allthempledges

[allthempledges]

She sighed and straightened, for once not bothering to deny before answering me affirmative, "I am battling myself from jumping on the feeling. I feel as though I were trying to remove myself from quicksand."

She would be foolish to deny, after all, that this was all that busied her, all that she never had a taste of. All she ever only imagined and never gotten beyond imagining. In terms of reserve, hers was fickle. Quite frankly, a joke. She battled against it like an adult climbing a descending escalator, only feigning ignorance of consequences as to not bear the weight of the possible failure of her true endeavour.

The need didn't feel like need, it felt like an organ; permanent and functioning- integrated and here to stay. Isn't desire always the same, whether the object is present or absent? Isn't desire still the same? But that in itself was unproblematic. It was, eventually, who she was: Highly Sensitive and Emotional.

What were problematic were her ways in life. Safe might it be to say that they were uncoordinated and disgustingly out of sync with the tenderness of how she felt on the regular. She dealt with that piece of information as duly noted and discarded soon after.

Contradictions felt more like the elephant on her back rather than a distant notion slightly attached to her life. Logic escaped personal possibilities. She was alternating betwen sad, disgusted, and angry with herself. It was easy to be delightful with anyone that wasn't herself, however.

[allthempledges]

On the tips of my toes, I approach what is unapologetic. Steady with excited admiration and with faulty footsteps of wariness of the unknown. Like most things that clear up more space in life to explore, I find myself on almost patterned intervals of joy, scarce sharpness of mind, hollowing raging, accepted disappointment, and once again, steady advancement ripped off of the ragged walls of creation.

Sometimes, a hand would hold mine and with it, I feel my heart grow lighter in weight. Most other times my heart weighs a thousand of its same. At the lowest of lows, though, you could stretch a hand inside and it would land on nothing but the thickness of the darkness. A joke would fall to the ground with a thud and my footsteps would carve memories on the ground that ought to be cleared.

Spring arrives and shy sprouts of blossom do just that: they blossom. Against my stern glare at them, they grow and I soften with the passing of the seasons. Days of flashbacks are inevitable, but the waves are mighty God. In the midst of my being dragged along the unknown, the frown plastered on my temple emanates an air of determination. Or is it false devotion to believing that the world has an agenda against me? My temple aches and I bury it every night into a pillow stuffed with my secrets that all speak collectively of tiredness. I fall asleep before I make sense of the sound that eats at me.

"Do you not think you're adamant on victimizing yourself? If life wanted you gone, you'd have been long forgotten by now." To be frank, I'm quite frustrated with people making sense in ways that contradict the reason to my very ways, but maybe because I had an extra toast for breakfast that day, I sit on that thought and ponder.

For the coming three weeks I draw a plan for life, because the life for which I draw this plan is so foreign to me that sketching down the plot is necessary and essential. I was ununsed to Little Nice Things. I wasn't going to act if it weren't plotted ahead. So this road map was my way to kiss the sun good morning and actively, be. For the next three weeks I would minus one cursed act at a time and accept one fateful sign after the next, until I grew a habit of it all and before I knew it, I was dipping my feet in the soft sand of my Mideterranean Sea shore, and with softer steps, approching the chilled waters to tell the story of a life that has imposed itself on me, yet this time made me more tender, more patient, more present; one that isn't angry at the future.

The sun kisses me back between my shoulders and the feel of my heart is fizzy, but just right.

[allthempledges]

بثقل قلبي وحرقة ما وراء جفناي، أروِ تسلسل الأذى على مدى ثلاثة وعشرون عاماً، تتبلور فيهم العادة وتستحكم من متقنيها. ما طلبت ذاك وأرفض أن يُكتب علي مصير قبيح كهذا. أرفضه بسهولة الثائرين ولكن ماذا أفعل بشعور الذنب؟ ماذا وإن كانت العبرة حقاً بالنهايات وليس بتسلسل القصة كاملة؟ أأخسر رصيد عمرٍ من التحمل والكتمان لألام أمام لحظة طلبي للحق؟ لما هو طيب وليس بخبيث؟ قد أكون مخطئة ولكني أثق بأن نيتي تحمل الخير لا الخوف، العدل لا الأذي ولا حتى القصاص. أمري بيد الله. ولكن اخراج نفسك من عقدة الأذى تترك وراءك فُتات الشعور بالذنب الذي سيلازمك مدى حياتك. أرهقت كون طلبي حتى لأقل ما يمكن طلبه، العدل، النفس غير اللوامة، حجة وصمي بالخيانة والفجر.

