Say that I'm okay

This is a translation of Mashrou3 Leila's song Inni Mneeh
I find myself compelled to translate it. Don't ask why...
I may have got a few words wrong, by the way, so apologies for that.

Come let's burn down this city,
and build a nobler one.

Come let's forget this age,
and dream up a kinder time.

You still have nothing
you would lose nothing.
and I have tired of my own company.

I had wished to change the world, I don't know how the world has changed me.
I had wished to carry heaven, and here I am hardly carrying myself.

Say that I'm okay
Say that I'm okay

Twenty Fifth of May

I caught it! I managed to pin it down and take a look at it before it evaporated, being by definition something incapable of surviving under the gaze of another.

Sitting there in my cubicle at work, feeling a little tired but not especially, a little depressed but not unusually so, and a little overwhelmed by everything that is and the lack of everything that isn't - sitting there I found myself slipping into a familiar state of mental silence.

Inexplicably, I was aware of it happening... everything around me started to evaporate, and I distinctly felt myself trying to hold on to some thread of conversation, some train of thought, or some sense of company -- before I end up with no distractions at all and nothing but myself.

And I couldn't, every issue became trivial and everyone became a stranger, and I was completely alone.

And for a while I lost myself to unreasonable despair.

This abstract despair didn't last, for soon enough all sorts of problems gravitated towards it and all sorts of reasons started to cling to it.

"not unlike politics", I mused, and found myself again thinking about the current affairs, and so I was back to the world of everyday, and what upset me was measurable again.

I think those few seconds are important, though, and I will remember...

when nothing was the matter with me, and that was why I despaired.

"Show's over. Go home.
You thought there could be some merit to you being here now? There isn't any.
Go make a life for yourself, or something.
Bye."

Well, here it is...

I've been wanting to tell you this...

Well, but

I am not sure why, or for what,

I have kept at holding my tongue.

It will be ungrateful of me,

I know,

-not that you would think or say so-

but forgive me, for I am young.

The thing is -it's just how it feels,

alright?-

You have disappeared from my sight

and all at once, everything stung!

Now, I've been told you're surely close,

but I

have such a loud and noisy sigh

that it has muted out your voice.

They say it's true, I should know that,

and say

that my outlook is all so gray,

and that in that I have a choice.

So, talk myself into seeing

your face?

Or should I call upon your grace,

to give me reason to rejoice?

The same as when I've started, I...

stammer.

Mixed up with the crowd's dull clamor,

I whisper this: "Say something, please"

It's now your move, -sorry- your turn

to speak.

Complete a rhyme (that's rather weak)

with more than rustling in the trees.

Where have You gone?

Why should memories be desired, be they clear as could be?

Am I blind because I forgot, how the hurt cease to see?

Can I settle for stale bread, having tasted the daily one?

My Lord, My God, but where have You gone?

Can It Ever Work?

I've been feeling down today...

Probably because I've read this, watched this, and then thought about this:

Are people really are so impossible to enlighten?

Tarek Heggy seemed to be saying that although he works so that light will somehow get through, his hopes are rather low that it will!

Then there's that video...

The simple question of "Why is a group of Christians praying in a place "without a license" a problem for anybody" simply had no reasonable answer.

I'd understand it being a problem if you're a policemen charged with upholding the law (regardless how outrageous that law may be)... but if you're a layman who breaks a dozen laws a day, and then you get worked up enough about Christians praying "without a license" (ugh, I can't believe I'm actually arguing about this!) to commit acts of violence to stop it, and you happen to have tens or hundreds of like-minded people with you... then you can't possibly tell me it's because "they have no license" or "they're breaking the law"! And the "eye witness" was honest (ha!) enough about it to say his problem is "they're too few"!!!!

The fact that people can be so hateful, ignorant and illogical, and harm others because of that, cobined with the incredible notion that they can get away with it and even get official support from a senator to do it, makes Tarek Heggy too right! There seems to be a lack of will to change on the streets as well as in the top-floor offices.

Then to try & cheer myself up, I decided to read anything for G. K. Chesterton off the web.

It worked for a little while, too well in fact, that it made me think again about why almost nobody knows this guy

And that got me back into the pithole...

Because it seems that being insightful, compassionate, funny, wise and right doesn't necessarily lead to making a change at all!

and I started wondering (forgive my arrogance) if maybe I can be like Chesterton; but like Chesterton, would make no difference whatsoever in changing people or the events they cause to happen, so that it would lead to a brighter future.

That's a serious frustration because as I believe it, things and people on all levels must eventually and through providence, be enlightened.

and like Switchfoot put it, the tension is between how it is and how it should be.

that tension is... well... such a bummer!

To a Country

Dear Egypt,

I came back to you, to find you dying a little bit more than when I left you...

