Noseless Portraits

I feel like something has been stolen from me
After 23 years of ownership
Lots of things has been torn away from my clutch
But none were mine to begin with
So I didn't mind
Much
Perhaps you wouldn't understand
Not if you do this for popularity
Or fun
Not even if you do this to earn a living
This is part of who I am, sir
As soothing to me as Aspirin when I'm seized with a migraine

Because the first thing I ever scribbled wasn't a letter

And when there is no pencil within reach
I'd slide my fingers in the air like a maniac, and let my senses preach

I was told that I can't draw people with faces because it's a sin
But I wasn't trying to play God
I don't think that was my real intention
Because I've been doing it ever since i used to draw girls with long skirts
And their bent knees would still stick from underneath
The thought never crossed my mind
So over the years I learnt to make them more alive with every stroke
And I'd think of adding a dent in the chin here and a knot of a brow there
A perfect, tender half blink of an eye
To sort of give them a curious temper
So that if they were alive, and their pupils would burn like ember
They would talk to me
Whisper to me their amiable thanks
And listen to my whimpers when i'm sad
How would my naive heart, enveloped with loneliness
Ever know
That humans are not to try to make dead things lope around
When all I wanted was to make a friend or two

I sealed away my sketchbook since then
Rubbed off their features
Their smiles ,and their dilated eyes
They look so hideous, incomplete portraits of doltish phizes
Absent and conformed, eerie and malformed
I don't miss them anymore,they were a mere creation of my hands
And I got older and learnt that had I to deal with sundry humans
With burning pupils, and faces wrinkled and pimpled
But I miss with an insatiable hunger

How i felt when i made them

Try to picture all the time and grit, all the wasted motions and sweat
I invested in getting the right shade
Depicting the kinda smile I saw in my head
Sharpening the pencil every time it's dulled
And the smell of the dark smudges on my finger tips
The vexation at the faded blotches of black on my rubber
And the base of my palm
And a whole day of depression and anxiety
An entire decade of existential uncertainty
Is breathed away into a prognathous collection of curves and edges
It is so torturous
To mentally slap my hand before it reaches for a pencil, before questioning my motives
How mortified i am
When i find one carved on my disk when I don't remember when i made it
How I tremble in despair
When i recall

All the ones i made throughout the years, that I can't trace them back to erase their faces

And i can't throw away a pile of dusty papers perfumed with my sighs
I can't burn the minute threads of my feels blending with the fiber of the darkened papers
I can't bury them, It's like burying my soul along

I can't look at them

They remind me of how incomplete I feel

I've lost my zeal now, and I'm a nose-less persona
Just like these forsaken pictures

Dear God, please forgive me

I'm trying so hard ,but this is so difficult
Dear God, please forgive me
I'll do this for you, while muffling the grunts of regret
But this is more painful than anything
I've experienced in my entire life
It feels like my skin was ripped off my limbs
Like my heart was gouged out my chest without anesthesia
And my body is too shocked to bleed just yet

Dear God,
All my life i didn't know who i was
And I found myself in these invented strangers
I have nothing else
Nothingness is growing inside of me
Feeding off my soul
Until it swallows me whole

Dear God,
Please
Help me
Fill this void with a predilection as sapid
As absorbing
As endearing

Dear God,

Poetry is all I've got left

Rage

"Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born."
-Fyodor Dostoyevky

I know what is happening

It is not the pricks of the edges of my broken heart trying to pierce through my flesh
These sharp tremors I can vividly sense
They are the scratches of regret on the lineaments of my vanity
I know the reason I didn't as yet take notice
My heart , it seems , have received a ringing slap on the face
It had to stop and inspect itself for glitches
It pined a bit, it seems, my heart , but it is still pumping just fine