صرت لا ��عرف العفوية لإنها ليست مفهومة ولا مكان لها في عرفهم. صرت باهتة الطباع لأنها كلها محفورة في الزمن، وقبيحة. صرت بينهم لا منهم. صرت أتوق للعيش الرغد، الذي هو في عقلي، بسيط، حر، وغير ظالم.

[allthempledges]

Written on October 2nd 2017.

About four years ago, I fainted alone in the middle of the night while my parents slept in the room not a meter away from where I was, and I still woke up and supported myself to the nearest couch. A few weeks ago, I fainted again and woke up to my parents' screams. Both times it started with heartache. Moral of the story is I woke up both times. The second time I even knew the sequence; a little heartache, extremely high blood pressure, vision blacks out, I faint, and I wake up very limp for about half an hour, and then life is normal again. When my father woke up with a heartache at around 2 AM on the 23rd of September 2017, he fainted in my mom's arms and I held him for the longest time in my arms, waiting for him to go over the same scenario as I did. I waited for him to wake up, I shook him, I tilted his head, I laid him on his side. Until at one point he let out a very harsh breath, which my false hope had me thinking for about five minutes afterwards that he was trying to catch his breath, wake up; while in fact that was his final breath.

I knew he was dead and I still waited for him to wake up. I saw the paramedics try and revive him and I waited for him to cough or move a limb. I saw my mom spend the night at the side of his head after he was pronounced dead and I couldn't look at him for long because that face hasn't ever been so emotionless to me, I was waiting for a crease of his brow, a movement of his mouth; anything. But I did know he was dead.

Baba was a big man, he would fill the door frame. He had very big hands and an awfully expressive face, he would radiate the emotion he was having because how intimidating or joyous he used to be. The sound of him opening a door used to make me sit straight. I absolutely hated when he tickled me but I smiled because he was in a good mood, despite of me asking him not to tickle me almost every time over the years. So the most surreal image to me is my limp father in my arms, refusing to respond, refusing to blink or move. It was not my father. You felt my father in your surrouning.

I was waiting, and I am still waiting a week later for this episode to end. My friends say it's denial but the man died in my hands, I knew he was dead when he died. I just don't like it, I can't comprehend the fact that he is no more.

The last thing my father bought me was omani sweets. It was a dull day during my mom's exhibition and he came and took me by the hand to a neighbouring booth to taste from a variety of flavours and choose. I had a rigid face the whole day that day but when I was tasting it I wore a smile akin to the sun. And he, too, was happy. So yesterday when my aunt fed me a spoonful of it, I cried. I hadn't cried enough. I know I didn't cry enough. My friends tell me people have different ways of expressing grief, but mine still is good old tears. It hit me today in class. It hit me today before prayer. It hit me when I rememeber how I had to arrange a friend to tell my brothers. It hit me when I hugged uncle Mahmoud Eissa at the airport. It hit me when I talked to Sawsan's dad. It hit me when I realised that the man that arranged for baba's body to travel home the same day he died was a man he never knew in his life, and was a man that only wanted to help. It hit me when I hugged tante Nemet although it was my first time meeting her in the funeral; I never knew her before that. It hit me when I hugged Samah, I hit me when I saw my brothers cry after having buried him. It hit me when I saw Youssef cry as if he had lost his own father.

I cried little episodes at the most random timings, but I did not cry when he died in my arms, I did not cry when mom was in shock after they pronounced him dead. I still feel tense and disoriented. I still feel lacking and I still feel like I'm betraying some unspoken rule when I laugh with someone.

I think I know he's good an okay now because every time I switch on the radio there's a verse on God's mercy on the dead, on doing prayers for the dead, on the heaven they see. I think he's good because seeing his bed and gathering his clothes didn't make me cry, at least not yet. I think I need to cry for the betrayal I felt for the fact that I was waiting for him to wake up, and he didn't. For the suddeness of it all. I need to cry to start to fathom the idea of baba who is no more.