My beloved Egypt seems to be hanging herself.

But you're not just tying the rope around your neck and hopping off the chair,

(that wouldn't be appropriate for your old age, would it?)

Rather you are doing it excruciatingly slowly.

Yet surely, deliberately and unmistakebly, you are killing yourself.

Like a nightmare of a death-row prisoner, seeing himself walking his last mile, while it stretches on endlessly, neither giving him freedom nor death, neither rest nor salvation...

and to be honest with you, we are all very tired just watching your nightmare passing by!

And I beseech you:

Can't you make up your mind? Will you not choose life, or even death?!

And if you're too devided to choose, won't you at least do us the kindness of running out of wealth, so your children -your impoverished princes of thieves- would fly off to another field to lay to waste?!

Or won't you run out of fictitious enemies, so your old crones -your tormented sheikhs of hell- would devour each other instead?!

Can't you either have faith and live, or curse your gods and die?!

To a City

Dear Cairo,

I pray this finds you well,

although I doubt it will.

I am writing to tell you that things here aren't going too good... especially on the financial side.

They might not hit the floor, but still. It makes staying here less attractive.

And I keep thinking...

Why the hell am I here?

I don't particularly need this!

Not to mention that I'm giving up quite a lot to be here.

I'm freezing my soul for months at a time just to survive,

pulling a face of stone

lest it betrays feelings

and forces me to feel stuff with it

I don't blame anyone who refuses to come visit you after a while, and I don't think you should either.

Have you any idea how much visiting you hurts?

There's a sort of unbearable longing

not to some past-tense pseudo-utopia

(you made sure of that!)

but to a... I don't know...

to actually caring abt something!

because a person stops doing that after a while here

Yes, we care about our own well-being in a vague manner

and about our rights in an aggressive one

but rarely about anything on the outside

We just couldn't give a damn

Whether the UAE prospered

or Pakistan sank

or the EU failed to become the new world super-power

Just off-handedly, we can discuss world politics

or read the english newspaper to pass the time we spend in transportations

But we won't lift a finger to change a thing

But with you, dear Cairo...

My fingers are itching all the time!

whether I do something or not, is another matter...

but I feel.

And that's why coming to visit after years of cold indifference

feels like hot water on frostbitten skin

it tears at it

burning like hellfire

and forces our hearts out of us

So what do we do?

Do we just cope with limbo?

Do we leave and never look back?

Do we stay trapped in your smothering embrace?

What do we do, Cairo?

Tell me, seriously, what can a man do?!

Waiting to hear from you...

Sincerely,

Peter

In Anxiety

Interviewer: Tell me, do you think you can do this job?

Interviewed: Yes I do, I believe I am more than up to it.

Interviewer: So you can handle the pressure?

Interviewed: Yes I can handle any pressure I never snapped I know it when it pushes you into the dirt and throws you mercilessly into an open grave and crushes your head and squeezes your heart with a steely fist of ice and fills your lungs with thick black acidic smoke I know it very well I never snapped the idea is to fight back when it pushes you push it back you can always struggle and franticaly punch nothing and hold back the closing walls and hold up the falling roof and bite at the plastic bag and hold your breath forever and kick and kick and never scream you stiffle the scream or maybe the pressure does but you never screamed because screams are frightenning you just shut up stay silent in control don't panic don't panic DON'T PANIC

Interviewer: Good to know. That's all, welcome to the team.

In Place

Have you ever noticed how a sad person asks more deep questions than a happy one?
And yet I fail to come up with an especially deep question, or a particularly amusing pun.

I fail to write, and instead I stall.

So I shall leave this post wanting, it'll die in a few days.
That way, I'd have put it justly in its rightful place.

And now my tale has grown too tall.

Because we all know that isn't really true...
to serve this post justice I'd have to write it through.

Or not. I may not write it at all.

But I can't help noticing how this post is still here,
It's written, in spite of my wisdom and my fear.

Yelling 'In gravity, we fail to fall.'

ISB

They turned the lights off on the plane.
Finally...
It's been a very long flight.
And I can't quite remember what it is I'm fleeing from.
Bad joke, I know...

Some guy was arguing angrily with the stewardess a while ago,
said something about wanting to go home.
They wouldn't let him disembark, of course.
So childish of him.

Some warm fluid is dripping right next to my eyes.
Oh that's a tear.
feels good.

It didn't go on very long, though.
Too bad, wish it did.

Well I don't think anybody should blame me,
what better to do, than to cry?
What better way to prove to yourself you can still feel.
That you aren't really as monstrous as you'd have yourself believe.

It didn't go on very long, though.
No, Sir.

In Hell

Time to Pretend, originally uploaded by fady_python.

I don't know about what people call Hell, but the hell I know is a place of nightmares & hate-driven illusions.

