Riding with apathy

"This is a beautiful country" She says.
"I love this city."

He looks at Her in his rear window mirror. "Yea. It is the best country of all," He agrees.
The traffic is horrendous. It would usually take Her 10 minutes to get where She was going. Roadworks are plaguing the streets.

"Elections are coming up. They need to act as if they're actually doing anything around here," She mutters, annoyed.

"In that case I wish we had elections every year!" The eyes in the mirror say.

"Everyone should cast a blank vote. Maybe if the whole country did it, it would shake them a bit. The message would get across," She says, staring out the window at stationary cars stuck in a traffic jam that breathes fumes of soot and fuel and carbon.

"What's the point? There's no point," He answers, " I don't intend on voting at all."

"Your voice should count for something" She adds, hearing the words become naive as they come out of her mouth, mingling with cigarette smoke, saving it slightly by adding "That's apathy. That's a very strong weapon to go against. Apathy is the biggest demon. You're giving up."

"Listen, its not a matter of giving up. We tried, it didn't work. That's it. You know, this woman who was running for a position ten years ago won by 45 votes. 45 votes! It's enough to have your family vote. No my dear, this country isn't going anywhere. It's not going to change," he replies, his eyes lost in a thought that no longer exists, an image of happiness that no longer applies.

"But you can't just give up..." She says, partly to herself as she looks at a nearby soldier fixing the strap of his rifle.

"Listen, I've been young, and now I'm older. You haven't been older yet. The things we've seen, the obstacles we've gone against. It's a lot. Sometimes you just see that things can't change so easily. Maybe in 200 years..."

His eyes lock onto her reflection, and He notices She is fighting disappointment. And is stubborn.

"I'll illustrate with an example," He says, clearing his throat. "Imagine you open a business. Lets say a Butcher's. You used to sleep 6 hours before you opened it. Now you sleep 4 because you wake up earlier or sleep later to work on it. You're putting effort into it, because you want it to work, and give you profit. Ok. You do this for a month, two months, three. Nothing. No change. Sooner or later, you take back those two hours of sleep, maybe even more. You realise there's no point in working so hard if nothing is going to come of it. You understand my point?"

"I don't agree" She says.

"You're young. I commend your patience and passion and determination. I am not telling you to let it go. But I'm telling you it won't result in anything."

"Well then I'll just keep trying. I'll get tired. We'll get tired. We'll rest, and then get up again. You can't tell me that there is no point. You can't tell me it'll be for nothing. That would end me." She says, feeling her face get warmer.

He falls silent. He seems a bit ashamed.
"Don't lose yourself kid." He mutters.

"I'll get off here please," She interjects, and as She closes the door, looks Him in the eyes, without the middleman mirror and says "I can see it's already too late for you. I'm sorry."

The exhaust pipe chokes on a few coughs of smoke, and She's left on the pavement, her lips pursed, hands in her coat pocket, head held high, staring as apathy takes over another wheel and drives off.

Here there be dragons...

After reading many status updates on facebook about last year graphic designers (some of them friends of mine) panicking about giving in their thesis, I decided to look back on mine. It had been two years since I'd read it, and it was weird reading that voice of me, writing academic essay voice. My thesis was about mythological creatures, composite ones in specific (made of parts of different creatures) and the idea of Collective Visual Imagination, a term I coined after reading Carl Jung's writings on the Collective Unconscious.
So after reading it, correcting a couple of typos (oops.) I thought I'd paste a couple of paragraphs from it... Maybe it'd interest some of you.

"Many of us today do not really know where they [mythological creatures] come from, do not know their purpose or if they have any, and yet we do know what they are, and how they look like, probably from our exposure to them in the contexts such as the ones I have mentioned. Personally, I have always been fascinated with creatures such as these since I can remember. I would hear about them in stories my mother would tell me, see pictures of them in books, see them in cartoons and movies, and I did not bother to question their existence; they stirred oceans in me, they rang true, and let me soar in my mind with wings made of imagination. But the older I got, the more I knew, and it was no longer a matter of whether they existed or not, but it was their aesthetic nature that appealed to me, and especially the creatures that were mixed, composite. How did they come to be, or who created them? How were so many stories written about them if they did not exist, and how could it be that there were many instances of striking resemblance of a specific creature between different cultures and mythologies?"