[allthempledges]

I am here now after having struggled my neurons for so long against bringing me here. Your presence does seem rather offensive although it is me whom has come visiting your embrace. Mention nothing of it, caged behind bars of my inner voice is my dignity along with it.

"You shouldn't worry about dignity with me" you once said. Sweet, like ripe pumpkin, but I'm a bit shaken. I might need to ride my wave arbitrarily to set my feet in the soft grains of sand of a land where I believe you without forcing, but strongly, still.

For now, hold me, please.

I am yet to make my mind if I go about my day independantly and with great sloth as to stew in your mind an image I wish you'd have of me- that of life that carries itself with the normalcy of living that is only fond to a heart that stares, offensivley but with yearning. Or am I actively defining borders as to avoid your arrival's wrecking me? Or is it, and I'm barely keeping myself from calling you with an endearment here, that I truly am stupid and bad in love with you? In medicine they might call it a hormonal imbalance.

I trace with my mind the collarbone over which my cheek sits, and I'm boiling with rage at how much it is exactly as soft and stiff of a resting point for my pad of fat and emotion as I would have wished for it to be.

I trace, this time with my fingers, the back of your arm and against my will, they climb up to the nape of your neck. With a surrealistic balance of chastiness, fear, and anger, the wind curbs my reserve for another time and turns my face up to your chin. I believe, for reasons akin to those I cannot seem to find an answer as to why I am in your arms after having stood on a rocky shore screaming to my friend the lengths at which I cannot bear the thought of you, the wind follows my tradition, and gives you a chance to bend down the miles that remain. For you are, eventually, the man.

War. War, and you're my enemy. War, and it's for peace. Like the UN, I think to myself. I cannot think anything at the moment. I have always loved the word "devour". And devour is what you do; devour is what I do.

I am angrier at our parting than I was when I first set foot in your proximity. I smile and when you see it, you dip once more, this time further down to my neck, and it makes a tear slip out of my vision slits.

I am back to thinking I must have lost a carat of my sanity, smiling and barely holding back my dignity. But of course you make sense of it and you do not mention it. You wrap me in a quilt of silent understanding, and it is me rather than my image that stews before your eyes. And it is your vibrantly pastel living rather than my choreographed one that sips into the tissue of my feeling pump. I silently make the decision, by sunset that day, and without wording it to you, that I accept being your silent companion for an undetermined slot in time.

My resolve maybe shows in the way I sprawl gracelessly on your couch, and my dignity comes back with bread and cheese, yet this time it doesn't mold itself. It fits as though the space for it were crafted by a witch, or by my willing to be here.

I must say I pushed at my walls with vehement stubbornness. Melancholy lingered at my shoulders throughout the years and maybe still does. I see you and the seasons bring just the mandated feelings along; no longer the dreadful opposite that used to sit in for companion when you had not yet arrived.

[allthempledges]

So when I think of uncontemplated actions; reflexive in nature, I think of Mona’s love. I think of how it is stripped from shame and offensive judgement. It’s there with immediate presence and without calling. It’s grave and aggressively present, but never lacking essence or simply filling a void. It carries weight and measure. 

And surprisingly, despite friendship being the one thing I had truly completely given up on and wasn’t even seeking, Mona’s friendship is today the one thing I trust. A zone I head to for no particular reason but also with all the conviction there is that I am me, unedited, and I feel seen.

As though her friendship is how I know I was once on this Earth. Because I once spent three hours doing nothing but silently picking shells with her, and we were content.

[allthempledges]

Every time I contemplate myself in the eyes of others, I think to myself “I should stop complimenting people I like so much”, it makes me feel as though the moment I like someone, I get deprived of essence, and there isn’t isn’t but them. A part of it is essentially derived from how I never believe how I perceive myself in the inside of my thoughts are translated in how people see me on the outside. I feel like these are two separate people. 

So I talked to Mona and Yasmin about it. I mentioned how I feel Ohoud on the inside is how I perceive myself and who I think I truly am, and who I’m content with, while the Ohoud on the outside, the one visible to people, does not translate Ohoud on the inside, and most of the time conveys a different personality that how I believe I am and how I wish to be perceived. 

