L'air du temps...

And so it goes…


Only if you knew how it happened… you would never judge me. But why should I say? I never did and never will. How is it that you could pour your heart out to a homeless stranger in the park, but not to your heart?
That’s how it has always been… you see me in the whirlpool of everyone’s attention. But I.. I sink, and when I sink, I sink alone… like a stone.
I ran away from home as a child. I found you by my side. I ran away and you ran after me. You want us to go back home now. I don’t have a home.
Know I will always have your smell. And that stays in my heart.
Only if you knew how it happened though. Only if you knew how and why my heart is made of stone. Empathy, you say? I feel every heartbeat of every soul that passes through my door.
But I don’t associate with any of it.
I am no one. And no one knows me.
And then, there you are. I... I found you there inside.. here.. too much here. What will I do with you? I don’t know.
Go home now.
and always remember what I used to say, when one faces one’s own demons, one faces them alone. So don’t come back looking for me once more.
But it’s fine. What can I say? sometimes it’s dark, but I am used to it now. The blind smell their way to happiness. And I’ve always been a good nose.
And this time, I tell you love, next fall will smell of gold…

A Puccini state of mind... absolutely!


Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore...

When mania visits…


He walked in the kitchen, went to the fridge, and systematically took down all the photos from the magnet clips.
One by one. He stuffed them back in the envelope, and put them back in the drawer where they were before.
He wondered why in the first place he bought the clips earlier this afternoon.
He stared at the clips, empty, hanging idly… waiting to grip a moment, to commemorate a face on a fridge door… eager to display a smile, a parent, a friend… he tried to spell out the letters ‘N’ and ‘O’ with the clips, but there weren’t enough of them… so he scattered them back, randomly, and stared at them again… Why did he do that?

He does not have any single picture displayed in his whole apartment.
Is it the faces? Does he find them too… obtrusive? too ‘there’, with him, living moments that are supposed to be of solitude?
Did he reach that level of ‘aloneness’ that he cannot share his space even with a picture?

Or maybe he was simply unable to decide which pictures to display.. people.. parents.. friends… there are too many of them.
No, not that.
Maybe he thinks that no one should be present. ‘present’…
‘All passed’ echoed in his head… All go back to drawers with time, or sit in closed albums at best. As if of their own will.
Or wasn't it? Was it his will. Well, yes maybe it was. But was this cruel? (He thought).
Maybe, but this is his memories and actually… his fridge door!
He brightened and felt justified by the idea (he thought this ‘out loud’ in fact, with a shake of the head to mark defiance… but against whom? he had no one, so he laughed at the thought as well… with much more merriment than you think).
Did he feel sad? yes. a little, of course. Estranged? perhaps. Odd? but how? How could one feel odd to oneself? skin to flesh to bone… to the very soul.

She visits unaccompanied…

The cow parade is in Boston and it's... adorable!!

When wine turns to blood...

- Who cares about what happened in Drafour?
- Darfur.
- Tell me something tender… Something sweet!
- You are crazy, you know.
- Life is sweet, love, only when you are a little crazy.
- A little, yes. But not head in the clouds all the time.
- My head is on your lap now… and besides life is less bitter when you care to dream…
- And the pain goes away with a gentle kiss, right? mmm…
....................“Le chagrin est vite apaisé,
....................et se console d' un baiser”
....................(sang in the background).
- Not the pain I saw today… not the pain of Drafour…
- Darfur, love... No, now you tell me something sweet.
....................“Parlez-moi d' amour,
....................redites-moi des choses tendres”
....................(sang in the background).
- Du cœur on guérit la blessure, par un serment qui le rassure…
....................“Vous savez bien
....................Que dans le fond je n' en crois rien
....................Mais cependant je veux encore
....................Écouter ce mot que j' adore”
....................(sang in the background)
- Bon, malgré Drafour… je crois que je t’aime encore.
(she said this with a beaming malicious cat-grin, unzipping his pants while fixing her gaze on his fatigued face)

and it does go on…


Her lifetime gatherings stuffed in boxes waiting to be moved one more time…
She feels apprehensive about where she is going, about where life is taking her next, but she tries not to think about it. She tries to think of her little city, tries to remember what has already begun to fade away…
How strange memory is! How we filter our lives through the sieve of everyday-realities.
Later, she knows she will sit down… in a new house, by a new fire place, sipping wine from the last surviving glass… she will sit down and bring out the memories… only when they lose their power to hurt, do we bring them out. one by one. eagerly, like unfolding a story to a child. like opening a long-waiting present. we tear off the wrapping paper and begin to play, to tell our story. the story of where we came from, of who we met and what they did… we talk of how we are writing a new entry, a new chapter…
But for now, she looks at her boxes, casting monstrous shadows on her white walls… well, the walls are not hers anymore, only the boxes, and her thousand memories put away safely in the back of her mind, for a better time to come… for a fire place, for a glass of wine, and a friend, eager to share his stories of what had happened before.

Message in a bottle…



On the way to extinction…
my tolerance
my calm
my anger
my reaction

A thank-you note…
for a hand
for a call
for a smile
and a heart of gold

Nostalgia resurfaced…
I missed the smell of fixer
my photos are digital
and Adobe adds my filters
(lethargy)

A note of self-consciousness…
I could smell my own smell
When would I desensitize
to life, to pain
to lose my own name

Prêt à porter individuality…
My identity is a burden
I like the uniqueness it has
but tired of your wary glance
I’ll vanish in the crowd now

Amputated memories…
what happened didn’t happen
start concealing evidence
from impromptu murder scenes
What didn’t happen happened

Shiva at Sanayeh square...

Let me be your prey… one more time.


“When was the last time you heard her voice?” was whispered.
‘I can’t hear! I can’t hear!’ Chocking with tears he cried out.
(more whispers. more voices. faded. Indistinguishable.)
‘I heard my name among the voices! I begged for my hand to be held. But she, once more, disappeared in the folds of my imagination…’
He launched himself across the room, started banging on the door, rattling the knob, screaming ‘let me in’…
‘LET ME IN!
I need my voice to be heard.
I want you to see my scars.
Let me in; I want you in my life.
I need you to pet my cat.
I need you to share my bed.
Let me in.
My flesh left once more
streaks of blood on your gate
but they don’t scare me anymore.
They don’t scar me anymore!
I have no more bones to break
no more fingers
no more nails
to scratch the wood of your door
to burrow my way through your walls..
All I have are muffled screams
they come to you between sobs
Let me in
I need food and drink
I need sex
I need a bed
Let me in
You are my home…
Let me in’
She opened her ribs like a peacock,
like a peacock butterfly,
spread her flytrap in the sky.
Venus. de Milo? Venus In Furs?
Her kiss on his lips once more,
froze his heart in her grip.
“I told you to came back…
I can never have enough
of the taste of your flesh.”
In her lilting voice she said
while taking another bite
of what was left of his heart…

Sufism on the six train...


I heard a sad melody on the subway tonight. a wailing violin.
The kind of music that seeps through your brain, then your body, then… leaves you emotionally paralyzed.
blood slowly dripping from your body.
drip.
drip.
drip.
until you are selfless. you are no more. until you feel melting.. amalgamating with the rest of the car.
you stop having personal boundaries. you f.. fuse. you merge. slowly.
titillating it was. a mystical orgy.
no more bars, no more seats, no more people, just a little blob of existence. of nothing. shapeless. more intimate than sex with someone you love. more tender…
quiet.