* * *

"Perhaps we are all like the doomed artist or creative, who is forever envisioning and imagining the perfect artwork, and never able to hit the nail on the head when executing it; that these magnificent creatures are embedded in our unconsciousness, dormant, awaiting to be portrayed and expressed, while we fumble and never get to describe and apply visually what we see in our heads. Perhaps we are endowed with the essence of a Collective Visual Imagination that unites us in our struggle for the ideal illustration of certain creatures, and yet in the process of application, we drift apart slightly due to factors of culture and context, making this world of creatures one that is destined to keep us gaping in awe and wonder. To quote the German director Werner Herzog, 'What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.'”

* * *

" The Collective Visual Imagination is a theory that leans on the geographical widespread of a particular creature that has physical similarities between the same creature of different localities. The reason for these findings is very unclear and so the theory alleges that the reason for these similarities is due to our already formed visualisation of it that is inevitably within us. I would have called it the Unconscious Visual Imagination, but I am wary of the fact that we can never actually ‘see’ or envision that which is unconscious, as I have come to understand from my readings by Jung. The result of the existence of these ‘moulds’ or templates in our minds drives us to manifest them, simply an attempt to solidify this otherwise conceptualised idea that wants to break free of us. And yet somehow we are incompetent in completely comprehending and controlling this hidden part of our imaginative mind.

An Analogy
An analogy that could clarify my explanation, is if you consider someone who is trying to express him or herself verbally, and is stuck on a word, he knows what it is, and yet is unable to convey what it is, and sometimes he or she end up spilling out words that are either close in pronunciation or meaning in attempts to bridge this gap. If I were to apply this to the Collective Visual Imagination, the word we are thinking of would be the actual representation of the creature, while the different words that we end up saying in attempt to get the right one are the different representations and portrayals of the creature. But it is important to keep in mind that the main difference between the analogy I am giving and the Collective Visual Imagination is that this search for the ‘model’ depiction of the creature is not something I consider to be conscious, we are not aware of its existence within us, or of the fact that we are expressing an urge to find the ‘one’, while when searching for the ‘word’, we know we have it in us somewhere, in the many folds of our brain, we are aware that to complete our message, this ‘word’ needs to be found. This is the relation I find between Jung’s concept of unconscious archetypes and my hypothesis. Also, although the idea of the ‘collective’ seems to steal away the possibility of diversity, it is in fact this feature that allows diversity in my view, since in our attempts of expression, we have harnessed diversity, allowing the many factors and influences of our existence to play a role in shaping images and forms."

If only you could see the tables and maps I filled up with research... 60 dragons, 22 mermaids, and 16 unicorns.. Anyway, there's obviously more to it than the excerpts I put, and it would make more sense once read from start to finish.. but its a 30 page paper! Wouldn't know what to do with it all.

And with that, I'll leave you with the last paragraph of my thesis as food for thought...

* * *

"I once read somewhere that when dealing with uncharted waters, cartographers in the days of yore would draw a dragon like creature on that particular area of the map, and jot down the words “Here there be Dragons”, referring to something that we are not sure of, somewhere dangerous, undiscovered, with undiscovered monsters and creatures lurking. Perhaps our minds can be compared to these old maps; and perhaps in the areas that we cannot reach, that we cannot understand, ‘there be dragons’."

What Alice would say today

Things that shouldn't tell tales, but do

the glass of wine tells me of jesus' blood drank by cannibals to no avail.
the paper cranes on their shelf tell me of a girl lost in thought but found by paper trail.
the winged and horned equine silver saviour around my neck tells me of things that I wish, but can't be.
the eyes I see in the mirror tell me of things that could be but aren't.
the heart beating within me tells me of things that are but don't.
the silence of my voice tells me of things better left unsaid.
the hands on my watch tell me it's time to go to bed.
if only these thoughts and rabbits would get out of my head.

Yeah, it's a new year, but...

Here's wishing you a monster-free year, whatever kinds they may be...

When the Heart makes sense and the Mind does not...

I lay my head on my pillow and breathe.

I hear my insides rising and falling, and my heart beat gets louder, and louder, and I start to distinguish the words... "Believe in me. Believe in me. Believe in me." Over and over and over, a perfect way to lull someone to sleep. Except the gears in my mind are clanking and turning and twisting and it's loud and distracting and tiring.

1+1=2
5+2x=15 makes x=5
heart+faith=hurt

and the lull of my heart is drowned and my head hurts and it all equals fear and disappointment and sadness and insomnia.

I have faith in you Heart. I do. Give me some strength to ward off the demons of my consciousness. Give me a sign, a faint promise.

Then again, that's my mind talking. The need of proof. Force of habit I suppose, or a defense mechanism against hurt that it has calculated to come about faith in my heart. Am I that damaged? Have I been metaphorically beaten within an inch of my ability to give myself this gift? To have faith in faith?

