Lying

How do you get over yourself?

How do you move on?

Why do bad things happen to you and no one else?

My 17 year old daughter asked me this today over the phone

Mind you, I know you are thinking “how come you have a daughter who is 17 and you are only 24?”

I have held her when she was a baby, I have seen her as she discovered the world with her big bright eyes.

I have taken her to proms and helped her crash study for history and English.

And today I have seen her as her heart broke for the first time.

And I let her talk.

I wanted to comfort her but I remembered that there is a pain that cannot be comforted.

That first heart break.

That numb pain, where you feel your world crashing in a single instant,

When you cannot take it and cannot stop crying.

Where you feel that this person is the only one you can ever be with and no one else could take his place.

I wanted to tell her that there will be others, that she will love again.

That she will wear that white dress for the man she loves

But deep down I felt that I would be lying if I said that.

She will never love that way again.

She will feel love again.

But she will be cautious, hesitant, calculating, manipulating her own heart into believing things that may or may happen, things she may or may not feel.

Her scale will go up with each failure, demanding things she may or may not need.

She will be sheltered within herself ,guarded, isolated within her own broken heart.

The truth is I lied to her today, told her to calm down and forget about him, knowing all too well she will
be looking for him in the arms of every man she is with.

I didn’t want to tell her that her heart will sink when she runs into her first love. That the first woman she will learn to hate is the one he is going to marry.

As I spoke to her I regretted all my lies.

you see, for he walked in, my first and only man,my first love,my first dream, and yes, he was holding her hand and he was smiling.

After 745 days, when I had last held his hand.

My heart still sank.

And I still lied.

Insomniac

The fact that I am sleepless today is making me more sleepless than ever.

I have been sleepless for a very long time.

Mind you, I do sleep, as in drift into this weird realm of dreams that are so real and yet never seem to make sense.

But I still drag myself out of bed every morning feeling sleep deprived.

But today I have had it.

One sentence kept echoing forever in my head today; “writing is a lonely business”. And I know exactly why it is.

You see,for years now I try to mix water with fire and it never seems to work.

I am either burnt or drowned.

You can never be a socialite and a writer.

It just does not work.

And I have to choose.

For I am tired.

I love lonliness but I am also dying for company.

I have so many people in my life that I just can’t seem to connect to.

For all fairness, the only thing I own is my thoughts and these are exactly the one thing everyone
seems to want out of me.

And the one thing I can’t provide.

And I am really tired.

I want so many things, I desire so many things, and I am hurt by so many things.

I want to ……… but I can’t.

Story of my life……..

I want to have all the friends in the world but I can’t compromise my privacy.

I want to have all the money I need but I can’t risk my ethics.

I want to have children but I can’t seem to choose the best father I can give them.

I want to walk everywhere but I fear what I might meet down the road.

I want to have someone to run back home to but I can’t seem to find him.

I want so many things.

I don’t want to be lonely.

But I crave it most of the time.

I am still sleepless but I have made my choice.

I m alone in crowds, I am a people’s person who does not like to be around people most of the time.

I will go home to no one.

I will hope for no one,I will dream of nothing.

I want to sleep.

And I will sleep.

An endless sleep, a dark black empty sleep.

And I will love it.

Queen of Small Details

A few Years ago when my life was more simpler.

When I had not been aware of depression, heartbreak, bad karma and all the rest.

When I was not aware of the bad world lurking outside my father’s arms.

I was in love.

Simple love, where things simply did fit it. Every small little detail made sense.

Detail…..that word always found a place in my life. And for that he tended to call me “the Queen of small details”

And in a sense, I was.

I was aware of every little thing that ever happened, I remembered everything in every sense, people were not just people, they were smells,features,smiles, clothes and words.

And I always remembered all these details.

Life went on, I was no longer in love, no longer sheltered, no longer dependant, the one thing that never failed me in this world was my ability to remember detail.

But lately I have been growing tired, the queen simply no longer wanted to reign detail.

I wanted to abdicate the throne.

I wanted to just flow through life. I wanted to start a clean slate of my perception of life.

You see, the thing is I was not the one ruling small details, small details were the one in charge.