Yasmin said something that stuck with me that day on Abu Dhabi beach. She said that I treat the Ohoud on the inside as though she were the reality that people deal with when they deal with me, although in reality, it’s the Ohoud on the outside, that acts and speaks and expresses, that is real. It was then more apt to start thinking of Ohoud on the inside as a goal rather that how I originally perceived her, a reality.

Perception is always more refined than reality, and that’s why I lose sense of myself when I like someone, because if the outside is so good that it impresses me, me the undeniably unimpressed, I think to myself that what’s inside of them is so much better.

It’s either that or the fact that other people may not have the divergence I have inside of myself and simply do not perceive themselves how I do myself.

There will always be the fact that no one action is seen the same way by everyone. So my efforts to become synchronized with myself in essence as I am with actions will never truly assure me the world will see me how I see myself, and that’s a constant reminder I have to make to myself. It’s an ongoing endeavor, not a single, autonomous advancement.

Regardless, what I generally seek with my process is an uncontemplated goodwill, wit, and bravery; practiced patience. And all of that only ever comes with trial and error. So I must tolerate hating myself until I eventually don’t, at least not for the things I once hated myself for.

[allthempledges]

Belief, commitment, of any sort is not about not feeling the desire to act in a certain manner, it is about restraining oneself from a forbidden indulgence based or not on ethical grounds. Respecting the contract between yourself and whatever other party to this silent agreement is all about abstention rather than the good ol’ argument of “force of nature”. Obedience, in faith; and respect, in commitments.

[allthempledges]

The first weeks of moving abroad for master’s.

On the hard days, being around mom would irritate me. It would evoke in me a sense of responsibility I wasn’t ready to behold. I could barely deal with myself, let alone comfort someone else trying to comfort me.

When I was an adolescent, she once told me that she felt what I felt, when I was in pain, she was in crisis. So my young mind would hate the liar that she was when I would sit in my bed crying about my brother who wouldn’t let me play video games, while I heard her go by her life in tranquility in the other room. She felt not. She’s manipulative. In my teenage years, when I developed depression and anxiety, which were infinitely harder to sense, I blamed her lying to me about feeling how I felt. What she said stayed with me for a long time.

After my father died we became codependent on each other. But it was an automatic transition with no planning ahead. It was smooth and there seemed not to be any other way of going by life. But that swiftness of the shift in our relationship turned into dependence. It was, maybe, an amplified case of childish need for reassurance that I carried on from childhood into adulthood, but it turned into such bonded attachment, that I wouldn’t bear not knowing she isn’t around, or not knowing her whereabouts, or her sleeping for what seemed like just too long while I’m awake. We were synchronized that both of our feelings of reassurance and calm came from each other almost exclusively. This all posed no problem until I had to move away for my master’s degree.

Hell. Hell broke open on us. Insufferable aching so constant that it seemed like the default state of being. It was impossible to feel otherwise. When I say we became codependent, I refer to how my mother suffered medically from my and her own mental and emotional suffering at being separated from one another. The distance was a threat; a monster mocking our mere human form. I survived on her calls. I survived on the next time I get to hear her voice, and when that got belated I grew irritated. I was irritable almost all of the time. I became an addict waiting for her dosage.

Because I disliked mingling since the beginning, I made a point of finishing class and going back home right away. I made no effort of easing the sense of loneliness that dominated me by trying to befriend people, because I didn’t identify with anyone in this place in the first place. It was a question of identity to me, and I didn’t want to betray it.

And so I realized, during my very first week of being abroad for the first time in my life, just how much I am everything I never actively identify as. I found myself grasping at my roots and all that was once so familiar that I took for granted. All of what I was stripped of overnight. So you perceive yourself differently. You rely on a routine to survive the loneliness but the routine sometimes overbears you. In reality, there is never a perfect balance. It’s a constant chase and a constant looking forward for when an episode ends, and when that ends, when the next one starts, because you still don’t want too much free time to overwhelm you. You mustn’t let yourself be victim to your mind.

But I realized that living solo in a studio, in spite of all the advantages to the autonomy it allows you, has its disadvantages. I always dealt with pain by sleeping, because if I don’t sleep I will lash out at someone, anyone. And in my endeavor of trying to be a better person, I shut my mouth and I sleep. A studio in a city that evokes nothing but anger and frustration in you, in which right behind your desk, where you should work, is your bed, where you sleep, it’s hard to make time of day for anything useful, because all you want to do is sleep, wake up, and sleep again. Staying out of the house became my goal. Even if I still wasted time outside of the house, at least I maintained my sanity long enough until the effort of which exhausted me enough to go home and sleep to recharge for the next day. 

