After the Storm...

The silence after the storm is deafening: no hum, no sound,
All the pieces of everything have fallen dead on the ground!

The stench of the past still covers every inch of the place,
The wetness of the heart's rain occupies the empty space!

The touch of the wood on the walls no longer feels the same,
The suppleness of its texture vanished with the burning flame!

The taste of the air is salty, mixed with rubble and sand,
I look around yet I can't find your, once soothing, hand!

The storm is tricky; it comes along with no warning ahead,
Leaving you breathless with memories of words once said!

Searching for meaning has yet to haunt your stride,
However, from the mind's chaos, there is no chance to hide!

Swing Me More...

I've heard many expressions and words that were used to describe the life we are living: some call it a box of chewing gum, others call it a box of chocolates. Some condemn their lives by calling it a roller coaster while others call it a never ending stream of pain. However, one of the most interesting ways to describe life is by comparing it to a swing:

Can't find the ground with my feet,
It's hot here and I can't stand the heat,
Feels like I'm stuck forever on this seat,
I call for help but no one is out on the street!

The swing keeps swinging; day in and day out,
Your voice is muffled by the wind; don't try to shout,
Nothing is certain so you hold on to doubt,
The fear is so dry; it redefined the drought!

Next to me lies an empty seat and I long for you,
It's sad how I sit alone although it's meant for two,
I kick real hard and somehow I drop my shoe,
Nothing changes: I'm on the swing, the sky is blue!

Forever I try to maintain momentum and adjust the pace,
Yet every time I close my eyes I see your beautiful grace,
With every kick I try to catch the memories, with every chase;
And every time I almost do, I'm haunted by your lost face!

On the swing and I am bored of swinging up and down,
One day with a smile, many others with a sad frown,
I take off one black dress to put on another black gown,
I play by the rules yet end up feeling like a clown!

The ropes of the swing are getting old,
It's getting late and it's getting real cold,
I cuddle up, I fold then unfold,
Just like any story that has never been told!

Like Broken Glass...

I feel empty:

Like an old dried up well,
Like broken glass,
Like a dead snail's shell!

I feel empty:

And it just keeps getting bigger with time,
Like a never ending scene by a skilled mime,
Like a faint tune with no specific rhyme!

I feel empty:

And I honestly do understand:
No one cares to hold my hand,
And alone, here, I need to stand!

I feel empty:

But it doesn't really matter anymore,
There is no use trying to fight this war,
Take my white flag for I'm closing the door!

Beautiful Lie...

Outside My Plain Old Door!

Life so carelessly continues outside my plain, old, wooden door,

It seems like I have been locked up in here longer than time!
The voices of those on the other side haunt me; too loud to ignore,
And the memory train follows me with thoughts not so sublime!

I have been down this road before, yet every time the pain is in a unique form,
The way my heart aches change: worn, broken, battered and sometimes torn!
It's like a summer with an infinite scorching sun, a winter with an endless storm,
Just like an infant who was never really made, conceived, or was actually born!

Decisions need to be made but my head feels light; bordering insanity,
Losing control of the steering wheel; can't see ahead, can't see the sides!
Running away from nothing and everything; fighting for my humanity,
Dipping into the shallow ends of the sea yet unable to survive the tides!

If I was a red rose; I'd be brown and wilted with burdens by now,
Yet somehow I manage to seem as if everything is just alright!
I take the slaps to my face, I take the blows and survive them somehow,
I tremble and fall and get up again trying to make it to the light!

Yet the light gets dimmer, the battery seems to be running out,
The tunnel seems to be getting longer and the car is low on gas!
I have so much but I lack what I can never do without,
And you expect me to believe that: "This too shall pass"?

If the Heart...

If time is out of tune, then waiting will devour you,
If the sound is out of touch, then what can you do?

If the heart feels no love, then it is no longer a heart,
If you can see that the end is coming, then why even start?

If your eyes can't hold the tears, then eyelids are useless tools,
If you can't fight for what you want, the you are all fools!

If your lips can't taste their wine, then lips should be removed,
If souls can't feel joy, then the essence of life is utterly consumed!

If the pain is so painful, then the pain must end somehow,
If life is this lifeless, then I must get up and scream right now!

The Illusion of Happiness

Human beings are the masters of orchestrating illusions and believing them!

On an autumn's morning, I get up and breathe in,
Lying to myself that the breaths which follow will be pure...
I push a smile on a tired face with no roots from within,
Another pre-broken promise to my soul that this pain I can endure!

On an autumn's morning, I carry a book and read,
Lying to myself that the words I read will elevate my misery...
I push away a negative thought yet a 100 others breed,
Another desperate attempt to herd away the painful imagery!