It's pumping ,and I'm fine

Did ya know ? We ,humans, are unbreakable , unless we want to
We were made that way
But our intrinsic tendency for laceration leaves a sweet tinge on one'es tongue
When we torment our souls; flog them by the whips of agony
Bind them by the chains of despair in the dungeons of gloom
Weight them by a few pounds of depression
And self-rejection
One would think in their darkest moments that nothing matters anymore
Nothing matters if I lost this one person
Nothing and no one matters ,I might as well just go ahead and die
But I need to pass on in a theatrical fashion
Seize the last whack I have to rub their sin on their face with a scoffing grin
Of disdain

Except that, they wouldn't look back to see your final display

Of shame

See, this shame
Regret
Solitude
And dismay

Together, are the greatest preachers of all times
In the still of the night, they conferred, they stirred my head like water flowed for the first time in a groove dried up for centuries
And I woke up to the obvious truth :

Investing all your feels on someone else that doesn't live in your flesh is the height of foolishness

Why do you have to blow out your candles to let theirs live on?
Why do you have to fall on your face into the pits of melancholy
And let them insolently stride on the back of Your Highness?
And why do you have to embrace their offense as if it is your imperfections that made them
Leave?

We are born free
Yet we go out of our ways to seek the bondage of our hearts
Servitude comes in all shapes and sizes, mind you
Perhaps
All it takes is getting hit with the ruthless momentum of reality
To your awakening

Just let your feet loose
Run like a mad goose
Never turn to look back
Run, my dear child, in the opposite direction
And thou shalt clasp your sweet freedom, and glad redemption

Now that i look at the greater picture I realize
The reason I thought the blow to my heart this time has caused a serious wear is that I've had a lugubrious year
At a closer inspection, i found that what I felt was merely the acidic spit of betrayal gnawing through my countenance
I caught sight of my injured pride timidly peering from beyond a curtain ,wary of another baseless beating

And I touched the blazing ashes of my charred passion
Saw the last of the flickering embers rising to my inner skies
Joining the lot of the fireflies zealously doing maintenance work
Torching my tortured person like a thousand splendid suns
When i close my eyes and listen
It's not sobs and wails that reach the ears of my soul
It's the muffled roars of the lioness trapped within my ribs 

Cowardly slashed in her captivity
Licking her wounds

Before she unleashes 

The entirety of her rage

You
Cannot
Kill this

You
Will not
Bury this

I
Will rise
From the ashes
And thou shalt witness
The grandeur of my
Resurrection

She Said That The Light Has Gone From My Eyes

Last year, I missed the raining season
I was away, and it didn't rain there
It was a great source of distress for me, looking in anticipation
At the ashen sky, scrubbed of every white blotch
I dare say, it's the reason I'm still feeling a bit odd
As if I developed a mild botch in my chest
Towards the left side
Rain doesn't only have poetic connotations for me
It's much more than that
It's a sort of a affirmation of my purity, as strange as that may sound to you
Being drenched in the rain makes me euphoric
Drunken with the spirit of ecstasy, floating in a state of bliss
Because.. Well,

It means that i'm included in God's mercy

Sometimes, I feel that i'm losing my connection to God
The string of lambency I was desperately holding unto
Has slipped from my fingers and blended with the murky ground
And I feel that the light has gone from my eyes
That colors have faded from everything around
It's true, whoever knows me well, would realize
That i'm going through a phase of which I can't tell
They could read it all on my face
The ferocious battles happening in my being
When my lips are sealed tight
And I wake up, quite late
On my degraded state and try to fix things
When I remember that God is the Ultimate Planner
That i'm a mere human that doesn't get to design their fate
And as much as I try to remind myself that i need to be polite in my frustration
It takes a great might
When you are mercilessly hit multiple times by life
At the time of your greatest weakness and desolation

See, I'm not a strong person

Still am
If I wasn't a Muslim I don't think I could've pulled it together this far
If I didn't believe, I would have abandoned the spar midway
Because I'm not a strong person and i couldn't have won against
THIS
And I wasn't ashamed in finding that out
Nor the fact that I'm saying it out loud
My only shame was looking for strength in the wrong direction
When I knew well, that when everyone leaves,
God remains
When your heart falls and breaks into pieces
The love of God will mend it
This emptiness you feel, can be filled to the brim
And overflow when you stop craving the love of mortals
And submit your heart to The Immortal

