Decision
Egypt, January 27, 2022 | 11:02
I am only possible when I realize myself; I decide to be.
Owing to nobody, to nothing, I materialize with every split instant in time.
Anguished by the unbearable weight of being,
The realization that it is me, the decision, and only me, who decides whatever is to be.
Who? What? Where? How? Why? I face blame when it is not the right consequence.
Yet, proud and relentless, I am the decision with a heightened righteousness.
Insipid, absurd, cynically mocking every attempt at making sense
Of myself, I am drunk with power.
Yet… I would do it over and over and over again…
The minute I am not deciding is when I cease to be the DECISION.
Plastic Bag
Egypt, January 17, 2022 | 06:22
I am a plastic bag, abandoned on a littered street, wrapped in the grime of a night already forgotten. The pavement is stained with footsteps and spills, bottles tipped over, wrappers crushed, ashes scattered like whispers of careless hands. It is almost dawn, and the fresh breeze breathes its first today.
I am a plastic bag caught in a twirl of a windy morning. I twirl, I lift, I drop, I twist, I dance; my belly full, my arms swaying.
I shed off the smoke and soot, wind and dust. I dodge the early morning trash car wheels that orchestrate my moves. I whizz and pirouette on wet ground then soar up as they pass by.
Droplets of fresh morning rain weigh me down, yet the breeze is crisp and dry.
I lift again to the sound of the city waking, to the smell of a fresh coffee pot brewed, to the nudge of children teased by their insistent mothers’ calls.
I waltz around windows and alleys.
I am a plastic bag, insignificant and toxic…
The breeze is indiscriminate – it welcomes me as it does dry leaves, or dead flies; paper bags or specks of dust. And then there is me, the plastic bag waltzing in a colorless early dawn in the city.
Skin
Lebanon, August 19, 2024 | 05:51
Tip: Garden cleaned
I am her stretching skin. She never realized how supple I am till she became a mother. We stretched together upon puberty- this has left me scarred.
I cherish the first time her fingers explored my surface; I obliged! Nothing feels more pleasing than her touch as she understands my needs.
Then we bloom as I am caressed, sniffed, licked, kissed, squeezed, and sucked. Blood rises to my tips and tackles my pores till my hairs sprout in goosebumps.
I know she prefers others touching me. Firm hands with rough fingertips are her favorite. I know why and I try to tell her. She mutes my voice. I feel numb as she floats away.
I indulge. Why not some other caress then I say?
We stretched together as her belly bulged. We finally reconciled. Her warm hands all over me, touching her belly, massaging her breasts and feet and temple. I stretched farther than I can ever imagine I could have, yet I still obliged. Once, then twice. Her touches kept me going.
In time we bonded as she herself started to stretch accommodating, loving, waiting, giving, protecting, adapting, compromising, burning then healing, shining and sagging. As I wilt, she runs her fingertips to massage my now-wrinkled edges. Attempting to revive my broken cells, cupping her hands to hold my overflow, her eyes pierce my pores as she wonders how farther she can stretch before it becomes impossible to be contained like I am now…
Tear
Egypt, January 15, 2022 | 11:18
I am a tear rolling down a cheek. Uninvited, unannounced, and uncontrollable; I just burst, washing down the left cheek as she meditates.
I curve my way to the chin and circle down the neck to the center of her throat, down the cleavage to the middle of the heart before I dry.
I am a mother’s tear that locks her children’s image; a son and daughter’s happiness and blissful youth in one tear that washes down her face, neck and dries in her heart. I am a tear and every other tear welling up a mother’s eye as she traces her children’s journey from the eye to the heart.
I am that tear and every other tear an eye chooses to let fall.
