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Indescribable feeling of horror, that which attacks you at the heart of the night while you cradle the dark and lay your heavy head to a solid cruel soil, protected by a starless sky and the kindness of your closest neighbors, realizing with every clock tick that you're homeless, even worse ... countryless
Sadness takes its toll on your heart, anxiety lays its shades on your heart; leaving you among sour images of your feet skipping carefully across the borderlines between two borderless countries, escaping from your brother into the arms of your cousin
Memory storms back to every single sight you laid your eyes upon throughout the day, the crying innocence of babies in the middle of that no-man's land, the yearning screams of injured victims squirming on thin lines between hope and pain, and other deeply gloomy looks in the eyes of bereaved mothers, heart-breaking orphans, and black-covered widows.
Images come back to haunt you from the day before, loaded with echoes from bullets, and odors of injustice and gunpowder...

At this camp, people have different stories of sorrow, regardless how they all share the courage to survive, and the hope to collect the remains of their shattered dreams, and what's left of their pride.
At this camp, hope is the only magic potion that keeps them alive regardless the fragility of their bodies and the illness of their spirits.
At this camp, hope is you, you who keeps mercy alive by any contribution that holds back the godless hard of cruel fate.

Help giving the warmth of a home to what's left of a family, who left their hearts behind with whoever's left back under panic, dead or missing.
Help getting back the innocence of children, and draw a smile on their small faces and wide pleading eyes.
Help giving a hand to those who are left in agony, without any medical care to their excoriating wounds.
Help quenching the longing of children to mothers' caring hands.
Help providing crumbs to those who need it, and have neither power nor chance to get it.

Help them paving their way back home...
Help giving some of your humanity to your brothers in humanity.

When blood flows more than ink, you know that you are at a time of major crisis, a merciless time where seconds tick askew, accompanied by a rhythmic dance of a Godless chant, animal-like chant on top of ponds of dark burgundy, splattered over spaces of the usual gray; a time that runs frantically to hide hastily from injustice between the folds of an obscure future of a homeland, leaving you with very few options about what to do with what you’ve still got of your heavy gasps, and what you’ve shed of your very soul, so you collapse in your place, helpless and hazy, and you start forming letters with your own gushing blood on the walls of the soon-to-be history; so you wither while fading into a zone between the blackness of the day and the light of your potentially last prayers, and you write.

Syria: that beautiful Levantine lady lying every night to a bed of nails across fertile hills, proud mountains, cozy sea shores, and generous deserts; loaded with heartache that has been building up during the last few decades, to reach its peak at the point of explosion caused by unbearable pressure, excruciating injustice, and agonizing maltreatment.
Syria: that land that witnessed the birth of the very first alphabet and the first documented musical piece, under the eyes of gods and goddesses, that terra-firma that survived during days of plagues and deluges under the noses of saints and prophets, is yearning with a hoarse voice for a miraculous providence.

100 days of domestic turbulence, sleepless nights, restless days, and a sea of gloom eating a city after another before it gulps down the entire homeland.
100 days of shed blood flowing down from hundreds of people who were killed for no crime, human sacrifices slaughtered unrighteously and disrespectfully at the altar of “in the name of the country” instead of bringing to justice every criminal of those who hide behind that shield of patriotism
 100 days of children’s laughter covered by heavy gunfire and the squeals of distressed mothers, 100 days of people gone lost and found, or lost without being found, 100 days of uncivil debates between civilians, motivated by phobias fed to them by dirty hands of fate.
100 days ……… and still counting.

We write because we don’t want an extreme opinion to take over ours, we write because we hate to see our alleys where we were raised playing with other kids stained with blood and shame, we write because we don’t want a symbol or a person to take over the glory of the people, we write because we know that when blood flows more than ink, we know that it is your duty to bring back the balance, so we act, we pray, and “at least” we write.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Syrian_uprising

It’s a daily period of anticipation that both wise and airheaded could learn from each according to their sharpness, and that’s as we stand there in a foosball-like rectangle awaiting for the metro.
Anyone could easily realize how lucky those whose foot touch the ground of that spot along with the arrival of their “chosen” metro, knowing how they will not have to endure neither the discomfort frustration of awaiting with a bunch of strangers two floors underground, nor the happy teasing smug faces of those who are on the other side of the metro platform as their metro arrives to swallow all of them and hit the “rail” once again… bastards!!