I would like to be free. And sometimes I am, I am free of my mind, happy with my heart, not in a world of expectations or results. They come later, and the wait could drive me insane. No, I find myself happy in the existence of my heart and its words in the present.

I try to strike the balance, it's not an easy one, and it is tiresome.

I should stop asking for anything. Only then will I get something.

Genocide 101

I found my cross.
Remember my Jerusalem cross? I found it a couple of weeks ago. It was chewed up, the wood gone, the metal crumpled (yes, it was my dog being patriotic).
Now I look at it, and feel it has become so as a foreboding sign of what was to come. The cross Jesus was on (refer to 'Jerusalem on the Shore' post) crumpled in the face of the violence that has been unleashed on Gaza.

A whole people quarantined by the Israeli government like animals, but that's to say the least considering that animals get better treatment than they have gotten these past months. Shut off of food, power, any decent form of health care (sorry did I just list the basic human rights?) left to starve and weaken and get sick and get more and more angry, just to end it with carpet bombing of the whole area, killing and killing and killing, just this time faster and more efficiently than before.

It is the kind of thing that begs no words. I've seen this happen over and over, the Grapes of Wrath, the second Intifada, Qana, the 2006 War, the Gaza Massacre earlier this year, and now this. Same images over and over, one becomes desensitized at the sight, but it doesn't make the feeling inside any different, or easier.

In fact it wells up, and adds up. And it becomes harder and harder to believe in faith, and justice, and good. Definitely harder to believe in good.

It happens over and over.
There's a saying in Arabic, "التكرار يعلم الحمار" - "Repetition teaches the donkey"
Well whose the donkey here? And what is he being taught in fact? Are the Palestinians donkeys? The Lebanese? The Arabs? And on what basis?

And what are they being taught? To be civilised? Or that the only justice in this world is the justice of power? That some people are more important than others? Four legs good, two legs better?

No. This is genocide 101.
They're being taught genocide.

Except they're on the wrong side of the stick. And apparently, to pass this course, you must be 6 feet under (if you're lucky enough to be buried, and not scattered or deformed beyond recognition).

I'm ranting. And I don't want to anymore. Words are useless here. This is a question that no longer begs an answer. It begs action. And will. And justice.

My brothers, my sisters in Gaza.
I haven't prayed in a long time. I'm not sure I know how to pray.

But tonight, I'm praying for you. A wordless prayer.

Neither/Nor & Both. But rejected.

my first attempt at making a comic for a collaborative comic/zine in Beirut called Samandal Unfortunately it was rejected. I'll try not to give up...

Back story: This comic refers to my leaving London after living and working there last year (despite my great attachment to it) to come back to Beirut. It is completely made out of scratcher board, please click on the images to see enlarged.

A Perfect Day

Today was a perfect day on all accounts.
I couldn't have asked for a better one.

It started with visiting the Sabra and Chatila refugee camp after stepping out of it 7 years earlier and not turning back.
I had been in contact with a youth recreational centre at a young age due to my mother having a friend who teaches English there, and as part of my social service requirement for my IB education at school, I taught art to 9-12 year old Palestinian refugees.
I was 17 at the time, and to work with children who have lost one or both parents, living in what can be described as the slums of the city, where the roads are part dirt, and Swiss cheesed full of holes, where everything is squished into a space meant for half of everything there, was difficult to say the least. I got emotionally drained after a couple of months.
But now I was more capable, and more emotionally mature. And the day started beautifully.
I picked up my friend Will and we brainstormed on ideas for a quick activity for 5-7 year old kids, since my original idea for a flip book workshop with the older kids fell through. Will came up with an excellent idea involving shapes cut into puzzles that each child would draw on, and when put together would make a whole new drawing. We picked up the supplies rushed to the camp manoeuvring cars, driving over elevated manholes and puddles of muck.
The children were great. Shy at first, and although having only half an hour to put all of it together, it worked. We got them to loosen up, they sang us welcome songs as I drew out shapes and Will cut them out (into what we later found out, were not very simple puzzles!)
The result? Very happy kids and a bunch of beautiful drawings (one that i distinctly loved, of a boy with rays coming out of his head. When I asked the boy who it was, he said the Sun. "The Sun is a boy?" I asked, to which he nodded. "What about the moon then?" I added. To which a girl behind him excitedly jumped up and said "The moon's a girl!")
As the children filed up to change out of their school aprons, we started to bid farewells and the moon girl, Nadine (a smiley bright child with eyes that sparkled and a messy pony tail) came up to me with her arms open. I knelt as she said "I want to hug you!".