O God  ,forgive me,

I know Thou haven't forsaken me
I know I can find the way in this darkness if I close my eyes and pray
I don't need to find that lost string
Because true illumination comes
From within
And i pray hard for forgiveness and to be cleansed from my sins
While waiting for a sign that it has been granted
I look for signs despite the haze of my vision
I look for signs on my face, though bone-tired and age-stricken
I check if the light in my eyes is back
If i'm able to smile without severing the crack
I look at the creation of my trembling hands
My interactions, my poetry, my paintings ,and stands
And see if they reflect my heart yet
I look at heavens
Waiting for rain drops to wash the filth of doubts away
And drain it beneath the soil
And I'm hoping that it never ceases to rain in my soul
Despite the constant change of seasons

تساؤلات ما بعد منتصف الليل

أنا لا أشرب القهوة

لكن فكري بعد منتصف الليل يقظ كمدينة من العالم الأول
 يغفو قليلاُ عندما يبدوالقمر

ويضيء كاليراعة كلما ازدادت عتمة الليل
قبيل ميلاد الفجر

كثير من التساؤلات مكتظة في رأسي

والأجوبة
هائمة في غيوم من التأملات الفانية
هل حدث ان توقفت مفكراً

وأنت تتلذذ بتناول التناقضات مع شاي الظهيرة
والفتات الصغيرة تتناثر على حجرك ك نشارة خشب واهية
لا يمكنك نفضها لأنها بضيعات منك
لكنك لا ترف عندما يذروها النسيم
أشياء غريبة تحدث

على امتداد يوم في رأسك الهيولي

أشواط متتالية من الإفتنان والكراهية
والضحية فرد من قبيلة الغرباء
ذوي الوجوه المبهمة
معركة حامية بين الصلاح والعتاهية
على روحك العذراء
و فكرك الخاوي كبيداء أثكلتها أمواج عاتية
من زخم الهموم
من ثم انفجار مدوٍ من السكون
في قفر كان يوماً واحة غناء

أوليس من الغرابة

أن تنظر إلى مرآة قلبك

وألا تستنكر رؤية أجنبي
ذي وجوه متعددة و تعابير متقلبة
أن تتقوقع على ذاتك
ضائعاً بين ان تكون أو لا تكون
الآن أو غدأً ..أو بعد حين
متسائلاً إذا ما كنت في حياة سابقة
الفصل الناقص من رواية البؤساء

إن كنت ساهراً تقرأ هذه الأسطر تحت نور القمر
ف اسمك لا يهمني
فأنت رفيقي إن كنت مسامراً لسلطان الليل الكتوم
أينما كنت على وجه البسيطة ، لا يضيرني
فنحن نلتقي بين الفين والفين
في أثير الحالمين
فاسمح لي بأن أناديك صديقي

يا صديقي

هل من المنطق أن تفترش بساط القناعة
عن استسلام و واقعية
ريثما تستتر بكتّان الحنين
 إلى ما لا تطوله من اتساع الكون

هل هو يا ترى استعراض للشجاعة

أن تقهقه في طغيان العاصفة
أم هو آخر مرحلة من الجنون
و هل هو من مظاهر الكبر ، ام فن من الفنون
أن تجمع الكلمات العائمة من بحيرات الصمت في النهار
وأن تنفض بنات أفكارك مزدانة بالمفردات في المساء
على صفحات الصَّبا
ك وريقات إحدى شيوخ الزيزفون
هل من البشاعة أن تقيّد من تحب
بحنكة و براعة
بعد أن جعلت منه وطناً
و هل من القنوط أن تؤمن
بأن الموت ذبيح الحياة ليس فيه شيء من الإراعة
بل هو بالأحرى من أنواع البطولة
إنه الفوز
حمل و قد أزيح عن كاهلي
قد نلت المنى
وارتحت من جهاد العيش ومن ثقل البلية
إلى سلام المنيّة الأبديّ
دون أن أدمي يديّ
و قد رميت حمل ما أذنبت في دنياي من على عاتقي
إلى ظهور قاتليّ

