sound mediocre, fake and provocative. How can words describe my feelings or the feelings of any lover, how can an arrangement of letter, ink strokes on paper, shapes put next to each other, scribbles, how can they express the way your love kills me once or twice a day. But will silence describe my feelings?

Yesterday I told you that I love you so much, again, for the millionth time, again, I love you. But what do I really want? Love, what is love? This is my eternal question, my curse and my death. I love you, I told you, I wish you happiness, I told you, I think about you day and night, I told you, I am afraid that you will forget me, I told you. Words lost their meaning, their effect and their echo. How cruel love can be? how long this love should last? what will remain of me afterwards? 

 

Madness

 The whole problem was that you wanted to categorize us, lovers, what is our relation? It is not enough, there are constraints, this won’t work, this will never work, no need to continue, it’s better to rationalize things, no need to meet anymore. Your love disappeared suddenly as a shooting star while I was still enjoying the vagueness of the whole situation. Lingering in a beautiful dream, which you have already left. Now we meet, we sit and talk, we eat, we send messages, but are we really friends? I can’t ask, I don’t want to ask lest I lose what remained of us, these meetings. 

 “The more I meet you, the more I need to meet you more”I wanted to send you this message a few days ago, but I didn’t.  I was afraid that you will keep silent, and I started to hate your silence, it’s humiliating. Why do we meet ? I mean why do you offer me such bittersweet encounters? You are not sadistic, I presume, so why…. Do you still love me? Do you still, with all your rationality, have mixed feelings? Am I too frightened to ask, to confront, to claim my rights, my rights in love, in happiness and in belonging to you. I’m weaving a beautiful love story in my imagination, only in my imagination. After every meeting a chapter is added, again, only, in my imagination. I know to where this will lead me,   Madness, total madness, I’m ready, I accept the legitimate fate of real lovers. I love you. 

The lover and the …..

I want to tell you a lot of things, all my sentences will start and end by “I love you”. Cliche? I can hear you saying this, but believe me this is what and how i feel.

But what is love? I asked you once and you eloquently answered me, but apparently your love did not withstand your own stubbornness, your decisiveness or maybe your wisdom.

I wish you happiness, that is what I am sure of, even if I am faraway, even if I am just a friend, even if I am not allowed to ask a lot of questions because simply it became none of my business!

Again, what is love? I reached your shores exhausted and desperate, after long aimless journeys, where I denied love, denied its importance, I even denied its existence. Oh, my love, it didn’t take me long to surrender, I was afraid, worried and I didn’t understand anything, and I’m still afraid, I’m still worried and I still don’t understand anything.

Is it a curse? What shall I do? How can I continue living with such a gigantic void? How can anyone live after being split into three, the one who denied love, the one who loved you, and the current one who has to live. But don’t they all have to live? Does one of them have to be forgotten, so that life, that mundane life, can be proceeded. I wish I could keep the lover and kill the other two, anyway I don’t think that the old version, this silly denier, is still here. The challenge now is between the lover and the short- love story-survivor. Did he really survive? I have been haunted for several months by the same question from everyone that I know or even hardly knew, “ what’s wrong,ha?”. How I wish to be honest and tell them that everything is wrong, extremely wrong. I wish I was brave enough to tell them that I accidentally met love, and that this is the only thing I want in my life, and that nothing, nothing at all worth betraying this precious, pure and profound love.

No, my dear friends this is not my middle age crisis that you were expecting it to be scandalous, and this is not a mental disorder that seeped recently and I assure you this is not an illusion. This is something that I have never believed in its existence, something that I used to make fun of, something that is killing me everyday. It’s a miracle that I witnessed, and no body ever told us what happens after miracles.

The lover or the survivor, who should be in control? The survivor is fake, faking that he is ok, hiding behind the sudden migraine visits, and complaining from the war, the devaluation, the traffic and everything except the only thing he should complain about. However, the lover is crazy, the lover is a wreck, the lover is pathetic. Who could bear his never ending questions, sighs and cries about love. They are all disbelievers just like his old version, they can’t imagine or accept that there is still a place and a time for love now.

