Caution, warning.

I’m here to tell you

Not to place all your flowers in one person,

Love makes you want to give all of them away.

Leave some for yourself

So you can make a bouquet of your favourite colours when the weather is gray.

I’m here to tell you

Not to get too comfortable in your body,

Love makes your heart grow in size.

It’s dangerous, because everything in you stays the same.

Your ribcage will still be right where its always been

It will try hard to hold everything in place, in captive.

But my heart has been growing in size since the day I met you

And I’m afraid it won’t fit in my body anymore.

Sometimes I notice it coming out of my eyes and from the tips of my nails.

I’m here to tell you,

Not to get too comfortable with the sound of their voice.

No matter how warm it sounds and how much you want to wrap it around your neck and over your ears,

You may never be able to hear anything else ever again.

But if I could live in the echo of your voice

I wouldn’t hesitate to disappear into thin air, right where it left me. I wouldn’t even have to take a bag.

I’m here to tell you,

Not to get too lost in their eyes

To the point where you can’t find your way home.

Draw yourself a map

Follow the trail you left yourself

Because you deserve to come home.

I’m here to tell you, love is the anxiety, and the calm.

It is the poison and the antidote.

The unknown and the safety.

It’s like suddenly noticing you’re frozen halfway across a rope bridge and only then realizing you’re afraid of heights.

Love is the memory and the amnesia.

It’s losing your entire vocabulary and having to learn a new language.

Love isn’t just a feeling. It’s a being. A breathing, a living, and sometime a dying.

Love is having and losing,

And all the warning signs in the world couldn’t keep you from crossing that bridge.

How do I distract myself from your absence, 

when it’s all around me, constantly? 

How do I take my time alone when I can feel the emptiness you left 

right under my breath? 

I tug everything closer, 

so your silence can finally live in me. 

At least this way, I get to keep a little piece of you 

At least this way, it’s a little less lonely. 

You’re gone, but your absence is still here, and she knew I needed a friend. 

Big cities small mice

We often forget,

when we arrive in these big cities

with little more than a few bags of clothes and things we care about,

just how immense they really are.

Then we meet our people. 

And the big city turns into our little home

And we end up learning every nook and cranny

Memorising every little detail.  

The place becomes ours

We hang our names on its door and adopt its streets and stop signs. 

But when our people leave,

The city grows back to its original, grandiose size overnight

And we shrink down to the size of a mouse running in its streets. 

We realise that we are one in a million and not in a good way

We realise just how much the city never belonged to us

Suddenly the streets we knew by heart aren’t recognisable

And we keep getting lost on familiar roads.

One day we realise we travelled hundreds of miles and left everything and everyone behind,

Just to sit by ourselves in our little houses in these big cities. 

Amongst strangers we don’t know, and strangers we once knew. 

You can’t feel people’s feelings, and maybe that’s a good thing.

Sometimes all I want to do is take away the pain someone else is feeling when I see it spilling out of them. I often wished I could absorb their pain and make it disappear into thin air. 

But I cannot physically do that.

No one can physically do that and I’ve always wondered why.  

Maybe the reason we can’t hear what people think, and feel what people feel, is because they are meant to hear it for themselves. 

Maybe their feelings live in the space between their bodies and their souls, because the universe knew it was the perfect place for them to discover it for themselves, and feel it first, before it spills out onto the world, before anyone else sees it, even if it paints them a colour they never wanted, even if it hurts, even if it’s heavy. 

Maybe we don’t have the ability to pinch  people’s pain with our fingers like a loose thread to pull away, because it’s woven into the fabric of who they are, it’s simply so much bigger than anyone outside of them can hold, they will be the ones wearing their feelings, so they will need to get used to the friction.

It is their pain to feel, their feelings to hold, their story to tell, their painting to perfect.

And eventually, they will pick up the brush and make something out of their colour, and they will be glad that they got to do it with their own brush. 

Round and round to Lebanon we go

The Lebanese diaspora, scattered like confetti around the world, live their own separate little lives most days, yet they all converge at one culminating moment in the year: summer. 

Lebanon welcomes its expats into summer the same way a ferris wheel welcomes its passengers into its cabins. 

Some hold eachother’s hands waiting in line to get on the ferris wheel, because they will get to ride it together all the way to the top, they will even be dressed for the occasion. Others will ride in their cabins alone, and they are shaking with excitement so they brought their cameras with them. 