(Perfect moment number 1)

I felt a bit deflated after that visit. Dealing with children can take it out of you, no matter how much you enjoy it. Especially when these children live in a hell hole. So as I drove silently, it dawned on me that the only thing I really wanted to do was go sit on the seashore, sewage pipe rubbish and all (refer to Jerusalem on the Shore post)
No questions asked, I turned the car around and went to Ramlet il Bayda.
We sat there for maybe half an hour. The sea turning golden under the bright sun (The sun is a boy called "Sun" in case you didn't know...It's true, the boy who drew him told me himself) watching the waves multiply and roll onto the beach. I took out a piece of paper I'd been given as a gift. It was simple really. Perhaps one of the most meaningful gifts I'd been given in a while.
"Patience". I read it. Sometimes I read sentences over and over, like they held answers that I was yet to find. With the gift of Patience.

(Perfect moment 2)

Ever so often I would glimpse something moving on the wet sand, maybe it was a tiny crab, but it didn't matter. I was sat on a piece of driftwood, talking to a good friend, and losing myself in the sea, watching the horizon and enjoying my face being kissed by a boy called Sun.

(Perfect moment number 3)

Cutting shapes out and driving through refugee camps can work up and appetite, so we went to Japanese Please on Bliss St., a sushi place I eat Fushi at (Fake sushi, being a person who can't even fathom the idea of eating fish... brr). A long conversation there led to a place I never expected to go. My father's office.
I hadn't been to my dad's office since he passed away a year and a half ago. The reasons are many and few. But I got pushed off the cliff, and I took the dare. Why not. Why not go? And that, ladies and gentlemen, was a step that should have, and did happen. As I fumbled with the keys, and managed to get in, my knees shook a little. I gulped and cleared my throat and walked into my dad's actual office. Newspaper clippings praising him were on the door, and they startled me. They weren't there when I used to visit him before. I sat on his desk, and felt odd. I was on a tightrope of emotions, teetering and focused at the same time. My arms left shapes in the dust as I put them on the table, looking at the photo of our trip to Greece.
I started looking through drawers and on shelves. It was a treasure chest of memories and things that I didn't see before that were always there.
And then I tripped onto a box full of old format photos. There must have been around 100 of them.
They were photos of the war. The big Lebanese one. I had heard of some of these photos before, overhearing conversations between my parents and their friends many nights, and in an odd way they became familiar. Photos of my mother before she was my mother, or my dad's wife, photos of my uncle when he still had hair and was a skinny twig. Photos of my house when it was simpler and less cluttered, furnished with throw rugs and pillows and straw mats on the floor. Photos of the road in front of my house when it was deserted, with a few holes from shell fire. Photos of our balcony glass doors cracked and broken. Bullet holes, teenagers with guns, children on swings rigged at the back of pickup trucks.
The war, my parents as people, my house as a hang out. Beautiful photos.
Tears were inevitable. But it was ok. And the thought came to me. I was going to put these photos into a book. They were the war through the eyes of my father the poet. And they would not go on being pieces of memories in a box in a dusty office.
As I walked out of the office, I felt awake, and re-energized. I was alive.

(Perfect moment number 4)

As I drove home, I found myself breaking into a smile. It soon escalated into full out laughter. The odd thing was that I was crying at the same time. Perfect...

The smile was in no way weaker a few hours later at the Cabin as I sipped wine in the company of friends and my brother (yes, non biological), I couldn't stop smiling (in fact, I scared myself)
Friends, wine, a cigarette, and a bartender you can count on. A perfect end, to a perfect day.

Love's Labour Lost

8:30 am. January 23rd. Hoylake Rd.
I'm walking to the bus stop in a morning haze on my way to work, tunes pumping into my ears, cigarette smoke mingling with morning mist, eyes groggy and unappreciative of the harsh white daylight.
I step off the little grass roundabout onto the coarse gravel and come across a crushed bouquet of reddish pink carnations.

As I look down at their flattened heads by my feet, my mind wanders slightly to what could have happened here the night before.
Maybe it was the 15 year old boy I see riding round on a bike, proclaiming his love to the girl down the street and being rejected. Maybe it was an apology bouquet from an unfaithful husband to his heartbroken wife. Maybe they were thrown out of a car window as it drove by carrying a couple in a heated argument after what seemed to have been a perfect romantic dinner.
Whoever they were from, whoever they were intended for, they now lay in the middle of the road, crushed by more than one car by the look of it.

I took out my camera, and snapped it. The days would go by, they would rot, or get blown away by the wind, or get picked up by the rubbish collectors. But for now, I was the only witness this early in the morning to someone's lost labour of love.