I miss mom. The mere sound of her voice wrecks me. And I say this with as much drama I could fit in that word. My mom’s voice made it hard for me to breathe, it slowed down time, and it made where I was feel like sin. And after every call, I long for her voice again. Like an infinite loop. I try to keep my mind from wandering to thinking of a time where she no longer will be. I know you wouldn’t believe me when I say I would rather die that live a day without knowing she is just a call away, just around the corner, about to come back home from work. I know it sounds like the drama that accompanies the womanly over-sensitivity that you identify with me. I am overly sensitive, so is my mom. And I would rather not see a world where she no longer is; the world today is, on my best days, merely tolerable, and I’m mere 12 hours away from getting to touch her. What am I to do if ever I find myself having to live several more years without her. Subjectively speaking, there seems to be no reason nor sense behind such thought. 

 When I succeed at abandoning thinking of that scenario for a while, I contemplate how familiarity is what makes us go on. I look around at this place I dislike so, and I see people living what I lived when I was back in my medium, my city, my home. I never called where I was born home, but I do know I was wildly familiar with it.

[allthempledges]

نفسي أطلّع ده من جوايا: أنا يمكن من ساعة مااخواتي مشيوا من ١٣ و ١١ سنة ومابقاش غيري أنا في البيت، التركيز عليَّ بقى مبالغ فيه، وفعلاً عمل لي قلق وسواسي وخلق عندي پارانويا مش عادية. ده، مع حزم أهلي وسلطويتهم خلاني أخاف أعمل أي حاجة واللي باعمله بيبقى في الخفاء. بابا اتوفى وأنا باتنقل من المراهقة للنضج واخواتي بعيد وأمي بتكبر ومحتاجاني ومعتمدة عليَّ بس في نفس الوقت ثابتة على نمط التربية المليانة تهديد وتخويف دي، ولو إنها خفَّت جامد بعد بابا، رواسبها موجودة جداً لسة ودايماً دايماً بتبقى الحرية اللي بتزيد دي حجة المِنّة في خناقاتي مع ماما.

الحرية لما زادت أنا كنت أُرهقت، و الله استنفذت قواي خالص، تجاه أي حاجة أنا في بالي عارفة إني عايزة أعملها بس مش عارفة، لإني لسة عايشة بهواجس قلق البيت اللي مش لاقي غيري يراقبه ويأمره ويحجّمه، وبأحاسيس الذنب اللي خايفة أحسها لو عملت أي حاجة ممكن ماترضيش ولو من بعيد، فمش باعمل حاجة. في خلال الفترة دي كلها، كان الإنترنت هو صاحبي ومنفذي على دنيا غير البيت والمدرسة، وخلاني شخص أحسن، وأوحش، بس ماكانش حقيقي ولا هو واقع. وماكانش عندي حد أناقش معاه أي حاجة و أكثر حاجة ملاحظاها دلوقتي هو إني كنت طول عمري لوحدي. كنت عايشة جوة عقلي عشان برة كان مخوفني بجد، بجد.

لما كبرت وطلعت عشت برة في الدنيا بقى فعلاً، طلعت وأنا لسة الشخص اللي جوة دماغي، اللي مش حقيقي ومنفصل عن الواقع عشان كان خايف يتعامل معاه عشان كان بيتغلّط وبيُرهب في كل مرة. فالنتيجة بقت سمك لبن تمر هندي. في أيام معدودات في حياتي كنت شايفة نفسي بصفاء وعارفة أشوف كل حاجة في سياقها الحقيقي ويمكن دي الأيام اللي عملت فيها القرارات الكبيرة، زي اختيار تخصصي مثلاً، بس بقية أيامي كانت فعلاً برة إيدي. مصبوب أسمنت على إيدي ورامينني في الدنيا اللي المفروض أعمل فيها عشان أوصل لهدفي، ومش عارفة. كل شيء محتاج مني التزام بقى رعب رهيب. أي حاجة محتاجة مجهود بقت ممكن تبكيني عشان أنا عارفة بالظبط اللي المفروض يتعمل، ومش. قادرة. أعمله.