Some shake and try to calm themselves down as they step in, because they remember the last time they were on it, and how it got stuck right at the top. The cabin swayed left to right and they thought it might snap off at any moment, so instead of focusing on the view all they could see was the fall. 

“I can’t wait for my turn” my friend says, standing right behind me. Even though his hand was on my shoulder, we both stared  right ahead, unable to look away from the twinkling lights, hypnotised by the spiral of the cabins going round and round, feeling ourselves sinking in deeper as we got closer. 

He tells me that it will finally be his turn at the very end of august, and he’s gotten to the point where he can’t look at other people’s pictures from up there anymore. All he wanted was for his turn to finally arrive. But we were still in July and so much time would have to pass until then. But he knew that even when the sun would have already set and not many would pay to ride so close to closing time, he was willing to wait, and I put my hand over his and stood by his side even though I’d already made my spins, because some people choose to wait in line just to hold other people’s hands while they wait. 

Some bubble with excitement while they wait, others get dizzy from the thought of spinning, and some watch a few meters away, as others make their way to the top. 

But the thing about ferris wheels is that they are only fun for a short while. You get to see the views, you get to take it all in, you even get to capture it with your camera, but at some point, you want to get off. You want to get back on the ground. You want to feel it beneath you, unshakeable, sturdy, safe, not spinning, not suspended in mid-air, not at the service of your cabin, or the operator that’s pushing the button, or this long and seemingly endless ceremony you were convened to. 

So you take your picture, you make your spins, and you get right back on the ground, your turn is over and you feel like you’ve had your fair share of spins and you never have to think about it again. 

And then a year passes, and suddenly you miss having a little space between your feet and the ground, you miss being able to fly  without worrying about going too high and detaching, you miss seeing the entire world safely from your cabin. Suddenly being suspended in mid-air felt sort of reassuring, to be hugged so tightly, held onto by your little carriage, every metal bar wrapping around you safely, suddenly being swayed from left to right felt soothing. 

So you make your way to the ticket office and you find yourself at the back of a long line, you’re surprised that there’s even more people this time than the last. Could they have missed the swaying too? Isn’t anyone afraid of heights? Don’t they get tired from all the spinning? 

But then you hear a familiar voice calling your name, a friend runs to you and embraces you, and the questions quiet down.  So you stand together in silence, his hand rests softly on yours, he’s already made his spins, so he patiently waits with you for your turn to arrive, while he imagines what it would feel like to get to fly again. 

Still singing

The loss of you 

The loss of me 

The loss of the little sparks between us 

That made me think fairytales were much more realistic than they seemed to be.

That made me hold on to a secret for so long:

That rom coms weren’t lying

That magic really exists 

That life is much lighter than it’s told to be 

That the load doesn’t have to be as heavy as you thought it would 

That someone can love you for all that you are and all that you’re not 

and still love you. 

That the body makes music and I’ve learned to sing to its pace 

That some people are sketched to perfection.

That there was precision in the way you were drawn,

That your lips meet perfectly with mine 

Almost as if they were made to lock 

And never open again. 

I could swim in the whites of your eyes 

I’ve looked at them so long they’ve made me a home. 

I could sway to the sound of your voice 

Drift into your echo 

Let your laugh melt at the edge of my tongue 

And sink between my teeth.

How sweet it would be 

To taste you in a way I haven’t yet. 

I’d savour it until the very end. 

Until you close your eyes and you only see me 

Still waiting 

Still singing

Still swimming to find you. 

Back to the surface

When you walk around and realise there’s no love anymore

Your feet may just get a little wet from the floor of the pool you used to float in. 

You should know that this is your sign to climb over the edge and leave it. 

Your slippers are damp from the water that was left at the bottom of that pool 

But don’t mistake it for the waves that used to carry you 

Don’t mistake it for the hand that lifts you back to the surface. 

Don’t try to float when there’s no water left.

And most importantly, don’t try to dive in when you can’t see the face of the water. 

The concrete is hard, and it will embrace you just as tightly. 

It’s funny how things change.

How things can be so round for so long, until they become square one day and suddenly you can’t fit the piece in its place so you carry it with you everywhere.

How you can get used to a velvety, soft bed of water 

So warm it envelops you like the covers that wrap tightly around you at night,

How it can be drained to dry all at once. 