Small details dictated my feelings and actions. And I went through life following whatever these small details.

Mind you, they come quite handy sometimes, I see things in people others can’t, that was my edge.

That was what created the script writer, the novelist, the story teller that I am today.

I am thankful for small details, they were very loyal subjects to me.

But I am 27 years old, and I have yet to find my big picture, I do not know what big picture. I can describe every little scene in my life in every detail there is.

But I don’t know what big pictures are.

I don’t know where I fit in as,a small detail, in the big canvas that is life.

Now what?

Death, The Tower ,The Hermit and Myself.

I think I was 18 when I was first introduced to my psychic abilities...when I was younger I used to foresee bad things happening to people but not to me (damn..nothing is ever perfect) . Then a good friend of mine introduced me to the Tarot cards.

For all of you non-metaphysical people out there,Tarot cards have been used for ages to tell fortunes and predict the future as well as telling the reader things about themselves.

So I learned all the card spreads,read all the books,bought the cards and set out for wonderful experience of learning about myself and others in the process.

What I started as a joke came out to bite me where the sun don't shine.

What I said to people was true so I started having cult followers in my family and friends.

people started suggesting I even should get paid for it and I therefore created one rule.

no predicting the future.just reminding the "client" of how they are and how they should relate to themselves and needs later on in life. But that didn't meant that 99% of the time I saw ugly things I just didn't want to say to the people I loved.

still I am beginning to feel awful,having the talent is wonderful but not when I break someone's heart by saying that their loved one IS not there for them.

You see,I can see the future and the future is never fully lit by sunshine and I hate to be the one pointing out the gloom.

say what you will about people who see the future but If I have a 50% chance of being true and someone just says "you were right,he was cheating on me " or "you were right,she did leave after all".

I feel then that I have added pain on top of pain,not only will that person suffer now,they will forever remember that they had known earlier and should have done something to prevent it.

Today i have ventured and lay the cards for myself -usually means bad luck but in my case I could not be more unlucky even if i tried.

And i saw him.
I saw myself weeping.
I could hear my heart breaking.
I could see him moving on.
I saw him thinking of me wondering about what could have happened.
And I saw his confusion.
I also saw my inner strength.
My charm,All my possibilities.

In the end I saw the card of Death and the Tower and the Hermit.

Death is the card of loss and new beginnings

The Tower is the card of Disillusion,Revelation and realizing hidden truths.

The Hermit is the card of Solitude .

for the first time I didn't dare ask myself for the meaning.

for I am afraid of being right.

An Ode To Hope

I apologize for the inconvenience I am about to bring you.

But this is not about you.

It is about me.

I am getting back on track.

I admit it.

I am loving it.

I love the creativeness, the flow of things I have always loved about myself.

I love the fact that I have come to see things as they truly are and should be.

But I have reached the end of my Rope.

I have no hope anymore.

I had hoped you would change.

That you would come to realize how much I mean to you.

That I would be the one to move on and that you would strive to reach me before it is too late.

But you are too smart for that.

You choose your moments.

You know exactly my weak points.

And then you go for them.

And my hope gets the best of me all over again.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love, something
to do, and something to hope for

Well,

I have found my calling at last.

I know how hard it is going to be,

But I am going for it.

I have something to do.

I have more than one person to love and be loved by.

But I have to come out and say it.

You have taken my something to hope for.

And instead of my series of apologies. I will thank you.

For teaching me that living only on hope is a last solution.

And I still have many options other than hope.

After all, the best is not yet to come.

The best is yet for me to bring.

And believe me, I will bring it.

For you should never mess with someone who has no hope.

And dear Hope ,go bite the dust.

You never brought anything anyway.

انا مش بنت عذراء

في يوم من ذوات الايام.....كنت فاضية شويتين فقررت اقرأجريدة معارضة شهيرة على سبيل التغيير.

وطالعني (حلوة طالعني دي) خبر لطيف جدا نبهني لحاجة عمري ماخدت بالي منها قبل كده.

الخبر كان عنوانه "فتاة تعرض بكارتها للبيع بخمسة ملايين دولار"

طالبة امريكية قررت تبيع السهم الوحيد اللي ليه قيمة في حياتها عشان تصرف على دراستها.