As for me (an unlucky airhead with coarse observation skills and a tendency to unremittingly “amuse” myself), I have started to learn from this experience to keep it as enjoyable as possible.
Therefore, whenever I’m there, I silently look people in the face and categorize them as if they were china on my cardboard’s shelves.

Never-endlessly, there is always a difference PDA-ist couple, but they all share the same behavior that screams out “look at us, we can lick and stick, huggle and suckle, moan and groan, because we’re FREE and our organs are not only to PEE”, and what makes the charade always even droller is the presence of more than one couple, making it feel like a sex contest, and kudos to he/she who hath the longest tongue that slides the furthest into partner’s ear.

When the scene becomes boring and you look further around you’ll meet “Sad and Sadder”, who walk down the stairs as if they have the weight of the world on their shoulders or hanging from their diminishing balls or saggy man-boobs, they come down and they scan the foosball hoping to find someone who’s more pathetic, but they end up tilting their head in disappointment like a widowed clown.

White and blue collars (mostly original French which makes them a minority around here) take a seat to fake a newspaper-reading session, trying to isolate from everyone else including a fragile hot “single” MAMA, a cranky grandpa, a wasted drunki drunkenton, and that airhead that is looking people in the faces to categorize them.

Being to any metro station is 50% of the whole experience of living in France, because there… You get to see it all in 5 to 10 minutes.

Being possessed by demons of nostalgia is not the most glorious bless a man could have, especially during those moments when it’s cold enough that you can clearly hear the sound of steel teeth of those diablos sinking into the flesh of your soul, deep to your very heart.
We know profoundly how those cold moments are there to stay, for hours, days, and even centuries. Regardless how they fade temporarily squeezed by our urge to fight insecurity between the sweaty rush of life and the yellowish summer smoke of the city

There I was, nostalgic to and haunted by daydreams of her beautiful flawless wrinkles, getting more wrinkly with ever goddess-like smile, her creamy tones adding taste to my morning coffee, the nourishing energy spells cast by her caring hands that fed me for years, the rays of light shining down on me from the halo around her head, her systematic heart ticks whispering in my ears as I’m wrapped in the heaven of her arms, and mostly… the muse of her voice bathing me with her early morning and late night blessings.

I have missed you mom
I’ve missed how you fight the urge to smile wickedly whenever I’m cheeky
I’ve missed how you fight with me to change my opinions and beliefs in order to keep me with you in afterlife, and yet you rub it in my face when you sometimes prove that you’re right
I’ve missed how you cook the most delicious food in the world no matter how cranky and tired you could be
I’ve missed how differently your glasses change the shine of your eyes and their purity
I’ve missed how angelic you look no matter how dark the colors you choose to wear
I’ve missed how you protect me from being cocky by not giving me any credits, but still can’t hide your cockiness when you speak of my name in public
I’ve even missed those grieves we have had shared, how you gripped my arm as we prayed our final farewell to dad, and how you gripped it once again when we said our not-final goodbye to me in Damascus Airport.
But I’ve missed more the happy dofus pleasures, whether in our humble family house, or in the naked outsides, starting by the giggling at the shadows we made when the power was off, and ending by the late night ice creams long walks and talks.

Like every day when I’m all alone and almost unknown in a “terra firma”, when the road is  my one and only true companion, I saunter through colorful streets to gaze upon faces, some of them are as banal as winter to the point that they become hardly-noticeable, and some are quietly the opposite in every extraordinary aspect.

He, an old man in his late 60’s, was one of those unforgettable faces. He was standing there on the edge of a bridge cradling the horizon with his eyes, wearing pride, history, and a heavy winter “Manteau”, staring far away with persistence as if he was preparing to call upon lost souls or welcoming memories of the past as if they were old friends. His facial expressions have got that thing that awakes a sleeping sensation in you, to leave you there jaw-dropped with a scar-deep like memory.

