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...

On my way to university, the bus passed by an Elementary public school. It was the morning line where all the young girls are veiled. I don't understand. Why do traditions steal their innocence and childhood at the very beginning of their life? I don't think their age exceed 10 years old and it's really sad. Aren't they beautiful young girls? Don't they have the rights to enjoy their hair like all  the other girls from higher classes? The funny thing is that the people need to know that it won't make their girls go the way the want? Veil is not a matter of covering your head and I am pretty sure when these young girls grow up, they won't be so convinced although it could be the time when they are obliged to wear it according to Islam's rules. I find it equally similar to Child Labour because it's unfair. It's not a matter of acknowledgement, it's an educational problem. This society needs to be educated so we get rid of many more issues aga...

I know this topic is too repetitive, but I couldn't help not writing about it. Yesterday I was in Zamalek at 3.00 pm. I saw a red-head foreigner, who seemed to be in her thirties, walking down the street uncomfortably with fast steps, and t hen I noticed two Egyptian guys walking behind her and uttering few words that I couldn't actually recognize. The woman was trying to escape from them, and even tried looking to the other people in the street, but of course nobody moved an inch. I was in the Taxi when I saw her taking a a side to pretend to be getting into the pharmacy or looking at its vitrine(display cabinet). It saddened me that she wasn't even wearing any kind of revealing clothes, even if she was, it would still be sad. It saddened me more the fact that there was nothing catchy to look for at the PHARMACY'S Vitrine, I mean, who stop to stare at what the pharmacy is displaying? She did that till the boys kept on walking as she took that side. They really walked ...

It has been a long while since I let out my inner bullshit on my blog. I haven't been writing anything about my own feelings, or I didn't try to put them in words, pour them out through my shaky fingertips pressing on the keyboard buttons, confused and bewildered. I am not sure of what I want exactly and I am not sure if I going to do anything about it. As for now, I am trying to put the letters next to each other to end up making any sense. I have to let it out. I need to. I need to runaway, and by running away, I don't mean from the place where I am sitting right now. It's not about home, it's not about land and it's not about this fucked up country. Those things are really small compared to all what I have inside my head. It usually feels like a whole new universe but without a sun or a moon. Light and dark comes in the form of emotions and feelings. The worst thing is that there's no time or clocks and it only hits me. It hits and grabs me along as I ...

The boy who cleans shoes and laughs.I came across this picture on Tumblr, and it made me smile. Normally, I reblog, like and flip to another picture, but this time, I didn’t do that. I found myself turning off the music I was listening to, and staring in silence into this little boy’s face. There’s something about it, something happy, yet far from the happy we all know. In his dilapidated undershirt, that is no longer white, and the old jeans, he sits there smiling like he is eating his favourite chocolate bar or candy. I stared and found no candies or chocolate; just a little boy and a man’s foot. His job is repetitive, boring and not fun for a boy at his age. He is not supposed to be doing this. He is supposed to be drawing, dancing or playing around with his friends. With his box of tools and restless, tiny body, he is cleaning peoples’ shoes for living. He is obliged to face feet everyday and clean the shoes of the customers, not caring that at some point it would be humiliat...

There is nothing called “Life” as long as we never fully understand it. You can hardly get convinced by something you have no idea about, something you don’t control, something that takes but never gives. We topple down regimes because they aren’t fair. We make strikes, to fix the wrongs and quench our thirsts of anger. Should we topple down life and protest against it? Who will we shout to? Heaven? Sky? It remains unknown. Life is worse, in every word. I don’t know who to blame but I can’t find that humans are solely responsible. I don’t get why people die. I don’t know why we aren’t happy. I don’t get why the old man can’t afford a good meal to his family. I don’t get why people lose each other. I don’t know why every good thing has to end. When I try to understand, the adrenaline rushes in my head, and every vein feels like exploding.  I don’t get you life and I don’t know if you and fate are just the same. I know fate is in God’s hands and that’s why I am confused. Why do we ha...

The way the educational systems make us feel obliged to learn, or we'll be nothing in the society, doesn't let us feel the beauty of knowledge and striving for it. We go to colleges and schools because we have to, not because we are starving to learn something new. We are forced to go only to have a good future, job and mainly fortune, not because we want to do w hat we love so that we can make a living out of it. It's like the educational systems and countries' currency building our futures instead of our tendencies. People choose to study what they don't like because it will ensure a better job or salary. You never know, and you'd never really learn something you don't like. Adding to this, the amount of information and details we study is huge and useless. We waste the time of our lives to learn too many things that we get rid of after we sit for the exams. I mean, think of it. 12 years in school and 4-7 years in college. That's a lot, really and you ...

War is there and peace seems so impossible as if it does not even exist. Innocent people die everyday and the world does not seem to take a remarkable move. But we still believe in a free Palestine. We don't have much in our hands, I know we don't. But we have our beliefs. Believing make things happen and believing is usually the very beginning of a every fresh new start. In a free Palestine, I st rongly believe. I believe it's even there because the sacred land can't be dirtied by terrorism and crimes against humanity. I know some of you might find what I am saying close to illusion, and I know the Zionists will find what I say repeatedly funny. I don't really care because what I believe in is stronger. One day, Palestine will be completely free. Now it's partially free. Yes, it IS free because admitting it and refusing what Israel is trying to Brainwash us with is the first step through its freedom. Reality is different, but it can't stop me from dreaming ...

Lying with her favourite book in her hands while listening to the heartwarming music no longer switch off the floods of negative thoughts from demolishing all her confidence. Clocks ticking, hearts beating, eyes blinking, and issues being born. Nothing would stop anything from coming up to her head, nothing would make her feel better about herself, and nothing would make anything feel the same. The weird feelings kick into her like a stranger knocking on a house’s door right away before the dawn; unusual but she accepted them all in since she has nothing to fear. She has been through the worst of reality and fantasy. She has been in all the nightmares and strange is no longer strange to her. She thought of seeking help. She needed to save herself from her own mind and its battles, she wanted someone to suck away her negativities and fears. She knew she could face them on her own, but her body was a leaf on an autumn. The apathy’s ink has overflown in her blood and no mosquito w...

It is 5:00 am, everybody is sleeping, and I’m up. Last night was depressing and sad, but for now, I’m up. I have no reason to wake up this early, yeah I know I have college which I don’t give a damn about, but I’m up.  Yesterday I met an awesome friend, who told me something so meaningless that it made so much sense. “ Whatever, life ”, He said. I don’t know why I wrote this pointless piece of crap, but I’m up with nothing except for some smelly thoughts irritating me inside my head. “Sleep, sleep, sleep”, I try to order my brain, but I don’t decide and that’s why I’m up. Wide awake, with those bloodshot eyes and wounded soul, I breathe without a single will to survive. Whatever, I’m here right now, with my fingertips pressing the keyboard buttons and the low noise tells that I am alive. It doesn’t matter because we are all dead inside, but the funny part is that at some point,  we’re all up. I used  ‘we ’ at the last sentence. It never happens ...