صديقي

هل غفوت  في مهد من النسيان ؟
و تركتني ارتشف أنوار النجوم
ك شراب من الكهرمان المصفى
يروي مقلتيّ

ليس لي
سوى أمي الحنون
هي الأخرى هائمة في سديم من السلوان

أمي حبيبتي

أمّاه

أماه ، أرجوك لا تذرفي الدمع عندما تسمعين اعترافي
قد علّمتني أن أحب الحياة من صغري
وقد أحببت الحياة ، في حلي وفي سفري
صدقاً
لقد أحببت الحياة وهلة
يوماً
عاماً
ثم عقداً
 رغم أني لم استطع إليها السبيل
أماه اقسم أني لا زلت أحاول
و لكني
أرى في الرحيل راحة من هذا البؤس النبيل
أمّاه
 استيقظي و اسمعيني
ف لم يؤنسني زائر الغفلة عند المقيل
و لا في هذا المساء الطويل

أمّاه

هل أنا على ما يرام ؟

I Don't Know What To Call This ,Really

But I'll try to paint the picture for you :

A moldy bench facing the sea
The city lights bullying the stars into leaving the scene
And the moon cowering behind the giants
No, they are just old buildings we grew tired of  minding
So they willingly faded into the background
I'm sitting on the bench
I'm looking at the void
I don't turn to see your expression
While I blurt
What I've kept in the bottle for too long

You asked me countless times to write a poem about you
"That's just gay.", I'd retort
Before I bite my tongue lest the rest of it slips :
"I can't write an abridged poem of what I want to say
When it amounts to hefty volumes"
And this is not a poem about you, anyway
It is not a poem about our thing -our weird friendship, either
This is about how I feel when I talk
And you listen
Because I never talk, while people listen
That is, talk freely without expecting an interruption to hijack the plane
Rarely do I get to say what's really on my mind
Dig up the things I sunk to the bottom of the muddy pond
Dexterously hidden beneath a reflection of a sullen moon
See, I treat my thoughts like vintage
That's too expensive to pop open at soirees of buffoonery
I speak Triviality most of the time
Because that's the common tongue around here
I speak Triviality, because nonsense is cheap
And you don't have to dig deep
To get hold of some nonsense to please the ears and pass the time

But ,you and I,
When we first exhausted our resources of the conventional
And it was time I got bored of pretending to enjoy our conversational frivolity
I turned to you and I spat some sensible nonsense that I thought
Would get past your security check and join the rest unnoticed
But you raised your brows in your usual incredulity
And I realized,
That you think...in Mandarin as well
Oh, my God

Words I don't remember where i learnt,
Come out on their own, when we talk
Thoughts my mind ruled as junk and swept under the rug
I soon forgot they existed
Come out of their hiding place, when we talk
And I prate till the candles of my zeal are entirely burnt
Words come out on their own
And they spring from honesty, for a change
It sounds like the nonsense that I usually write and nobody reads
Inordinate metaphors and unceremonious rhymes
Because, the only time i'm completely honest is when my pen does the talking
So I try not to look at your face when I mount the tribune
And recite the rhapsodies flowing like Niagra Falls
In ancient Mandarin, that I thought was long extinct
I don't pretend to be ideal
I don't try to be civil
I don't try to sound cool, nor to be poetic smart-ass
I don't aim for your assent
Nor for a hassle to prove a point, because at that instant,

I'm too elated by the fact that you actually get what i'm talking about

You told me once that we are "too similar yet, too different at the same time"
As absurd as that sounds, I still remember that peculiar statement
Because somehow I could relate
We are irrevocably,
Acutely,
Haplessly
And helplessly missed up
But in our own ways

No, the expression is elegantly chaotic
I get to be an elegant lump of chaos to my heart's content with you
And I'm glad there aren't many people like you around
That would suck the fun out of our narcotic conversations

So, my friend, thanks God for YOU

The Duchess Of Small Things

Nocturne ,Number 1 ,Opus 9

I remember the scent of the very first woman that held me

Her sighs were perfumed with boundless affection ,and the Toab thrown on her warm shoulder smelt like a mix of Acacia and baby powder

I remember the grin on my dad's obscure face when he held me tight as I got my ears pierced

And I remember him teaching me how to read when I was four

Singing in a melodic voice while tracing the vague letters

"Hal Tamorro Be Daeqaten Maleyaten Ya Joha~" (Do you need to borrow money, Joha ?)