عشان كدة مدمنة انترنت، لإنه مش مطلوب مني، عشان كدة بنام كثير، لإني مش بافكر وأنا نايمة، وعشان كدة نوبات قلقي عنيفة، عشان متكتفة عن مسؤولياتي. أنا مش أنا. الكلمة مضحكة بس أنا ١٣ سنة تحت عيون وتحكم البيت الكاملين خلوني فقدت نفسي. مش عارفة أنا مين لإني ماستكشفتش نفسي وماعملتش حاجة بإرادتي. كل حاجة أُرغمت عليها حتى لو كان جزء مني ممكن يكون عايزها دون إجبار، مالحقتش أشهد على ده. النضج ده مش صبر، ده وش وراه واهي، إدعاء الصبر. أنا اتخرجت بأعجوبة مع إني باحب القانون، وأيام ما كان مخي بيبقى منور والكلام اللي باقرأه بيتحفر كنت بابقى سعيدة جداً، كنت بالاقي نفسي. مارضيتش. قلت أعمل ماجستير عشان فرصي تكون أحسن، وكان اختيار التخصص صح، وأبصم على ده بالعشرة. قانون دولي هو فعلاً اللي أنا شايفة نفسي باعمله طول عمري باقرأه وأنا مستمتعة وباقول لنفسي "أيوة.. صح". بس بما إن مستقبلي واقف عليه وحصولي عليه أساسه سلطوية أهلي، أنا مش باعرف أذاكر. أنا حقيقي كل يوم باتمنى الأرض تنشق وتبلعني لإني هانفجر جوة عقلي. حاسة إنه رغم إن الضغط دلوقتي مش مبالغ فيه، بس كونه مستمر مش بيسكت وبيحفر في خلفية عقلي، هيموتني.

جزء مني بقى ماعندوش مانع أنتهي بالجائحة دي عشان يبقى برة إيدي. بس لو ماعملتش احتياطاتي هاكون بانتحر وده حرام، وأنا عشمي في الموت هو رحمة ربنا. نفسي ألاقي الصبر في نفسي والناس اللي يهمني يحبوني. نفسي أطفي زرار التوقعات اللي أمي مشغلاه لي من يوم ما وعيت على الدنيا. دايماً واضح لي زي الشمس إني كبرت لوحدي وبعيد عنهم مع إني في نفس البيت، وكل مرة باحاول أتشاف جوة البيت باتقابل بعدوانية بترعبني وبتوقَف روحي في زوري، باسكت عشان هاروح فين لو اتبروا مني؟ طب ولو أنا مشيت، هاقطع معاهم ليه ما أنا باحبهم. دول عمري. أنا مش منهم ولوحدي بس حتى ماملكش نفسي. وهما كمان هنا عشان صراعاتهم ومشاكلهم وجريهم في الدنيا. ده أكبر سبب مخليني مش عارفة آخد قرار قاطع: إني مش عايزة أبقى عاقّة؛ أملي من صبري رضا ربنا، وإني ماعنديش الشخصية اللي تعرف تعيش بعيد عنهم. صوتهم وحبنا لبعض، حتى لو مسموم بال"أنا" بتاعة كل واحد فينا، أرحم لي من كوني لوحدي خالص.

بس دي أفكار العقلية اليائسة. معظم الأيام أنا مش عايزة قرارات قاطعة، أنا عايزة تحسن. بالجأ للتفكير للقرارات القاطعة دي لما كل وسائل فك المرار ده تتقابل بسد. ساعتها بافقد إدراكي للمنطق، كل اللي بيهمني هو النتيجة، عشان جريي وراها سنين أهه ماعملش حاجة طب يفيد بإيه التدريج؟ قُصره.

[allthempledges]

When I was young, we learned about the systems in our body in Science class. We were told that inside of us are the digestive system, respiratory system, nervous, and so on. I learned they worked on their own without conscious intervention from us. They worked relentless to keep us alive.

I also learned about involuntary actions of the body, like breathing or blinking. Voluntary actions, on the other hand, were those which we consciously decide upon, like moving a limb or turning your neck to the side.