One day your back hurts and you look around to see why 

The hard concrete responds and claims responsibility. 

How a pool used to swallow sound and leave you deaf with the quiet of its embrace;

As you now stand in the middle of a hallow space, swimming in the echo of your own voice. 

You sit there, your hands tracing the floor,

You’ve never seen it this way, so clearly. 

You start to enumerate the ways you can fill her again. 

Do I bring water from somewhere else? 

How will I carry it down here? 

I’m sure I can carry it down here. 

What if there was another way? 

The tears I’ve shed wishing I could fill it back, may be exactly what I need. 

They will float me to the surface again to find you. 

But if they did, would you come back in to swim with me? 

Glitter and glass

How do you expect to hold onto heartbreak without the pieces slipping through your hands?

I tried to keep every single one, gathering them carefully. 

After all, they can’t be scattered everywhere , I will lose them if they are,

and I can’t afford to lose one single piece of you.

I always thought the heart breaks in bigger pieces:

one giant break lining the centre,

a lightning bolt in the middle of a vast sky,

an arrow into a perfectly shaped symbol that splits it in half,

maybe even a few puzzle pieces at best, 

enough for you to need a reference picture to work your way through.

But a puzzle promises its pieces will fit again.

It’s made to be whole after falling apart.

If you like symmetry, then heartbreak isn’t for you, because the pieces won’t ever align the way they once did. The way you want them to.

And sorry to break it to those with a penchant for perfection

but it’s only when it happens, that you remember that a heart breaks more like glass than anything else.

Even when it happened before, the mind tends to forget

That it’s glass not paper

It’s not curved or carved well, it’s ridiculously small pieces.

Shards so fine you don’t see the edges,

cutting you in places you didn’t know could hurt.

Here is your reminder, in case you forgot.

A heart usually breaks like glass.

But sometimes, a heart breaks like glitter too.

When it doesn’t mean to hurt you but it does anyway.

It’s small, almost invisible,

yet suddenly, it’s all you can see.

A heart breaks like glitter

slipping between your hands

as you try to hide them behind your back in shame.

It clings to your skin, it’s stubborn, yet unpredictable when it finally falls quietly to the floor.

So you carry it with you as long as it wants until it slowly fades.

And then, one ordinary day, you find a single speck on the floor,

and you see it for what it is:

a tiny glimmer of you,

saying hello.

Warmth without “Bonjour”

The french always have something to say.

In media, on the news, on current events, on wages and decisions made by other people. The french always have something to say and I’ve found that to be admirable. 

About government choices, increased prices, headlines, global news, local news. The weather, if it’s raining, if it’s sunny, if it’s windy, there will always be something to say. 

“Bonjour” walking into the elevator, “au revoir” when leaving the boulangerie, “merci quand même” when they try to help you without having all the information. One thing is for certain,  the french will always greet you and bid you farewell. 

They always have something to say, but it’s usually out of curtesy, or in disapproval or agreement with someone. Sometimes they tend to talk at you, not with you, and I’ve gotten used to that. You receive information and you get on with your day. That’s all there is, usually, from strangers. 

I don’t know what else I’d be looking for anyway. What would you expect from strangers, if not strange little conversations that won’t ever leave the street they were had on. 

It is important to note, for those that don’t know, that not all strangers are equal in this universe, and I’ve come to know a lot of strangers in my life, and some have broken out of their assigned cubicles of strangers, to actual connections. 

On the plane, terrified of every little thing I heard around me, I boarded the flight from Paris to Beirut with my heart in my hands.

I used to be able to choose my seat on the plane, nothing fancy, just not stuck in the middle of a row of four. An aisle seat gave me some peace, even if I had nowhere to escape to.

Now, adding insult to injury, even at check-in, they make me pay extra just to choose a normal seat.

So here I was stuck between 3 people I don’t know, and 3 strangers who, most importantly, don’t know me. 

I put my seat belt on even though we hadn’t  moved yet, when I start noticing the woman sitting next to me glancing at me a few times, as if she was actively containing herself from speaking. I looked at her, and noticed her perfect little bob resting on her shoulders. She had pearl earrings and was dressed very chic-ly for the flight. She reminded me a little of my mom. Maybe that’s why we were able to hold a conversation for a little over four hours. And it was only when we landed that I realised that my screen wasn’t working the entire flight. I wondered then what I would’ve done had I had to look at an empty screen for 4 hours between strangers that had no desire to talk besides their usual trivial conversations. 