And that was a moment worth holding on to. No gesture of love should go unappreciated, even if it is by a perfect stranger at 8:30 a.m. on a chilly Wednesday morning in the middle of Hoylake Rd.

Jerusalem on the Shore

My friend visited Beirut for the first time in 11 years a couple of weeks ago, and where else should one take a close friend to in Beirut but the sea?

I parked at the corniche near Ramlet il Bayda and we walked down the newly done up pavement with the oddly proportioned lamps as the sun beat down on us on that clear November day.
Scaling down the broken steps to the beach, I warned my friend of the broken glass, the rubbish, and pointed to the sewage outlet that moulded the sand around it into a big empty murky spill, trying to bend it into as much of a joke as I could.

We walked down towards the shore where the sea lapped and licked smooth the sand, shifting shells and orphaned shoes and pieces of card as far away from it as it could, and I proceeded to squeak with glee at all the small shells that had collected, and to my friend's slight annoyance, cut of the conversation and began aah-ing and ooh-ing and "look at the colour!"-ing as I picked and poked and sifted through marine treasure.

After picking up around twenty shells, dodging a dead crab, and pausing momentarily to joke about a condom we found still in its packet, my eye tripped upon a cross lying lob sided in the wet sand. It was a plain dark wood cross, very simple with no overly ornamented detailing, just a plain wooden cross, now pregnant with sea water so that the texture of its veins were easily distinguishable against my fingertips. It had a crudely finished piece of metal across its horizontal beam, pressed into the wood with typewriter font letters indented into it, spelling Jerusalem.
My heart stopped for a second and I couldn't hear anything or anyone, and my friend's conversation rolled out of my ears and down to the edge of the sea.
This is the cross Jesus was on.
This was the cross Jesus was on. All the way from Jerusalem. to Beirut. to my hands. A simple, modest cross of wood and thin metal. I stowed it in my bag and held onto it like I had stowed the spirit of the holy ghost.

I showed my mother the second I came home, spinning stories of hope and redemption, of the cross of Palestine crossing the great Mediterranean, braving hungry fish, swooping gulls, and jet ski blades to reach us. To send a message that the cross has not fallen. Jerusalem has not fallen. My mother tried to bring me down to earth from my romanticised clouds, but for some reason, this felt like a sign. Perhaps it was some one's cross, a girl like me who threw it into the sea out of anger, or desperation or both, crying tears of anguish and frustration at the reality of her world. Perhaps she cast it out because she wanted to save it, perhaps to rid herself of the constant reminder. Perhaps hoping someone would find her message in a bottle and feel her, come rescue her.

I lost the cross the same day. I don't know if I placed it somewhere to keep it safe and forgot where, or whether my dog decided to ingest it out of patriotic urges. All I know is that I found the cross of Jerusalem, and just like that

POOF

it was gone, and with it some part of me felt it had betrayed trust, maybe a dream, maybe just a meandering thought.

Depsite trying to convince myself that it was merely stopping en route to a much worthier journey, that its mission was not yet done, my heart still aches at the thought of losing it ever since...

Don't Cry Sister...

It rained cats and dogs and every other animal rainable this morning.
I woke up at 7 am to the sound of thundering and roaring answered with echoes of sudden light that teased my sleep trodden eyes. The rain hammered against the balcony tiles and the roof of the building right above my head so methodically that I got lost in its thread of meteorolgical harmony.
The last time it rained like that I was still in London. It was February or March of this year. Still quite cold in London, and I was at home alone. My housemates were each out going about their lives, while I hovered from room to room going about mine. My laptop was playing music through the speakers we had gotten as a hush-gift from a friend who had had a little (and by a little I of course mean ridiculous amounts) too much to drink and had managed to act inappropriatly at our houseparty (this included running off with an unopened bottle of vodka that nearly 10 other people could have benefited from the contents of.) As I attempted to clear my room, I tripped over one of the boxes I had shipped from beirut. It was sitting in my room, still un-emptied, and now just waiting to be shipped back in a few months.

Out fell a deck of cards wrapped in a hairband.

And suddenly I heard it. A girl cry.
It started with low breaths and sniffing and escalated quickly to terrible gasps and cries and wails.
As I heard her, my skin crawled with the emotion that filtered throughout my room. Her pain was of depths unfathomable and unexplainable. I saw her grasp at her throat unable to control this flood that broke through a dam so well preserved before, scared at this foreign phenomenon that gripped her.
It went on for what seemed ages. She wailed and cried and sobbed and lamented and everytime I thought to myself "She must be getting tired. She has to be getting tired...", she went on for longer and longer...