Something strange made me step into his head to see what he was seeing.
It was like a Hollywood movie, as we both shared the same view tunnel within our heads, erasing new architecture, constructing an old one instead, drawing people with smiles on their faces and finishing up by coloring the sky to our liking.
For that we both smiled at the same time to the perfect image, and the perfect memory.
Was he a man that sold the world just like me? Could he be me in 25 years from now? or could me be him from the past? … I don’t know.

I feel abrasive, abused, afraid , aloof, angry, annoyed , anxious, ashamed , awful, bad , bewildered , boorish , boring, callous , careless , clumsy , combative , confused , coward , crazy , creepy , cruel , cynical, deceived, defeated , defective , demonic , depressed , deranged , disagreeable , disillusioned , disturbed , draconian , embarrassed , envious , erratic , evasive , evil , faded , fanatical , fierce , filthy, finicky , flashy , flippant , foolish ,forgotten , frantic , fretful , frightened , furtive , greedy , grieving , grouchy , gruesome , grumpy , gullible , helpless , hesitant , homeless , horrible , hungry , hurt , ignorant , ill , jealous , jittery , lazy , lonely , malicious , mean , naïve , nasty , naughty , nervous , outrageous , panicky , pathetic , possessive , repulsive , ruthless, sad , scared , selfish , silly , sore , strange , tensed , terrible , threatened , tired , tiresome , troubled , truculent , undesirable , unsure , unwell , upset , vengeful , venomous , volatile , voracious , vulgar , wasted , weak , worthless , wretched ...

yet , certainly NOT Nostalgic ....

You know you’ve had a wild new year’s eve when...

• You think you had the Four Basic Food Groups on dinner: Nicotine, Alcohol, Cannabis, and Women, and what makes it worse is that you can’t tell whether you’re having an orgasm or it was just the toilette flush.
• You notice your tie sticking out of your fly, even though you were not wearing any ties earlier.
• You piss on a tree log on your way back home, but suddenly the tree has an angry face of someone asking you in Spanish to stop pissing on their feet
• You wake up in a car that is not yours to find a Spanish dude named “Manuel” on your right and a stranger dudette to your left.
• You are so hangover to the point that you think you’re achieving the miracle of walking on water while you’re taking a shower.
• You remember images of people licking clean their alcohol glasses instead of putting them in the dish-washer, other images of people drinking beer to clean their blood system of the massive amounts of alcohol, and other images of people dancing salsa in their seats.
• You go to the bathroom to drop your pants and check what gender you are, and whether you still got what it takes to prove it, and what makes it funnier is that you don’t find your underwear in the process and remember images of yourself doing a dirty dance on the toilet seat in someone’s place.
• You come back to one of your friend’s house to find your underwear that you lost last night hanging from the chandelier.

Thank God I have not had a wild new year’s eve…
Even though belated, Happy New Year everyone !

I tried riding in that swing, and let me tell you, it’s not a fun ride, not fun or pretty at all!
I feel like I’m hanging between the highest sky and the lowest ground-zero, lost between Black and White , hence the dream of invading the world starting by Europe which was something that used to make me smile, is nothing now that I’m actually a small dot in the grand Europe.
I feel like I’ve been stripped of all my weapons except for nagging! And that surely would not help me win any wars or invade even a grocery store in this no-man’s land.

Well, as they say here “Laisse Tomber!” or as they say in English “Drop it!”
Yes! Dropping it since I’m not entitled to make any decisions yet, since I’m a newly-born baby to this environment, learning from the world around and absorbing how everyone is acting, or even worse, it’s more like a monkey-see monkey-do for me.