On an autumn's morning, I try to make sense of it all,
Lying to myself that the sense might make sense to me...
I push away regret and it comes bouncing back like a ball,
Another fake hope that it could, maybe, hopefully, set me free!

On an autumn's morning, I finally realize my illusions:
Things will never change; accept them the way they are...
I push away the pretenses and the million confusions:
Hope is fake, attempts are desperate and happiness is far!

Tick Tock Goes the Clock!

"Tick, tock" goes the clock, round and round it goes,
It never quits, it never stops. Till when? Nobody knows!

"Thump, thump" my heart batters to a sound of unheard beats,
Noise is all around my thoughts in my room and on the streets!

"Woosh, woosh" the notes of memories creeping through my mind,
Pain flocks gently in my being, with no escape and no where to hide!

"Hahaha" I hear the laughs of those who know nothing yet assume,
Those who live on emotions which they manipulate, hurt and consume!

".............." silence; and I am here all alone, once again, so fully incomplete,
Down to the ground, down once again, can't distinguish my head from my feet!

The Ugly Truth (1)

And You Still Want to Have Kids?

Most women are born with a great instinct: the maternal instinct!

Although many of them work hard to find the "right" man and build the "family" they have always dreamed of, I think only a few of them really consider the facts and statistics about the dangers that these children whom they choose to bring into this world may actually face.

Here are a few examples:

• Almost five children die everyday as a result of child abuse! Childhelp.org
• The incidence of suicide attempts reaches a peak during the mid-adolescent years, and mortality from suicide, which increases steadily through the teens, is the third leading cause of death at that age. Surgeon General
• Every year, millions of children are left alone in or around vehicles. This danger is greatly underestimated, and within a few minutes, your child could be abducted or become trapped in the vehicle’s trunk. WSOC
• A recent study found that one in five children online is approached by a sexual predator, a predator who may try to set up a face-to-face meeting. MSNBC
• Each year over 200,000 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms for playground equipment related injuries. The California Injury Lawyer
• Parents are to be warned of the dangers of giving their young children drinks, sweets and cakes containing specified artificial additives, as a result of new findings being made public for the first time today which confirm their link with hyperactivity and disruptive behavior. Guardian

In addition to the less obvious dangers such as:

• Being abused by a relative or even the father.
• Being subjected to bullying at school.
• Witnessing his/her mother being mistreated or beaten.
• Getting lost.
• Being in a car accident.

And many many other situations like these...

Putting all those facts aside, since we human beings always think that bad things happen to others and not our own, I wonder: Why do people really want to have kids?

Here is what I have found out by asking some friends and random people:

• I want someone to carry my name (How about the rest of the package? The DNA? The bad experiences? The sickness genes? did you consider that?)
• I want to have a family of my own (Do you really know if this is what's going to happen when you have a baby? What if your husband walks out? What if you lose your job? Or even better, your mind?)
• I like kids; they are cute! (Come on, are you serious?)
• I want to have kids to make it up to myself (How selfish could you be? All you are going to do is make them suffer for the mistakes you made!)

All this and you still want to have kids?

But hey... I am not here to judge so knock yourself out... (or knock someone up for that matter!)

The Ugly Truth (Prelude)

"Call me as you may: pessimistic, depressed, desperate, confused, angry, crazy, and even suicidal for I have learned, the hard way, that no matter what I do and no matter what I say, someone, somewhere will have something negative to say about me." Beirut

For so many years, I have been holding back what I really feel and see; it all has been bottled up inside scratching the surface at first, then reaching to the core of me and simply dissolving it away.

But this will finally change cause I am finally ready: to expose the world as I see it and as it deserves, nothing more, nothing less.

However, I do ask you to consider the following:

I will be very blunt and my honesty will be brutal. Apart from my feelings, all the events, situations, conversations and encounters will be based on exact facts as they happened.

So, if you consider yourself "happy-go-lucky", if you are an optimist or if you see a silver lining to every cloud and a light at the end of every tunnel, please do not read the coming posts. Also, if you are suicidal, please know that the same applies to you!

Thank you...

Down the Memory Path

Photo By Terra Kate

Sometimes, memories of a time that seems so far away, almost unreal, come knocking at your door:

A time when your pain felt like a bleeding tumor... Or a time when you threatened to leave and begged to be free...

Those times when life seemed impossible and a smile seemed deceased and unthinkable!

Luckily though, we, human beings, are running against the tide of life, trying to make it through... Our daily struggles outweigh the painful memories of life and force us to move on and forget...

But at night, when we are all alone, without a breath by our side, a snore in our ear or even alcohol to numb our senses, the memories find a hole to seep through and tickle our imagination...

And somehow, for just a few minutes before we go to sleep, they take over us and seize our actual existence...

Whether good or bad... Cheers to the almighty memories!