Hearing her began to exhaust me. I felt like a caged animal, moving from side to side, scared, alone, hearing this sister in arms pour out ungovernable sentiments, her body shaking and vibrating with her shuddering breaths in the hollow of my ribs, her tears splashing slightly on to my arms that held hands caressing fingers.

And then, thirty minutes of non stop sorrowful crescendos and diminuendos later, she stopped. Suddenly. Just as suddenly as she had begun.


I slept exhausted of fatigue, on a damp warm pillow, sinking into a battered mattress.

The Part You Throw Away

I'm sifting through it all. Pour it into the fine net, shake it shake it and watch the powder rain start forming beautifully smooth powder hills on my life below.
And the rocks and pebbles and complications and unnecessary strifes and noise stay behind, being teased against the wire, like sins on fire. The instability of it all. Turbulance galore. And so they should stay behind. I have never done this before.

This is the part I throw away.

I have no times anymore for bits and pieces that are not smooth. I've had rocks and boulders to chew through and swallow and this is where I tell myself enough. Sift on through. Sift on through to the other side.
I dance and roll on powder hills that smell sweet and fold me into blissful silk cocoons. I should sift more often
I look at the rocks stuck in the wires above and smile.

This is the part I throw away. Good riddance.

And half an hour later there's a lemon cake with rainbow chip icing to go along with my contentment.
I sit on my sofa, legs entertwined and up on the table, music in the background, and rocks and bits scattered in the kitchen bin.

4 am Speechless Rambling

happy birthday...

...to you

i love you.

on couche toujours avec les morts...

On my way to work, after I alight at the corner of ladbroke grove and begin walking towards Golborne Road, there are many things that greet me day to day. The pigeons on the side of Best Buy that crowd around discarded bread and rice and doughnuts, the TimeOut ad on the side of the black box that houses all the wires of the area, the Dub Shack with its yellow sign and lion head in the middle, roaring the availability of hip hop, soul, and RnB vinyls, and the funeral sevice "shop". I say shop because it has a window front like any other shop, framed in black painted walls, crowned with wilting funeral wreaths that are changed rarely, and holding a shiny coffin staff that brings it all together as an intert morbid surrealist painting amid the hustle bustle of the living that walk up and down and go in and out of its neighbouring "Best Buy" with their sandwiches or bottle of juice or fresh krispy kreme. I give it my glance as I pass, noting its classical serif-ed sign, and neutral marketing of death, and stagnant existence. My heart sinks ever so slightly nearly every time, more like a blink underwater than a sinking. Never changing, always paused in a purgatory of inanimation.

Except that day.

I pass the pigeons, note this week's theme of TimeOut, contemplate a croisant from the lamp warmed cupboard posing as Best Buy's "bakery" and then before I have a chance to look ahead of me and walk my course, I pass 3 men standing in a row, in matching light pink shirts, and black trousers in front of the window queen of death.
They all are looking at a black car parked right across the funeral shop, and suddenly things happen really fast and I realise its a hearse and my eyes stroke its abdomen and I see it's blooming with fresh lillies and small pink roses hidden in green blankets of leaves and if thats not enough to make me quiver, 2 men are pushing a white coffin to fill the void and the coffin is glowing in the diffused light and it is a small one. A small coffin. Tiny in fact. And then I feel it hit me. My insides twirling and turning and pulsing and twisting and a gag a little and it goes very slow. very slow.
my eyes are no longer in my head but in the head of a bird on a low branch of the tree above me and I see myself in slow motion, my head still turned at this scene and switching to the 3 men in pink (its a girl) and my body follow my head and twists round and I see myself pause slightly before falling to my knees with tears streaming down my cheeks as my head is playing home videos of a baby girl coming home from the hospital in her mothers arms, her first birthday, her blue dress and her red shows as she runs in the grass of the garden smiling and shining, her favourite teddy bear that she could not sleep without, her thumb in her mouth... I see it all. And I see the coffin as it darkens, shielded from the sun by the gaping mouth of wheeled black. and its all in slow motion as the bird from the tree swoops down and passes me turning its head to keep my face in view and its all turning and my stomach is turning, and then SLAM. i hear the jaws of the car shut and I realise my eyes are in my head and I'm not on my knees, or in slow motion, in fact I'm just a few metres further on my route, and the sceen is all in my head. But the tears are there, and my wringing insides are there and I take cover into the side street and stand as hidden as I can by nearby bushes and gag and spit bile and poison and horrid horrid feelings and images.
The terrible glass visage of the queen of death has proven her point. She reigns my path with an iron fist. I will not make the mistake of looking her in the eye again. I do not want that burden. I cannot carry that burden more than I have.