She was Armenian-Lebanese, visiting her grandchildren in multiple corners of the world. She is in her seventies and doesn’t look it at all. Widowed in her thirties, she’s raised children under the sounds of missiles and gunshots in war-torn Lebanon as she described it, and is carrying her smile to this day, on this plane, next to a 29 year old girl  who was anxious about all the different noises she was hearing on what proved to be a perfectly safe aircraft. 

We ended up exchanging numbers, I sent her pictures of my outfit for the wedding I was to attend in a few days. A stranger now excited about my event, just as much as I was. 

I notice the difference in the conversations strangers have in France and in Lebanon. 

I notice how when my friend drives his car in the mountains in Lebanon, he lifts his arm outside his window, saluting every single driver and shopkeeper on the road. He did it as a joke first, screaming aloud something incomprehensible – the  wrong name, a random word. But it was well recieved every single time. “After all”, he tells me, “if you pretend you’ve known strangers for your whole life, they will likely believe it.”

Not all strangers are alike. Not all strangers are equal on the spectrum of strangeness. 

As soon as the sun started peeking through my window as we hovered over Beirut, I notice how the sun is even a little different from Paris. A little less shy, a little more warm.  How she let herself in, uninvited, without a “Bonjour”, but still as warm as she could possibly be. She just sat with me like a stranger that once knew me very well. 

I wonder if the reason why strangers are so warm here is because she herself has never left their side. 

I wonder if she wrapped around them so gently, it became the only way they knew how to be, because warmth felt familiar. 

Warmth followed me everywhere I went here. Warmth disguised as a lifeguard that knew my name even though I’d met him once last year, but he remembered the day, he remembered what happened and how we left terrified from the sounds of what we thought were air strikes. 

He remembered because as soon as I sat, he said “you look worried, don’t worry, nothing will happen, we’ll be taking good care of you today”. 

Warmth disguised as my neighbours on their balcony almost pouring themselves out of their terrace, as their voices race down to reach me and my suitcases, yelling my name so loudly it echoed on the whole street, almost as if to announce my arrival to the entire city. “Hamdella al saleme!”, “welcome back”- thankfully safe and sound. 

Neighbours pinch my cheeks, family kisses me, lebanon embraces me, hugs me tightly, I rest my head on her shoulder, she takes my face and wipes my tears with her thumbs. 

I miss you when I swore I wouldn’t. Things weren’t going well for you for some time, but you sat here in pain and fear, and uncertainty, and you waited for me. You waited for your children to return home. 

I’m sorry I’m scared of you. I’m sorry I’m scared for you. Thank you for keeping my seat warm, it was always what you’ve done best. 

The mesmerizing dance of water: A dive into liquid poetry

I’m mesmerized by the movement of water,

How water crashes into itself over and over,

How the light bounces off of it even though it’s so deep.

Sometimes I’m surprised at how deep a bed of water can actually be, because I can never see how far down it goes, so it holds this element of surprise on me. It’s a mystery and it knows how to keep it quiet. 

I love how water dances for everyone to watch,

It doesn’t ask you who you are 

It just puts on a show that you can watch for hours.

Water is the body of this earth, dancing to its own rhythm, it’s proof of constant movement in the world. 

Water is earth’s way of making poetry. It’s liquid poetry, and I hang on to every tune and every word. 

Water has an addictive stare. As much as you try to, you just can’t seem to keep your eyes from falling into it. 
You stare down all the way to the bottom of the pier, so far down it gives you chills, but you could’ve sworn that at that moment, you heard a little voice calling you down.

Water makes you want to surrender to it fully, so it calls you in to dive into it, even though you know it’s an intrusive thought;

But water is intrusive like that. 

It demands to be seen, to be felt, to be dove into, completely and fully.

No wonder that water comes out of us when we cry. It’s salty too, like the vast and endless sea it came from. 

I like to think that this particular thing about us comes from this earth. We are literally made out of water.

And how beautiful is it that we come from poetry itself?

We come from dance and movement, so much so that we can’t contain ourselves when we hear a familiar tune. 

Our legs grow a life of their own and our arms reach for the heavens. 

We come from a water so deep and millions of years old, and we too, demand to be seen, we demand to be felt, we demand to be dove into, completely and fully.