I used to imagine the systems inside of us as machines in the proper term: mechanical gears and hydraulics. My perception of the body was that it was engineered and built. It is, evidently. But my vision was simpler in a much more complex way.

I was reading a novel and there came the essential chapter on the aftermath of heartbreak. I too, have experienced heartbreak. I know how it is. And I know how void and hollow you feel and that in the midst of your lack of feeling anything other than sadness or exhaustion, you wonder how you're still alive. This doesn't feel alive. But then I remembered involutary actions from Science class.

So much as sitting upright in bed feels like betrayal to your current state of mind, as though you're faking life when you very much feel like a corpse. There is a feeling of betrayal that accompanies every move you make when you're grieving. As though you're not grieving according to tradition. When you grieve you die. When you grieve you grieve and nothing but. But involuntary actions are our mind's way of keeping us alive, remember? I understand that in reality involuntary action is merely mechanical, but I chose to reflect it upon how I percieved feelings.

There is life outside of the shell that you feel you are. There is life and errands waiting for you to get them done. There is life and conversations willing you to have them. You're dead, but involuntary action is keeping you alive.

And so you shower but not as thoroughly as you usually would. You eat, but just a few bites. You walk to the bus station with what feels like nothing else other than your heart torn open and pumping itself void. Soon you will fall to your demise. But involuntary action doesn't animate your feeling. It animates your systems. And your systems are intact, if maybe they feel largely overworked.

So the way I see it is the automn breeze whips, still. And your open heart suffers the little stabs of cold air. Too tender, feeling too obsolete to react. And the same way with the warmer breeze. It blows at your heart, but doesn't necessarily warm it. As though fully occupied with sadness, your heart has no more capacity to register any reality; even if registering that it was just air. That, on it's own, was too much already.

To me, involuntary action is the bare minimum. The autopilot. If we measured feeling alive on a scale of 1 to 10, involuntary action wouldn't allow you to even rate it at 1, for it'd be too exaggerated. But 1 is involuntary action. It's not 0, because at the very least, there is still involuntary action.

In fact, it is only when I am not grieving that I allow myself the luxury of percieving involuntary action in the binary form of either just 1, alive, or 0, dead. Because when I'm grieving life feels faded, limited, cut short, and deprived. Breathing seems like a chore, even if involuntary. So a scale of 1 to 10 seems to feed my feeling that I feel less alive today than I usually would. That's what grief is, amplified sense of what isn't. Whereas when you're mildly okay, you reflect upon those times of grieving with a wistful perception of a 1 or 0 scheme. And you're glad that all throughout that pain, you were always at least a 1.

[allthempledges]

إن مددت أطرافي لكل ما أحببت حقاً لتشعب جسدي كجذور شجرة الزيتون, فأصير ما أناهُ حقاً، وماهو إلا كل ما أحببت يوماً. ولكنِي أيضاً كلُّ ما مسّني من ضر- فكما عانقت تاريخي، أراني أنبذ أيضاً كل مانبذني في يوم. فجوات لم يملأها الحنين، الذي هو أيضاً منبع كل أحاسيس الحب يداخلي.

صرت أهرول وراء متفرقات تبدو في بادئ الأمر دون صلةٍ ببعضها لبعض، ولكنها روابط صبري، ودلائل كل ماصرت. كل شيئٍ أُمعِن النظر فيه، أو أدركه دون درايةٍ مني، هو كل ما أتشبث به فيما بعد، فتسمع مني كل هذه القصص البلهاء، الغريبة، التي تبدو دون ضرورة حقيقية لروايتها. ولكن ياعزيزي، أنا أنتظرك منذ أبد الزمان، وكنت لا أتوق إلى إعلامك بكل ماكان قبلك، فتكن أنت محط أسراري. أحبك لا أنطقها، ولكن بحكاياتي لك، أضع بين يديك كل الذي مضى، أونسك في اكتشاف ماكنت أناه قبل مجيئك. أتوق لرؤية عيناك وماتنطق. ولكنّي ياعزيزي أروِ لك ما أروي حتى لا يتوقف بيننا الحديث، عساكَ تلقى ماينادي بداخلك عن شيئ ما تشعر الحاجة لروايته لي أيضاً، فأسمعك كما لو كان العالم يبهت ولا يزهره تارة أخرى إلا حديثك، وعيناكَ في الحكاية، وظل هذه الغيوم التي تعتلينا.