Hair of the Dog

Weirdest thing happened today while on the bus from work. I was standing up leaning against the luggage area near the front after giving my seat to an old woman.. (yes, I'm a good citizen, thats not the point though) balancing my Nick Cave book in one hand, holding onto the rail with another, and adjusting my ipod volume with a loose thumb, when all of a sudden, I see it.

The hair of the dog. My dog.

One lone hair, on my shirt. I can tell it was a dog hair, my dog's hair. Theres not question about it. The near bleached white colour, tapering at the tip to become a golden sandy tint that is almost translucent.
My dog has been gone for two years now. Thats a long time.
I'd worn this shirt before, never a hair in sight.
Maybe it was my jeans jacket. Must be. I hadnt worn it in forever, and i used to wear it quite a lot.
I smiled to myself as I wrapped my arm around the rail keeping me from breaking my teeth on the bus floor due to the driver's insistence on being the next Collin McRae, and picked the hair up, and studied it closely. The thin filament echoed the setting sunlight and broke it within it miniscule frame, resulting in the finest gold. Well I never...

I smiled to myself as I recollected a conversation I had with my friend just the night before, about how I was planning on getting a dog in summer when I moved back to Beirut. "Which breed?" she asked.
I said "the homeless kind. I'm going to adopt."

An interesting conversation ensued in which many parallels were drawn about my choices regarding my furry companians and my own outlook on myself.

I'll explain. I'm sure I've lost you, or sound like someone who is lost.

The day I was called by the vet to tell me that new Labrador puppies had just arrived if I wanted to take my pick, I rushed to the clinic as though my life depended on it.
2 puppies were presented in front of me, one bursting with energy and running around the elevated table, licking the fingers of all who gave him attention, and they were many, while the other lay in the middle of the table, paler, and still groggy from being sedated on the flight to Beirut. But aware. Very aware.
I looked at him and brought my face closer, inspecting his wide eyes that looked up at me, creasing the furrow of his brow slightly in a curious pose, and then relaxing slightly. Bringing my hand closer to stroke the bridge of his small muzzle, he lifted his head and licked me with a velvety tongue, rosy with youth. That was it. Runt he may be when compared with his vivacious brother but my Runt he shall be.

Still confused?
I chose the runt. Because he would have been the least obvious choice. Any person would have preferred to take the bouncy ball of love and fun that circled the edge of the table, spreading excitement with his little tail wagging away, and of course saliva. But what of his thinner paler comrade?
I did not want him to be the one that "had to be chosen". I stuck by my choice. Picked him up and cradled him in my folded arms, and a little nuzzle towards my armpit with his nose told me we were going to be just fine, told me he knew I'd pick him and as he burrowed into the warm darkness of my sweater, I too knew I would have picked him out of 100 puppies, let alone a couple.
No one wants the runt. The less obvious. The less appealing. But I do, for that very reason.

He gave me a similar look 5 years later, as he lay on the table at the vet's, suffering slowly from a cancer that he had managed to keep a secret from us all for a while. Except this time his look was not curious. But loving, tarnished with some fear. This time, it was I who nuzzled into his neck. And this time I did not get to take him home.

So now I am making the same choice, although choice could be the wrong word, since I don't believe it's that at all. It's just pre-chosen.
I had rattled my brain about which breed of dog to get ever since I took the decision to go down that road of companionship again. I thought of them all, taking into account my previous experience when it came to size and energy and shedding patterns (please refer to the trigger of all this entry.. the hair of the dog)
And then it just dawned on me. Why bother? Why the beauty contest? Why the need of a "new" dog. All dogs need love. There is no doubt about that... But isn't a dog that had been given love and then have it taken away more worthy? A dog at the shelter is not waiting to be bought, has not been taken care of or treated to fit any specific routine or measure.
They just ask to be loved. Half hound half retriever, half spaniel quarter alsation quarter husky... Concoctions, mutations, rehabilitations. They have no pedigree to fall back on, no lineage to claim.
Broken dogs. Not needing glue, or bandages. Just needing affection.
So I will adopt. No. Not adopt. That could infer a nonreciprocating relationship.
I will not adopt. I will welcome. I will love.

You see, I am a broken dog. A rain dog. A shelter dog. A runt of the litter.


But so are you. Only difference is I'm just not ashamed to say it.

Seven Poems (including a Sonnet) about Stars

I wrote these a while ago.. should have put them up before I suppose. Sometimes I get the illusion I'm a poet..Oh well..
-----

Untitled
Fireflies swirl in the hollows of her eyes,
And galaxies form above us in the skies.