6 Billion, I Only See 1

I was just listening to a song which basically says: "I know there are other women out there, I don't need you to remind me. Yet, I still want to be with her."

A few ideas crossed my mind and I would like to share them with you...

The common cliche that people use to "comfort" others after a relationship dies is: "There is a lot of fish in the sea; you can easily find someone new."

While logically that may be a sound deduction since it is a fact based on the real number of the world's population, sadly, it is still not always the case. Sometimes, and maybe even rarely, the other fish in the sea hold no real value; thus they don't really count!

Let's assume you like salmon. It is your favorite fish! Let's actually assume you don't eat any other kinds of fish. Then, logically, all the other kinds of fish are not of interest to you, therefore, you have just eliminated thousands of the fish in the sea!

Let's also assume that you like the salmon grilled, not fried, not raw, just grilled. Here, you also reduced your scope of preferred salmon in the places where you might go eat it!

But there is more!

Let's assume that you are picky with your food and you don't eat pasta for example. You have again narrowed down your options to certain ways in which you could eat your salmon: salads and platters.

Let's also assume you have enough information about different restaurants that serve salmon. Here, based on your budget, preferred atmosphere and location, you have eliminated tens of options that were available to you naturally.

What I am trying to say is as follows: It is really easy to meet new people, find things in common with them, have a good time and maybe even develop some kind of bond with them. However, there are so many others factors that decide if those new people help you "get over" that one person that you have once loved so dearly.

Factors such as perception, feelings, willingness and so on play a very important role to where we face our own selves and on how easily or not we are able to make a conscious decision to stop liking salmon and move on to chicken!

Hunger is not a good enough reason: How could you be picky about what goes into your stomach but not about what goes straight into your soul?

Although others might disagree!

Enjoy your favorite dish!

A Hesitant Smile...

As tough as it may have been, and may be still, a hesitant smile so gracefully lands on thirsty lips.

Just a smile, nothing more, nothing less.

A forgotten treat, a not-so-guilty pleasure, just a smile...

Her face wonders, the eyes squint, while the muscles struggle to adapt... What is going on? They demand to know!

An inner sigh of brief relief... Followed by a voice, shouting out to the world, her inner world, to come out and dance... Scaring the tears away... If just for a while...

Just a smile... Sometimes that is the only thing we truly miss yet we don't realize its absence until it visits once again...

Room 602

Words... Don't they ever end?
&
Silence... Doesn't it ever get bored?
&
Thoughts: Millions of them, hovering around my squeamish head...

An empty soul & a full head: A great recipe for suicide!

Yet...
It never ends. It seems like it never will...

This whore we call life" breathing, hurting, breaking, taking...

Then the night falls, and a new day follows but things are the same yet different...

A cycle, a step, a tear.
&
Loss: of self, of being, of identity, in a forest of absolute nothingness...

In My Head...

In my head:

Thoughts of what could have been run wild and loose, and I wonder: What could have been?

A life untouched by faces, untainted by more thoughts of what could have been?
A family protected by love, guided by words of assurance and smiles for a better day?
True friendships that last longer than a lifetime, unaffected by anger, loss and despair?
A love which withstands the bumps of time and the little plots of the ignorant minds?
A place to call home, a place to which I run to after a long day's mishaps and hardships?

And then you read the following quote:

The unwillingness to forgive stems from wanting the past to be different from what it was.

... and you think: Why? Why wasn't the past different when it should have been? And how? How can we forgive when all we needed for a happy ending was to try, a bit harder, firmer and more willingly?!

The Sin of Forgetting...

Like a slap to the face,
An escaped embrace,
A haunting disgrace,
I realized that I had forgotten the most precious day...

Like a soul without a life,
A husband with a cheating wife,
A pain from a cutting knife,
I wept a stream of regrets that has come out to play...

Like another story with a bad end,
A truth that is too shameful to bend,
A love letter written yet remains unsent,
I begged the ache to leave, get out and go away...

For there is no bigger sin than forgetting what has changed my life forever,
What has broken my heart and stitched it back together,
So forgive me, "please", my heart pleads as true as ever...

Do You Not See Your Selfishness?

"Do You Not See Your Selfishness"? he asked, as the physical pain ripped her guts apart...
How dare she wake him from his dear sleep just to plead for a temporary cure?
How could she bring herself to dial his number where there was a slight chance that he could be sleeping?

The audacity - What a bitch!

Generals, dinners, dogs, pools, bikes, new adventures, moments lost in time, and all the other crap. They are worth more.

How low could she go? Comparing herself to a dog?

Self righteous excuse for a human being - that is what she became!

It is interesting how small our world feels when we are in contempt of the "heart court" in question.

It is even more interesting how human lives become almost insignificant when facing those with no heart, common sense or even sympathy.