[allthempledges]

It clusters up in my mind and the moment I try and type it down or put it on paper, anger takes a hold of me and I physically cannot go on with such endeavor anymore. I abandon all tries at self expression because I find I am much slower and less adequately equipped with means of expression for what I think of. I do not dare say I am more than meets the eye, but I'm stuck in a gray area of still not being, in appearance, in correllation with myself.

[allthempledges]

كل فعل خير هو حرب على نفسي الأمّارة بالسوء، هو الإختيار الواعي؛ حتى لا يأتي يومٌ أكره فيه ما أنا عليه، أو يسوء الأمر فلا أشعر بسوء نفسي، وأعتنقها طواعيةً. إختياراتٌ ليست بالضرورة ساذجة، حتى لو كانت فعلياً كذلك لصغر سني وقصر خبرتي وحيلتي، ولكن دوافع إختياراتي في الواقع هي التشبث بالصبر؛ بتسلسل الأمور حتى لا أسبقها فأظلم، فأُظلم.

[allthempledges]

ساعة أو سنة أو عشر أو ألف ألف سنة لسن ببعيدات؛ أقرب إليك من حاضرك، بل هنَّ بالفعل حاضرك، كل ما هو أنت. الوقت مجرد تسلسل. دلائل الأمور في ما يعق��ها، أثرها، قصصها، أو في محاولاتنا المضنية اليوم أن نمحو ذكراها. ذكراها؟ الذكرى واقع حي، محاولاتكم دون جدوى. فعل الأمس في اليوم باقٍ. لا يشوبه سوى قصر نظر الحي الذي لم ير مافعله الميت. ولكنها أيضاً ليست بشائبة، هي رواية. حجاب تسلسل الأحداث، وفناء الإنسان. التاريخ مفتاح الأسرار والمكنون. بل يبدو أن حتى التاريخ تشوبه شائبة كاتبيه، عنصرهم المنحاز. فضاء كما يسمونه في اللغة الصحيحة، سرمدي. وأنت؟ فضولي عاجز لطبيعتك الإنسانية. ولكن لا تكل. فشائبة الإنسان هو الآخر هي تصديق أن الماضي مضى، رغم أنه الآن وفي هذه اللحظة، يعيشه.

[allthempledges]

My body bent into the tender feel of you without you having so much as touched me. I felt helpless; troubled at the peace of your being at my side, for what will I do? Who is ever to measure up to you? This transcendant love you have made me feel, this belonging, is as terrifying as it is settling. Hold me. Hold me; time is no more. No man-made rule is to curb the blooming in my chest, or the way my hand knows its way to touching you, nor how your proximity dissolves our two-ness into one.

[allthempledges]

I understand that faith boils down to patience, and nothing but. I appreciate the gold to its core essense. I also understand that patience is understanding that sometimes, one can lose patience; and thus act foolishly. I can digest the scenario where the loss may be years worth of thereof. But to be able to fight off all the bigotries of time, moral, and soul? To have lost patience throughout a certain period, and having your story interwine with another lost patience, and yet another- is exhausting at the point where you finally regain control and start rebuilding patience. Because what do you rebuild patience upon when most of the morals that have been pitted in your mind throughout that journey are utter barnacles? What do you do with memories of angry screams of generalising the shallow "bad", that really isn't any bad? With the anxiety and the standby state of fear that was inflicted upom you from dear ones? Some creatures shed skin completely and leave with a new one. Sure as hell wish I could. How could I rebuild patience on stable grounds when most of it has been demolished with intimidation and fear and lowkey emotional abuse? I am not saying it's much of a hardship to stand back up strong, I'm saying the strength here is like modifying an average, completely totaled, Toyota Yaris into a race car, rather than stand Mercedes in nature. بترقّع اللي باظ. I do not understand why people fight for things that go beyond the lining of their own body and territory- in the correct meaning. I will not understand why people interfere and shout and scream and intimidate for reasons that are completely and absolutely not theirs to fight for. The damage that it has on people's minds is awe-inspiring and shit scary. Please, stay in your lane. I am so tired.