I remember the smell of Sesame candy mom used to make when we were home alone

How it burnt my fingers when i'd sneak to taste one before lunch

I remember how I felt tenderness slowly seeping through the pores of my heart replacing the stains of resentment towards my new born sister

When she extended her hands from her crib with a smile drooling innocence and trust

I remember how we assembled a kite and flew it together, when she got a bit older

She , barely supporting our treasure and I

Running barefoot on the path that became now a school driveway

I remember when i would wait for the bakery guy with missing front teeth coming after prayer bearing the wonders from Sugar Land

When it used to rain for a week at length and the low field in our hood would fill to the brim we could sail on a rubber boat to reach for the candy shop around the corner

I remember when I struggled to keep my balance on a bicycle to the fading rhythm of my father's cheers

Thinking that he was pushing me the whole time, as i pressed further

I remember the exhilaration of triumph that diverted me from looking back to see if he was there

He wasn't

I remember how I met my very first friend while standing in row for Art class

How my two Arabic teachers would argue on where I should situate the circle of the letter "م" Above or under the line

I remember when i stood in awe facing a grand book shelf for the first time, and my dad walking over and handing me Flowers For Mrs Harris

I remember when i received my first flower

And my first crush on an older classmate

My first attempt at cooking and the miserably ruined pan that mom didn't throw away

I remember when I found God

And when i was told that I was "destined for great things"

How I looked for my parents in a sea of hundreds in a standing ovation

When I got my first excellence certification

I remember The Bachelorettes Karak nights at the dorms and the scrawny dinners

Sitting ,knee-bent ,on a rug because we were too broke to buy a dining set

The beach talks in warm nights, laying on the soft grains, light in color and weight like our dreams

And hearts

I remember when i was first called beautiful by a stranger

And when i thought that I found my lost soul mate

The first time i got my heart broken, and the first time I felt utterly lost in the turbulent blue of despair when I vehemently attempted to swim against the flow

But started to drown

Deeper

And deeper

Looking at that savior straw bobbing beneath the glow of the sun

I remember the chill of throe in my heart when i was still ablaze and alive

As I vividly remember the first time when I realized how strong I really was

How I could handle any blow with grace, how my mother's lap was my safe haven

And the warm ,warm smile on her face

Was my true savior

When I look back, I see a life well-spent already

I see diamonds scattered in the skies of my memory

Glittering blisters of joy people dust under the rug because they are too old to be worn

But I gathered my precious stones and shall keep them close to my heart

When I look back, it doesn't matter what lies ahead anymore

See, they might be small, the blocks we are made of

But they are what makes us whole

The Duchess Of Small Things II

Ever wondered why , for the life of you

Were you blessed with a wide-eyed consciousness
That never misses the faintest traces of a detail?
Knowing too much is never a bliss
And I sure don't remember asking for this
It is so exhausting
To lose yourself before a grand painting
To submit your grasp to the sensual gropes of feels
Or catch the swift bob of the dress of a lie, passing through someone's eyes
Baring your own skin while peeping at someone else's insecurities
Daring them to shame you the way you shamed them in your mind
It is so consuming
To be an expert in translating the language of uncertain lips
Being a receptive person that assigns a meaning to every corporal link
And learns the hidden volumes recited by unheedful blinks
Devoting solicitous metaphors to the living
And gladsome hallows to the dead
It is so alluring
Yet so abhorring
To be so utterly conscious of your grave disparity
It sows the seeds of vanity in your heart
Already plowed by the sheer enmity of self-acceptance
And the undying need to blend in