-----

Night Dreamer
Counting the stars,
As they greet her one by one,
She traces lines across the sky,
Her finger an imaginary brush
Painting a celestial masterpiece.

Catching fireflies
She names them one by one
One after hope, one after promise,
And one after love’s labour lost
Closes the jar, and watches them glow

Cursing the moon,
As it lights the rooftops one by one
She leans on the windowsill,
Arms crossed cradling her chin
Wishing she could be far far away.

-----

Man on the Moon
Do you believe they put a man on the moon?
And if he’s up there all alone, what does he think of?
What does he do?

Does he dance on constellations,
Dropping sandman’s dust onto closing eyes?
Giving us the gift of dream,
Gracing our dozing faces with smiles,
And our minds with a door to his abode
Where we can join him, jump from star to star
And watch comets explode.
Where we can sing to the universe,
our laughter echoing in the galaxies.

Do you believe they put a man on the moon?
And if he’s up there all alone, does he dream of us?
Or of visiting soon?

-----

A Sonnet of Moonshine and Fireflies
Her outline soaks in a soft silver
Cast by the moon’s fullest of faces.
As she searches for the big dipper,
Up towards the night sky she gazes.

Her thoughts are stolen by the stars,
And her breath by a passing breeze’s sigh
Could this fire she feels inside be a farce?
Does it only warm the heart within her, and why?

She wipes away the trails of moonshine
That crawl slowly down her visage
Looking up, she prays for a sign,
Or for a way to erase his image.

But all she can see is more stars and fireflies
And no where to hide from the full moon of lies

-----

Bird Bird
Bird Bird,
High in the sky,
The clouds your companion,
The sun a rider on you back.
Come tell me a tall tale
Of places east and west.
Come weave me a tapestry
Of feathers, of wind,
Without a word to be read.

Bird Bird
High in the sky
Don’t settle and sink
Keep on flying,
Stay high.

----

Poor Lucy
Lucy’s in the sky with diamonds,
She tells me
How she cries sometimes,
Because all she has
Are diamonds.
Diamonds aren’t
A girl’s best friend when
All she has
Are diamonds.

-----

Night Rider
She rides through the night sky
On a steed of dew soaked light
Her hair whistles through the air
Whipping and snapping and whisking
Clouds into shape

She rides through the night sky
On a steed of electrifying might
Her laugh booms throughout the heavens
Echoing and resonating and shaking
Into storms and rain

She rides through the night sky
On a steed of fire so bright
Her gaze splitting into slivers
Falling and trailing and glowing
Into shooting stars

And I sit here eyeing the sky,
On a quilt of feathers soft and white
My breath held in my chest
Watching and fearing and gaping
At the moody mistress of the dark

She rides through the night sky
On a steed of waning shade
Her strength thinning out in sheets
Dispersing and withering and dying
Into a bright new dawn

these pages fell out of an old digital journal

an older version of me. an older version of you.

Journal Entry: Tue Jun 13, 2006, 4:04 PM
the stars of cigarette cherries hover in the darkness of her eyes,breathing fire silently in a glow of relapsing hope. and the dragonflies envy the fireflies, while the eyes that housed them bled adversaries in slow quiet trails

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Journal Entry: Tue Nov 8, 2005, 3:38 PM
And yes, you look familiar,
I think I've seen you in a wishful thought,
a place I found
while counting stars
and reading skies..
with my hand on my heart

-written after 32 hours of no sleep.. on a torn paper, in my car.

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Journal Entry: Thu Oct 27, 2005, 12:48 PM
Silence sits beside me in the car whenever its just me. We both listen to the loud blaring music from the radio.

He sits there, looks at me sometimes..reaches his hand through my ribcage, and strokes my heart.

Silence is my friend.

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Journal Entry: Thu Sep 29, 2005, 8:50 AM
Beirut. Lebanon
14 explosions since november 2004.
over 25 dead. 100 wounded.


I sit there straightening my hair, and wish it was as easy to straighten out a society.. a government.. a world.

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I wonder if we change.

"If Lebanon were not my country, I would have chosen Lebanon for Homeland..."

- Gibran Khalil Gebran

I have not written in a while, and with the events that happened in Beirut and Lebanon the past week, I was unable to write more so for fear that tears and blood would stain my keyboard, and that I would not know when to stop, and I would not know how to make sense.

Friends have told me that I convey a feeling in my writing that is genuine, addictive, touching... for once, I do not think that there are enough words in language, or enough order in my mind to explain and express what I feel about the events that have scarred May 7 to May 14.

So I will not write. At least for now. Not about Lebanon. My homeland by blood, by choice, by conviction.

Soon. I promise. Soon.