How I wish that you can help or advise? Although I would not bear your rationality. May be you were too scared to continue, what was it that scared you that much? Boredom? That moment when the morning texts, the phone calls and the dinners feel like unbearable burdens. Or were you scared of our mood swings? The pace of all what happened between us should have scared me too, but that what happened, neither of us understood it then. The survivor, although no one survives love stories, is incapable of being in charge, for most of the day the lover is present with all his melancholy , vigor and pain. Here he is, the lover, writing so that the story outlives you both.

Move on!

 Love can not be faked, I know. Love can not be donated, I understand. Love can not be begged, I have to remember this. I have to be grateful, you are still keeping a few threads between us, the threads of friendship, that’s how you define our relationship. I have to shut up, accept this situation, be grateful and keep going with out short polite diplomatic almost formal meetings. Ah, I have to ignore any hints, any puns and if I refer to anything romantic I have to accept your sudden and savage silence for a period that only you know how long it will last. My friends advise me to move on, seal this chapter, bury this premature love and move on. Their advices are getting louder turning into curses and accusations of weakness, mental disturbance and even of being a pure drama Queen. I’m not pathetic, I have a life just as yours, busy life, dull life, fake life just as yours. I push the days, waste them waiting for a vague moment that never arrives just like you. I deal with those around me with the least amount of emotions just like you. Everyday I engage less and less with my surroundings, just like you. I’m not pathetic my friends, may be the only difference is that I was touched by love, and since then, and unintentionally my life is disintegrating. I can’t continue faking happiness, faking care and faking concern. The long hours of driving and singing, driving and making phone calls and driving and crying, suddenly seemed not to be enough. I need sometime alone, alone with all our few memories, I need to relive them for a million time, I need to relive the same pure genuine striking feelings. I can’t keep going on, gliding along the days like I did for the past four decades, i simply can’t. Even if I can’t live our love, at least I have to relive it, before I forget any slight detail, how you smiled when we first met, how you refused any compliment and how you were stingy with your nice words. I have to remember everything even when you were shouting, and your time vibrates with anger, did you say that we should never meet again? I tend to ignore this hour, I tried to delete it, but no, I have to remember everything. All these memories are not enough, and I don’t have the luxury of picking which ones to keep.  

Move on! That is what my friends say in a logical tone, with this wicked patriarchal look, move on! Apparently, no one will ever understand what happened between us. I’m doubting if you even understood it, it was too pure, too profound and too beautiful to be true. It was illogical to you, but this was the only way I would call this feeling “love”. My dear friends, don’t worry, I’m moving on, but I’m not alone, I’m “ moving on” with all our memories. 

Impossible dreams

Your kitchen,

 your living room

 and your garden,

 we spent hours and hours talking in all these places. They became the only places to where I really belong. A few months ago, I would be singing in the kitchen, teasing you while you cook, and insisting on helping with washing the dishes. I would be sitting on the floor in your living room stretching my legs and resting my back on your sofa, and every time you ask surprisingly why don’t I sit properly, I smile and tell you that I am simply feeling at home. I had plans for your garden, planting a lemon tree in that sunny corner, may be adding two or three bougainvillea with their crazy colors or waiting for the short Cairene winter to pass and then think of what can be added to the garden.