Some of that hate is directed towards somebody, or maybe everybody, but most of it is directed towards oneself.

Self-dispite is very much a place; it certainly feels like one, complete with sooty walls. There are no windows, and somebody has removed the door, too! All they left is an uncomfortable, dirty wooden chair, the kind that makes you prefer to stand up until you're too tired to.

Over here, people are barely aware (if at all) of the presence of other beings. So you see, it's a terribly lonely place.

Over here, you have free reign & very little is there to stop you from drowning in your own hurtful fantasies. Our physical surroundings sometimes give us a frame of reference, without them it is far easier to sink into despair, I imagine.

And what gives us a better frame of reference is others, and like I said above, we're not paying much attention to the presence of any others.

Speaking of others... Over here no being has any authority over another being, they're all imps. Minions with no Master. They're all poor, weak souls. No powerful beings can be found there.

Over here, they have no hopes. They will never change. They will never get out of themselves.

Or so they think...

In Estrangement

As a child you are born into a world to which you are a stranger.
Then little by little, you get used to some of the things in it... Your parents, your house, your friends, your country, your religion and others belonging to it... etc.
You relate to those things & begin identifying yourself as being a part of them.

then at some point, this might start slipping away.
You may begin to feel that things are changing, or it may be that you are changing and with you your perception of these things.
Which of them is true is not relevant, indeed anything may be true for all you care. In all cases you & those things start drifting apart.

For instance, you might begin to realise you don't really belong to this country. And although you may still inhabit it, it may seem to have been taken over by people quite different from yourself, and they've changed it so much it's no longer safe to you & your kind.
At this point consider yourself blessed, you still have your kind (whatever that is) to relate to.

Then after a while you may come to another realisation, you don't belong to this system of belief.
It is no longer safe to trust it nor to trust their teachings on it. No longer safe to trust them.
And you may or may not notice how "them" starts with a few people, then the list keeps growing until "them" becomes a generic word that includes almost everyone. Almost... except a precious few.
At this point do not consider yourself cursed yet, you still have those precious few (whoever they are) to relate to.

But who knows how far will this illness drag you away...
Who knows what else or who else will you become estranged to.
Maybe even your own thoughts would start to sound strange & unfimiliar, no longer resounding in your mind.

Maybe it will keep happening until there is nothing left for it to happen to.

And then you might just look around and find that no matter where you are, you are a complete stranger.

In Loneliness

Where you have no company but yourself, & you're not such fabulous company anyway.

Where tomorrow's needlessly long & yesterday's sharply bitter, although vague & barely there at all.

Where your breathing attempts awkward conversations with your heartbeat every once in a while, fails miserably & falls silent.

And when the monsters come out to play... I think you should pick on somebody your own size, you hear me?!

Do you hear me?

Father??
Save me...

Silently

"He was one of those to whom nature has given the desire without the power of artistic expression. He had been a dumb poet from his cradle. He might have been so to his grave, and carried unuttered into the darkness a treasure of new and sensational song............"
From "The Napoleon of Notting Hill" by G. K. Chesterton

Always felt that statement described me.
Aah... So lucky are the artists. The rest of us struggle silently.

Careful What You Wish

Felt bored of life & wished for a change. & prayed for it, too.
Change came in a phonecall, next thing I knew I was travelling the world for a job. My friends thought that was impressive & exciting. So did I at first.
Now I'm all alone, it's remarkable how fancy things are rubbish when you have nobody to share them with. It's like using a silk mop with a gold handle, completely pointless.
And so I lost all desire for... anything!

So I wished for desire, some surge of passion was what I needed, even if I didn't admit it to myself or voice out that wish.
Passion came, it felt like fireworks made of stars & entire solar systems. a cosmic party inside me.
Then I'm not really sure what happened, I was burning like a sun, then I just died out...
I was feeling all alone again.

Wished I can talk to somebody,
then they called me on the phone, my old friends. With their happy voices. I'm not sure what they were saying, all I heard was "we're part of a group, at least for tonight!" & all I thought of was "I'm not, I'm alone". & that loneliness grew sharper.

Now I'm bored, I don't feel like I have won anything, and I don't want anything anymore.
I don't have a home, & I don't want any of the options offered as substitutes.
I don't want to want anything, even friends.
I know that all sounds ungrateful, but I can't feel anything else.

I don't even want to wish for things to go back to how they were... No, thank you!
You know why?
because my wishes come true!
& I don't like how that had been turning out for me!

"Are you ok?"

!


"Yeah...."
......

"are you ok?"

"yeah, Sure!"

plead with your eyes,
or with your tone, if you're more open

...

nothing...

just what I wanted.

... good!

go on, talk about anything or nothing.


then go home,
or at least try to...

and good luck with that!

there's no Saviour here.