وبما ان الانسة محترمة وضميرها صاحي قررت تضيف شهادة معتمدة من طبيب نساء وولادة محترم يشهد فيه انها لم يسبق لها ممارسة الجنس وان غشاء بكارتها زي الفل ولم يتم ترميمه او تجديده او الاضافة اليه.

وعرض رجل اعمال استرالي تقديم خمسة ملايين دولار امريكي مقابل هذا الشرف العظيم.

انا بس عندي كام سؤال.

انا بنت عندي 26 سنة ومتعلمة ومثقفة وحلوة ومحترمة ودمي خفيف وكل حاجة. وعذراء.

والحمد لله قابلت اكثر من حد عبر عن اعجابه بيا وبشخصيتي وده طبعا قبل اعلان "خليك راجل واشرب بريل"

سيبك من انا عندي دين وضمير ووعدت اهلي اني احافظ على نفسي عشان ابن المحظوظة اللي حيجي يشيل.
وسيبك من الازمة الاقتصادية الطاحنة اللي بتخلي الناس تبيع ولادها.
مش دي القضية.
انا بس صعبان عليا نفسي وصعبان عليا بنات جيلي والجيل اللي قبلي كمان.
اشمعني احنا بنقعد ندور على حد يقدر هذا السهم بس ويحترمه ويحترمنا بالمرة.
طيب مهو كلنا محافظين على عذريتنا بس بنضطر نستحمل الفصال في مشاريع الجواز واخرة اي واحدة فينا شبكة ذهب (واحيانا دبلة بس) ومهر اهالينا حيدفعوا اضعافه عشان يجيبوا مستلزمات هذا الحدث العالمي من مراتب وفوط وملايات وستاير وخلافه.
طيب حيقولوا ان الحكاية في بلاد الغرب بقت نادرة مما يرفع من قيمة سهم العذرية.
جميل.
ليه السهم ده ملوش معالم في مصر.
يشترط وجوده برغم ان الصفقة كلها غالبا مبتجيبش همها.
هو اصلا دليل على ايه؟
لازمته ايه؟
يعني من الاخر الرجل بيقعد يتنطط ويشترط عذرية الجاموسة الي جاي يشتريها لكن وبعدين مهو اخره كام يعني....100 الف جنيه...
مش لاعبة.
انا مش اقل منها في حاجة...بالعكس على الاقل اي بنت مصرية محترمة مش حتقدم غشاء بكارتها بس.

طب اشمعنى.
ليه هناك حتى حكاية العذرية دي بتتقدر واحنا هنا بنقدم حاجات كتير ومش حتتقدر خالص على الاغلب.
طب انا مش لاعبة.
انا مش حقيسها بالحب والعشرة وبس.

 انا ابويا صرف عليا كتير قوي ومش فلوس بس. صرف عليا حب وحنية واحترام. احترمني كانثى ليها دماغها ومشاعرها وحقوقها. علمني اشغل دماغي عشان مخدش على دماغي.
وانا الصراحة مش عاجبني ان حتى الحاجة الوحيدة اللي الزوجة الكويسة بتتباع بيها هنا ببتاخد عندنا بالرخيص.
انا مش حتباع بالرخيص. وحرفض ان فكرة عذريتي تتناقش اصلا.
من هنا ورايح الرد الوحيد حيبقى "انت مالك؟ "
انا غالية اوي.
لان المصنع اللي انتجني مش اي مصنع وصاحب الشركة مبخلش على المنتج اللي طلعه وطلعه منتج زي الفل.

انا مش سهم واحد بس . انا مش شوية دم وخلاص.

انا بيت واستقرار وحب وعشرة وعيال وحاستحمل فقر وبهدلة وقلة ذوق وقلة قيمة وكل حاجة.

حاكبر وحاعلم وحاستحمل افكار غريبة وحموات اغرب.
حيتحول يومي الى 20 ساعة عمل متواصل بين شغلي وبيتي بالاضافة الى إسعاد تاجر المواشي اللي جه شال ببلاش تقريبا.

