Words of your mother tongue always, somehow, sound far intense than a foreign language like this, for example. Writing about everyone suddenly seems almost impossible, writing about ordinary people and strangers seems to be like a battle you have to fight, let alone writing about the ones that trigger moments of insane heartbeats and endless stuttering of every word you used to know by heart. These people rest within the words of a foreign language only, not your own, because penning them down and releasing their being from inside of you is just as if someone were tearing at your soul, robbing your insides and leaving you empty, horribly hollow and weak and panicked and .. and everything. Insanity.

So you, then, start to write things down slowly, about something else, about life, only the life of other people, not yours, the lives of things, the lives of the ones you never even met. Your own language becomes a threat to you, and once you start losing your way it all crawls back at you back to the road of panic attacks and unknown phobias. Could you ever be phobic to your own language? I guess it happens with writers; we only need words that dig too deep and yet they kill us, then we choose silence that also kills us. You see, writers die either way, because both words and silence kill. They creep once they get the chance to, without the slightest bit of tenderness, without a bit of pity. They take everything along their conquering, like sweeping your mind and heart enjoyably. Defeat.

Then comes the foreign language, like now, like how I’m writing this without really wanting to but without any other choice not to. To write about you is my own little and poor hideout, in my own world and with my lonely words that could never transform themselves into Arabic to let you know that you, and you alone, led me to falling in love with my language yet not ever having the courage to write about you using its words and its beauty and its holy magic. I would have my hands shivering and my chest rising up and down in a pace, and I’d pant and pant as if I were about to meet you the next moment. Then I stop because it hurts, or it hurts so much that it doesn’t hurt anymore; and it’s crazy and cold at once.

I hope I can never write you in my own language. Don’t let me release you so that I wouldn’t imprison myself unwillingly. Please.

Here I announce to you that I'm incapable of letting some breaths out in a form of words to say what is meant or what is not meant to be said. Here I sit with arms stretched before you as if I'd try a pen and a paper in case my lips failed me or in case every word comes out the wrong way and I have to beg you to start again, like a video played over and over again with different scenes each time. You'd then pity me and try to say that you understand but you say it too fast that I instantly and without further decorated words realize that you don't feel the slightest bit of understanding. And it makes me sad. It makes me sad for you because you don't even have the gift of understanding, but that's ok because I don't have the gift of explaining myself or my life either. Hence we're even, I guess. So I try then to write but it seems utterly absurd to write to someone who is sitting right in front of me and I start tearing the papers like a madman and stop for a second without staring at you, but stare at my terrified pen that seems to have taken too much of me. I can't blame anyone or anything for being terrified like that, because fear is necessary to the bones sometimes. And so I climb endless stairs and get hold of countless ropes to ascend to a level between not saying the wrong word and not being silent like a fool so as to not give you the impression that I'm completely incapable of doing [anything].
Why do I even hurt myself and dig soul-deep to make you understand anything at all? Why then, do you have to understand only when I talk and talk and talk when you really say that you understand as fast and the instant I finish the words on my lips. Understanding requires time, you know? And time is not on your favorite things so why is it that you have to make so big a lie just to make a fool out of me and God knows, maybe silence me instead of solace me? And how fool I was to want you to understand that fast, how fool!
Oh let us just speak of things that don't need much thinking to understand. Or let us not speak of anything at all.

Maybe the sun doesn't shine on the other side, maybe it's the moon that does (even stronger, I guess). Maybe it's not words that you need but the impact of silence on your soul and heart to waken you. Maybe it's not books or novels or biographies or memoirs that your eyes want to read, maybe it's the feelings they carry and the lessons they conceal. Maybe it's the weakness that had held you back all this time, not the times that you thought were strong and could carry mountains on your shoulders. Maybe you need the waves of summer not the rains of winter, the dawn of spring not the dusk of autumn. Maybe your words were all out in the wrong places and it's taking you forever now to right what went wrong and put every word in its right place, time and to the right person. Maybe all what a mother said once was right; slow down, take it easy, stop overthinking, it will kill you. Maybe you need more dreams in sleep than dreams in waking. Maybe it's the waking that hurts not the staying awake. Maybe, just maybe, you could kill every if only you have said inside and out, because it's never about that. Maybe you need a shoulder. Maybe you need a please-don't-let-the-world-get-to-you hug. Maybe you need words. Maybe you need silence. Maybe you need love. Or comfort. Or a prayer. Or a bit of faith. Maybe all of this is just you inside of me, or me inside of you. Maybe it's your love that did this. Or hatred or non-love or whatever you'd call it. Or maybe it's everything and it's nothing.
Maybe I just don't know. I don't.


Written here. Written now. Written for you and written for me, written for everyone who feels like this or will or has felt like this even once in their lifetime. May it never happen again.

"Poetry is a constant revolution against every injustice"

No no no no, don't seal your lips and widen your eyes as if they're heavy with all the words your lips did not dare utter. Half-close your eyes and pour as many angry words as your lips can carry. And as many heavy feelings as your face can say. Just don't give them silence; I may be able to understand it but they won't. Everyone will condemn it. Like wordlessness over a crime - it's just like committing it.

You can talk about silence, okay? Seal your lips and open them again. Let the pauses and breaks between the two crash the tepidity of the audience, of the world, and burn the coldness of the faces watching you. Just don't allow their expressions to intimidate you, as if they knew you. Never reveal who you are in your words because it's like revealing the secrets of your soul, of who you truly are. And believe me, there is no point in that.

Poetize like you know them, and what they need to revolutionize against. Recite as if you can see your dreams from a distance, trying to get hold of them but something's blocking your way. See how you'll stretch your arms as much and for as long as you can to reach them, to hold them, to fulfill them. Then recite.

And fight, even if you can't seem to find a way to separate your lips.

Unyield.

 Photo© retro

Let's talk about nothing. Look me in the eyes. I'll swim into yours. And we'll just smile. Enough for the whole world to crash behind us.

العدم كلماتٌ و ليسَ كلمة. فاللاشيء عدم. و الفراغ عدم. و السكون عدم. ولكن ليس السكوت عدم. السكوت عكس العدم. السكوت هو معجم لم يتغلب عليه علماء التاريخ أجمع. الصمت و الكَلِمُ ليسا كالشيء و عكسه. الصمت هو ألف كلمة لم يسعها قاموس عالمٍ انتصر جوعه  المادي على جوع كلماته. فأصبح كلامه يموت بطيئاً ، كطفل المجاعة. و ألف كلمة يهزمها الصمت. ولكن لا يهزم الصمت قوة أحرفٍ   متكررةٍ اجتمعت على هيئة كلمات. لا.  فقوة الحكيم في علمه بجهله. و قوة الحليم في إدراكه لصمته. في نفس الوقت.

الصمت يُكتَبُ و لا يكتُب. فكل ما لا يدخل الأذن أقسى. أعمق مما يتخللها. الصمت مشدود ثم ساكن. ثم ساكن و تتبعه كلمات لا تكتب. هو حرب أحياناً.  كالسكوت على الظلم. كسلاح ذو حدين. فسكوت الشهيد دليل إدانة الحي.

فإذا وجدك صمته فلن تنام مرة أخرى. أو تصحو. أيهما تريد.

صمتُكَ ليسَ هدوءً لما قبْل العاصِفة
صمتُكَ عاصِفٌ بين عيناكَ و عيناي
صمتُكَ هو العاصفة