Everything now feels different, I visit as a stranger, my offers to wash the dishes now will sound awkward, spreading my legs on the floor now will look awkward, and planning what to be planted in the garden now will definitely be awkward. Guests should behave in a polite and even conservative manner, and that is what I have to do. What do I do with all my thoughts, that have turned into impossible dreams? Picking the peppermint from the kitchen’s window, don’t we have to stop drinking all this coffee, I would have….oh my god, I am even confused with the tenses, in my dreams, or simple thoughts as they seemed to be, I would add lots of mint and sugar and serve tea in large glasses, just like I used to drink it in Morocco. We would talk about our travels and as usual we would never finish any of our stories. I also wanted to check how cold the living room would be in January, I told you that I usually don’t feel cold, we would have mentioned the cold and the mild winters, and returning back to the winter of the revolution and may be we will go back even further to the winters of the school years. Who knows if I will still be welcomed as a guest in January, and even if I will visit you, I won’t stay till late, why would I? Watching a movie together, how can this turn into an impossible dream. Relaxing on the sofa, teasing each other, one of us would be fussy about the acting, the rhythm or even the genre of the movie. Or maybe we would have picked your favorite movie, or one of your favorites, I have always admired your taste in movies, ….in everything.

Here I am sitting alone, far away, answering dull emails absent mindedly while wondering what are you doing now. Do you miss me? Even for a few seconds? Do I visit you suddenly every now and then? Do you ever think of “What if….”? There are still so many stories to be told, so many songs to be sung, and even so many quarrels to be fought. This can’t be the end; this should not be the end. I am jealous, I am worried, and I am depressed, I can’t complain, what can I say, I don’t even understand what happened. Who would listen or understand, I was never perceived as someone who takes grave decisions, I have been lingering from one comfort zone to the other for so long, and now I collapse on a pile of impossible dreams, how accurate, impossible dreams!

 

I am sorry

 

I am sorry. I am really sorry. I bombarded you with all my defeats and traumas, and wanted a sudden compensation, I even yearned for a brand-new beginning. How naïve? I am sorry, I was inconsiderate, I told you that I was bored of your logic, which was the reward you got after all your long battles, all your wounds and all your noble resurrections . I kept bragging that I am the “day dreamer” among the two of us, but how this could benefit any of us?

Am I returning back to my senses…at last? Or is it this bloody migraine attacking me again? I am sorry, I acted childishly, I ruined everything and I can not blame you for anything. Was it the bad timing? No, I won’t blame the “timing” again, it was my hunger for love, my hunger for happiness and my hunger for another life. You knew that I was asking for the impossible, that there were hordes and hordes that would have been affected by our love. You understood the situation, while I was mesmerized by your beauty. “You killed your feelings towards me”, didn’t I scream at you once, or was it you who declared this firmly?

You knew that it was a mere dream, but I refuse to admit that this is the truth, and even if this is a dream, I don’t want it to come to an end. Did you call it irrationality? May be, but who heard of rational love? I remember that I once told you how I felt that I have been wasting my whole life waiting, waiting for things to happen, waiting for life to bloom and waiting for that sense of serenity. Sorry, my love, it seems that I was self-centered, overwhelmed by my own scary abyss, I forgot your own needs, your own fears and your own defeats. I am sorry. 

Gazing at you

 I’m still questioning everything about us. How do you perceive our love, or more honestly, my love? You are cruel, you are cruel, you are cruel. In fact your cruelty surprises me, amazes me, forces me to deny it. We sit and talk for hours, stories from the past, tales about people that I will never meet, I gaze at your face and travel in my dreams. I want to live with you every moment, it’s a shame that we haven’t met before, decades ago, where I would take place in all of your stories, where I would witness the birth of these tiny wrinkles around your eyes, the changes of your hair style including the crazy ones of the 1990s. You keep talking and I’m still gazing, oh god I love you and I feel that I’m losing myself in this love, disintegrating slowly into a wreck, a lump of regret and despair, a shadow of what I used to be. They say love creates better versions of us, I’m not sure. May be they meant fulfilled love, healthy love, love where both lovers build, demolish and rebuild each other again. But here I am, sitting alone, waiting for a miracle that can never happen. How pathetic it is to wait to be loved again? Have you ever loved me? Did your logic allow you to love me for a few moments? Is this what your love turned me to, a needy man? A lunatic complaining about love yet preaching about love. Haven’t I seen your cruelty before? May be it’s your revenge? But why…. What did I do? How can’t you feel these flooding emotions, may be you are overwhelmed, may be you are scared, or May be your are just tortured by your logic?