Escape? That is one solution. But what about the memories? Can they escape you as well? Or will they only follow you, like your ugly shadow, wherever you go.

How ugly is a human being with no dignity, even if it was unwillingly stripped away from under his feet throughout the course of 3 degrading years!

Forgiveness? Overrated.

Love? An obsolete concept.

Loyalty? Who cares!

When the wheels of misfortune turn, the results will be painful for all participators.

And then what? You hear the news that your precious dream might never come true and you cry and you try to find a shoulder to lean on. All the good shoulders are taken, broken or have no bones!

You cry some more. You still breath, move, and think. You are still alive on the outside. No hope for you on the inside because you yourself feel lifeless.

You dream of a better day. Which reminds me of a next topic: Dreams should be illegal! Illusions, fake hope and an optimistic highway. Just like booze and drugs.

How foolish we are to believe in dreams. And in change as well.

Change? Nothing changes. Nothing at all: except maybe your perception of things after you have been beaten down, broken sideways and pulled apart. Only after you have lost your vision of right and wrong, does change come in and pounce on you!

Reality? Well, reality is real and you are stuck with it! Better make the best out of it! Simply accept what you are and make it your goal to find out what kind of dish you are going to cook for your husband tonight, or just let go of it and live in your illusions. The former is advisable!

To be continued.

I Used to Call for Breast Equality!

"It's too hot, I can't breathe", she replied with a muffled whisper while holding her tears of frustration down to the grounds of her worn-out mind.

All the empty and loaded thoughts that circulated her sleep-deprived being were knocking hard on her memories' doors, waking them up from a deep sleep; just like a mystic monster awaking from his winter's hibernation.

This was like no other time for the simple reason that: For once, things were really supposed to be different! In a movie, this would have been the part where the happy music would begin to play in the background, where the cloud-shadowed sun would come through and the kids would run with laughter on their little blessed faces!

But it was not. Just because movies are not real. Simple as that.

If I were to begin to try and explain to you the attack of my disappointed mind, you would not understand. You would probably begin to give me a lecture about optimism, looking forward and suggest the glass theory to me. Some of you might even start so selfishly share your way of handling these kind of attacks - as if any of these really ever happened to you!

Which brings me to my next point: How do people convince themselves that they "know what you are going through"? It takes a lot of guts I tell you, and a little bit of ignorance as well, if I may say, to prescribe a cure for a pain that is unimaginable to those living with hollow hearts.

I missed writing, I really did. I missed it and feared going back to it at the same time. You see, for someone like me who uses words to vent, it is a scary thought that even after writing, I still feel bad and need further ventilation! There is also this fear of not getting it right: forgetting my trail of thoughts, diverting into a million topics (just like I'm doing now) or simply - again - not satisfying whoever stumbles upon this post!

Moving on...

Let's talk about emotions; you know those some are loaded with while others lack completely. You know what astonishes me? Emotions are like breasts: they come in different sizes, colors and shapes and their results vary from one person to another. I used to call for breast equality, now I believe I would be more than satisfied with emotional equality!

The end... for now.

Stray Thoughts...

I'd like to think of myself as a "good person", not by society standards since those have been flushed down the drain ages ago, rather by my own set of accumulated standards!

As a "good person", I expect bad things happening to me since I strongly believe that "bad things happen to good people". However, I don't claim to understand why this is the case, and I never think I would be able to!

Moving on...

In a world where female workers commit suicide from over working on manufacturing a product such as the iPad, and where others are butchered around the world on a daily basis just because they are women, I wonder: am I supposed to consider myself lucky?

Maybe, maybe not...

I think I will find out sooner or later!

On a different note, I've been seriously reconsidering my whole belief system regarding friendship, love and loyalty: have I been wrong about them all this time?

Does friendship truly exist? And if it does, has it changed its face into that of a creepy monster lurking in the shadows of the night?

Does love matter? Is it really worth all the sacrifices we make?

Is loyalty a two way lane or just an overrated concept that only applies to consumers in the product and service markets?

I wonder...

Reds, Blacks & Whites...

Reds, blacks and whites are the colors I see; no greens, no blues and no grays!

I open my eyes every morning and wait for my mind to quit the games it plays!

For a heart that never was cured is a burden and lips that are sealed are a pain,
And every time I move forward one step, I trip and fall to gracefully bite the grain!

However, and regardless, I keep my chin up and pull my cheeks to form a smile,
And wait, so impatiently, for something different to come along & make this life worthwhile!

I gave up on words, so long ago, words that others utter to my ears to hear,
I can't handle more disappointments from those who are close and dear!

I want to see colors again, like a rainbow, I want my soul to sing out loud,
I want the light to enter my heart, I want to somehow fit in the crowd!