انا مش بنت عذراء بس. وشرفي مش نقطتين دم. انا شرفي في اخلاقي وطباعي وديني. في البيت اللي حبنيه واحافظ عليه وشرف ابويا في ان مفيش راجل لمسني حتى لو بحبه. شرف ابويا واللي حيتجوزني هو اللي بيخليني اسافر واشتغل وهو ينام وفي بطنه بطيخه صيفي.

طيب....ايه رأيكو بقى ان من هنا ورايح انا برضه حأطالب بحاجات في البني ادم اللي حيشيل.

انا عايزة دليل على شرفه.

عايزة اعرف ان عمره ملمس واحدة مش مراته حتى لو هي موافقة. وان عمره ما فضح سر واحدة وعمره محكم على واحدة من لبسها او مشيتها او تغطيتها لشعرها بس.

عايزة اعرف ان عمري ماحكون نايمة في بيتي وهو بره مع واحدة تانية.

الحكاية بسيطة...مشيها بنظام البورصة.
سهمي الوحيد مش عذريتي. انا عندي اسهم كتير قوي.
بيت واهل وثقافة وسمعة وتعليم وشغل وخبرة في الحياة وقادرة اني احب واتحب وقادرة اني افتح بيت واربي بنات عذراوات بجد اعلمهم يرفضوا يتباعوا على انهم سهم في بورصة حقيرة محصلتش حتى CASE 30.

من الاخر. مش احنا في ثورة وازمة اقتصادية وظروف منيلة وبتاع؟

انا بقى مش بايعة. وحوقف تداولي في السوق لغاية ما السوق يتعدل.
اسهمي وانا حرة فيها.

Just an Observation

7:50 am

I wake up,groggy from the sleepless night and weakened by the pill popping.

I wash my face, I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize me anymore.

I don’t care.

I wear whatever is clean, I pick my bag, take the elevator, Said, the new doorman, smiles and says goodmorning. I mumble something in the same context and head for the cab.

There is always a begger around the corner, in 12 years, she has been there and I have never given her money, I have always felt she is a professional one and I don’t feel right about giving money to her kind.

The Nile meets me with its still water , I always look the other way, no reason, just an observation.

Before I reach the Moneeb bridge, there is the HSBC new building, a group of Koreans are always walking inside the building, three guys and one girl, why on earth would we be hiring Asians when we have this rate of unemployment is beyond me, no reason, just an observation.

Two blocks down, a young woman is always getting into her car, she always wears short skirts, she has ugly hairy legs, I know this for a fact because the wind always blows her skirt up, she never seems to mind, I can’t find a reason, it is just an observation.

There is a bridal shop right beneath the bridge, It has beautiful dresses, the window display is changed every day, the theme is usually one color, I make a point to see the display every day, it is something that makes me smile, no reason, just an observation.

When I reach the building at work, I always arrive at around 8:30, I always wait for the elevator with a man who always looks me up and down in disgust, and he always steps into the other elevator or wait for the next one, I always get into the elevator smiling at his attitude, no reason, just an observation.

Eight hours of laughter, arguments and work will pass, on the ride home, I will be looking at miserable looking people trying to catch a ride home, I will be thankful for getting back to maadi, I smile when I see the nile again and I observe its water all the way home, again, no reason, just an observation.

My mum always smiles with relief when I walk in, then she tells me every single little thing that has happened when I was not there, it always irritates me, she never ceases, I never complain, I smile and I go to my room, no reason, just smiling.

I will go to my favorite café, I will play tarneeb and drink coffee, I will go to the doctor (one of them anyways), I will go home tired, and I will always stand at my building’s entrance for a moment ,at 10 pm every night, I take in a deep breath, wish my beloved trees good night, no reason ,just an observation.

I will get into bed, take my antibiotic du jour, my anti depressant du jour and my pain killer du jour, I read for 20 minutes, write for another twenty. Then sleep dreamlessly. I always do that, no reason, just an observation.

For no reason I will wake up at 3:15 and again at 6:03, no reason, just an observation.

Here is the thing, at all these moments, I always think of you, just your face.

No reason, Just an observation.