Serendipity

I remember these moments when we transcended into pure celestial beings, while others would have seen us drenched in the filth of sins. Magical flashes that glided as a dream where the two of us were totally lost, lost to be united, separated to be united, united to be separated and separated to be united once again. There was no you and me, then we were one…. One soul rediscovering itself and metamorphosing to the endless forms of life that ever existed or will ever exist. One soul burning itself and watering the ashes with the nectar of love, passion and hope to be resurrected again.

I remember, or shall I say we remember how serene the ambience was, it was almost dark, quite,   neither warm nor cold, it was perfect. The voices, the breathes and the sighs intermingled in an eternal dance of love. The caresses, the strokes and the hugs formed a chaotically beautiful composition, where crescendos and diminuendos collided cheerfully among our laughs and awes. Mesmerizing visions of roses, butterflies and birds of every color whirled around us, as enchanting aromas of the deserts, the fields and the mountains engulfed us, while million stars shimmered around us with their warm golden glows.  Serendipity? Definitely, this was serendipity. Bliss? of course, this was bliss. Heaven? Sure, this was heaven.

Now, what? Back to our earthly existence, we recall such an enchanting memory and sigh, was it a dream? Or did we really witness these surreal moments. I assure we did, we tasted a sip of pure love, we experienced a harmonious presence, even if for just a few moments, and let me assure you again, there were no sense of guilt and will never be any feeling of regret.

 

My Shehrazade

 

We sit together, you start telling me a story, one story branches into another one. I am staring at you foolishly, can’t move my eyes away, as I try to memorize how you smile timidly before allowing yourself to laugh cheerfully, how your tones dance suavely when you recall a ridiculous situation or a stupid reaction of someone you knew, how your eyes, your beautiful eyes, travel away in another world for less than a second. A world that I did not know, we were not together, a past, a past that may be one day you will tell me more of its details. I blinked and stole a quick moment to check the time on my mobile screen, I sighed while holding my cup of coffee tightly, and stretching my legs a bit. “Why do you have to leave now?” you asked, and this time I wanted to believe that you wanted me to stay, that you really don’t want me to leave, that it was me who is putting an end to such an enchanting meeting. I stutter, and reply, “I have to…” “But you ….” You stop and your smile vanishes as you move your fingers along the rim of your cup. You know what….I just want to forget everything and everyone, and stay where I am , next to you, and be part of these stories.

I met you after wasting long years in a mundane journey, I crossed barren deserts with no mirages and when I came across your lush gardens by coincidence, I realized that I am not allowed to stay. You were patient enough to show me that I cannot fight for our love, too weak, too afraid or just an ordinary man. Ordinary men don’t deserve such love. I regret meeting you for a second, and then I spend the rest of my day regretting that I regretted meeting you, I am sorry, but love is cruel, and I can’t escape the trail I have been dragged along, they say that there are people that I am supposed to be responsible for, that I have a duty, I have an obligation. They say, that whether I realize or not, but continuing such dull life is my quest. Some men are destined to wade in their lives alone, while bearing and responding to all the noise of those surrounding them, raise the kids till they leave, visit the doctors and take their vitamins, pay the bills and worry about their savings, these men are not allowed to love. Isn’t easier if they don’t believe in love? Denying love would keep them sane and content, and contentment is not happiness, not even close to happiness.  Is not encountering love would have been a real blessing? How can I keep whirling in my life now, knowing that we could have been together if… if only I was as brave as one of the heroes of your 1001 nights?

My Shahrezade is quite now, and I am still lost in the maze of her stories and the pain of my love. “Ok, I will tell you that story next time, but it may be boring…” I interrupt her quickly, “your stories are never boring”.