The Cairene

Earlier this month, it was my friend’s birthday. I asked him about what he learnt during his folded year, I wanted him to tell me life taught him in three sentences or more. He summed it up in one word; Solitary. We nearly analyzed this word and talked the perks of being able to live through solitary and finding blessings within. I looked back to the moment since I crawled out of my mothers’ womb till right now. I didn’t really eye-witness the moment I was born, but I am sure I was crying like any other tiny baby during the delivery process. As babies, we are always crying, I really have no idea if it’s out of sadness, fear or pain. You can never read a baby’s brain, not even remember your own reasons when you were one. I am sure it wasn’t tears of happiness; it was cries of something far from happiness of course. The point is, we were crying. We are naturally sad. I know happiness can exist in few scenes or instants, but sadness owns the originality. I am just saying this to refr...

ساعة واقفة و قهوة باردة و كتاب صُفحه مش بتتقلب و مزيكا بتعيد نفسها و ليل و نهار مافيش فرق بينهم، و عين ماشفتش النوم، و ماضي و حاضر متخيَطين في بعض، و مستقبل مالوش وش، و افكار ملهاش مطرح و كلام مالوش غير ورق. 

A soft breeze in a hot humid day. A swirling falling feather flying over the air. A slow ocean's wave bringing cold water to my toes. A violin string and beautiful music from the other room. A blank painting that captures my attention with its mysterious nothingness. I sigh; As I let go of a long warm hug or a tender kiss, And feel it winding away my pressure, A I let my walls, safely, come down for a second, And I start letting air into my lungs once again. A little boy’s genuine smile, An old man’s tears coursing his wrinkles, A lady humming her song in the orchard, A solider seeing his son for the first time. It's every beautiful thing that's bound to make me feel lost. I sigh. A harmonica's melody; I sigh again. -RK.

يو م الخميس اللي فات، نزلت الزمالك كالعادة اني بنزل في اليوم دة، كان اجازة رسمية "عيد تحرير سيناء" ف الزملك كانت شوارعها فاضية لحدّ ما،علي عكس طبيعتها كل ايام الخميس. قررت اني اتمشي شوية باليافطة بدّل ما افضل قاعدة في مكاني اللي ماكنش قيه روح اوي لغياب عمّ مصطفي اللي بيجلس جمب فرشة جرايد و كتب. اتمشيت في شارع البرازيل و انا ماشية لمحت عامل من العُمّال اللي في محل الكاب-كيكز الشهير “Nola Cupcakes” بيدّي طفل صُغيّر من اطفال الشوارع قطعة كاب-كيك، و علي بُعد خطويتن تجلس امراة عجوز و تطلب من العامل انه يدّيها قطعة ليها هيَّ كمان. اقتربت و سالتني الست المُسّنة: "ايه دة؟؟ مكتوب ايه؟؟". ردّيت عليها و قُلتلها مكتوب: "لو عاوز تتكلم عن اي حاجة، انا هاسمعك". فردت قائلة: "هتسمعييني ازاي؟ معاكي ميكريفون؟؟" ابتسمت و قلتلها: "لا، انا باسمع الناس عشان اساعدهم، بس انا مش وعايا ميكريفون ولا بصوّر". فردت: "اه، حسنة يعني، ربنا يكرمك يا بنتي و يجعله في ميزان حساناتك". افتكرت موقف الكاب-كيك و سالتها "انتي عايزة واحدة؟" فردت عليّا...

Roaming around my room, feeling numb but moving; my legs were holding me hardly when I couldn’t hold the weight of my world. I saw a body looming in the mirror. I don’t know who that was or why it was moving unsteadily, I didn't bother. I approached the mirror and I was antagonized.  I looked closely and I saw her. A girl, in her latest years of teenage, was staring at me. Something about her caught my breath away, and I couldn't point that thing out. He face was pale, dim and bloodless. Black circles around her eyes like the seven colors of spectrum, but in black shades. Her eyes weren’t scary, but jaded kind of scary. I couldn’t know where she was looking or what she was staring at about me, but I saw my face in her eyes’ pupil. I noticed her fading green of her iris, and was haunted my image inside her pupil once again. I wanted to know what she was seeing in me, but I never knew.  I swallowed my saliva and grasped for a single breath of air. ...

Feelings; as much as we hate them, we can't make anything beautiful without them. Without their presence, there wouldn't be any writers nor artists; Art wouldn't have even existed. Feelings are those scatters of illusional nothingness. It's the world of non existence, intangible threads and invisible robes that tie\pull a person together or tear them apart.  Art is the road and  the maze, what you want to get on, and what you want to get lost within, and for that to actually happen, you must be filled with the tools aka feelings. They'll take you to places you never though you'd ever been, they'll take your mind to theories you never thought you'd ever come up to, they will make you write what you never thought you'd have the courage to say, and make you paint what you've never thought your vision could reach. Feelings tell if you are dead inside or alive. Emptiness is what most of us wish to feel, but point is that emptiness is a kind of feeling...

“Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Chops" because that was the name of his dog And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and a gold star And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo And he let them sing on the bus And his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair And his mother and father kissed a lot And the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X's and he had to ask his father what the X's meant And his father always tucked him in bed at night And was always there to do it Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Autumn" because that was the name of the season And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of it...

Some things happen without a sign or a miracle. I lost all my wars and battles, and I don't know why. I feel sad, all the time, like there is nothing that ever make me smile again although I try. I fail, and I don't know why. I am always down, being grabbed deeper below by some abstract force and I don't fight myself. I don't know how. I have lost interests in all what I have always loved and I can't go back. I can't get you, nor my old self back. I won't try because I know my inner voice will say 'I don't know'. I don't know what I am writing now or what's the point, but if you are asking; here's my answer: I don't know.  I take long walks into the dark side. I like it in a way that I have never known. I am messy, emotionally numb and confused. Don't ask, we both know that I don't know.  I watch people and sank into their moves and unspoken words. I know them all, but when it comes to me saying what I saw out loud, I just...

I find God in pain. Pain is our savior and we just deny it.  It's the sweet and bitter method of survival. It saves us from ourselves, even when we don't want to be saved.  It's where I find God the most. Many people cut, and if they feel no pain, they'd have gone so deep down their flesh and killed themselves. Pain saved them;  God is there. Pain makes you shiver and fall.  It makes you palled and relieved. God is there. Pain comes with and without fear. It can make you feel scared but safe. God is there. Emotional pain is there almost all the time,  but it's still indefinable.  Physical pain is there and we fear it although it makes us feel less numb.  Some run to it while others others run from it. Just lik believing and disbelieving,  Just faith and infidelity. God is there. You can't see it, but  You feel it; beneath your skins,  inside your spine, and around your bones,  It can...

Right now, I am lying in bed. It's a busy day and it's noisy and loud outside my room's window. Cars' horns, people coming and going, and kids playing loudly. I stared and felt tired. The view could bring one headache and unease.  I grasped for silence and inner peace while reaching to my hearing aids and decided to take them off.  The striking difference made me feel those strong goosebumps in my spine and veins.  My world. It's divine and peaceful in a way I can't describe. I knew how peace is never a simple word to describe. I knew how it's more than few actions between nations and its people. I knew Peace, the real peace that dissolved inside my inner gaps, healed my wounds and tenderly touched my scars.  In this moment, I am not hearing anything. In this moment, my world is all about silence and its non categorised levels. The good part is how it kills my inner voices and unhealthy thoughts. It's strange how the silence beats everything in my...