Therefore adaptation must take its toll on me regardless how mean or how nice the Frenchies can be, or how tough life can be (even when it comes to super basic needs like food, shelter, and shoulder), and regardless how wet I’m right now (not sexually but by the massive rain of Marseille), and finally, regardless how big and fat my ass is getting because of expressing my nostalgia by eating whatever Syrian food I can cook

So mote it be, let operation “Adaptation” begin!
(Only for the thing that I can get adapted to, other things like the aquarium in my pants won’t find their way to a solution)

The captain’s voice echoed across the “Airbus A320” declaring in Arabic and in English “Both with a Syrian accent” that we were about to crash and burn or hopefully land safely in the international airport of Marseille.
Perhaps I would have appreciated the joke if I weren’t in a worst-to-wear humor.

I pulled aside the curtains and pressed myself to the windows like a kid against the candy jam, as galaxies and stars were surrounding me like a corn field.
I looked down and I was about to cheat on the beauty of imperfection of Damascus upon witnessing the glorious shades of the marvelous big city lights, gradient of artificial beauty fading to be swallowed in the heart of the mighty sea.

The plane started to tilt and swivel to make me feel like I was “Heidi” on her mumbo-jumbo kite, with my puppy-like wide eyes were staring showing how “enchanté(d)” I was, but I reached out to pull myself back off the window to remind myself that cities always look more divine from above, just like how people look more humane from a distance.

The big metal ship touched the French soil then I was next, and I started walking through the terminal feeling harmless, floors and stairs were moving automatically underneath my feet carrying me to my destination, doors were opening dynamically for me, and people were smiling to me as if the whole city was welcoming me, swallowing me within, or at least this is how I wanted to think it were maybe to help me de-melanho-lize the moment.

It was 1:39AM
“Bonjour Monsieur” and “Au Revoir” were the only things I heard from the “personnel” at the airport who were not drinking “Matteh” or giving me the “7el 3an Rabby 3and Hal Masa” look.

I left the airport to be stroke by the witty wet taste of the sea carried by the “Venti”, and I took a deep breath swallowing the entire sea that was on the tips of my tongue, which for a moment (I swear) made me feel like I could taste the other end of the Mediterranean in Lattakia.

I rushed out to meet “Shafique” and “Abbas” who were the perfect sample of Arabs in France, the sample that makes you want not to meet more Arabs in Europe…
They took me to the place where I’m supposed to live for a while, and left me to sleep, while on the contrary I sat there terrified of surrendering my soul to sleep…

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: You find the present tense and the past perfect

My heart was mercilessly ripped out of my chest the very second I turned my back on her to walk through the tunnel, to walk towards the light, the light that never warms.
I walked with head bowed, surrounded by an aura of neither regret nor shame, as it was only mere grief, grief that almost stripped me off my pride forcing silent tears of nostalgia to flow massively down my dry-as-a-bone face.

“Damascus”, the lady whom I adored and still do with every single breath and every heart beat.
The lady whom I shared with my dear magnificent ups, all along with my excruciating downs.
The lady that I left behind cradling the greatest people on earth, my family and friends, knowing quite well that she will be comforting them enough by holding them tight and telling them that I will be back for them with bags full of adventures and a little experience.

I wasn’t sure if that moment was a beginning of a breathtaking dream or just a big hole swallowing me into a never-ending malicious nightmare, but all I knew that it was a terrible moment, as terrible as the moment when I kissed my Dad good bye into his grave, after 26 years away from the second he kisses my forehead good night for the first time into my cradle.

Thank you all, my precious Dad’s soul, my most favorite two precious ladies, my close precious friends, and everyone who ever looked at me with a gesture of respect, love, appreciation, and even envy.
Thank you sincerely for being there to give me the reason to come back home, and to actually have a home in the first place…

All of those feelings were kept safely in my right pocket as I rushed to be treated as a Syrian citizen for the last time before a year passes by at least.
I jumped on the plane with a struggle within, almost had a heart attack by a catatonic overload, before remembering that my heart s not with me anymore, my heart is still “en guard” in Damascus.

I looked back and I said “À bientôt”, paused for a second then shook my head and said…
“بـشـوف وشّـــك بـخـيــر يــا شــــام”