I was never looking into you
I was only pouring an image of myself onto your canvas
Of course I didn’t know
it was me looking into me
this was the mirage of my desire
always in the shape of a question mark
and you
a sweeping mystery
oozing something toeing the peculiar line between *** and titanium (cold, edgy, sharp - trembling
between pain and principle
like blazer and tie
or more like halfway-unbuttoned-shirt-and-slacks on-with-no-tie
(it was like you were making an effort!))

It was ***
but it also wasn’t ***
(I am empty
I am full)

I keep building up and up and up
all these images in my Mind
(which never shuts up)
(a never-ending narrative
She spins and spins and succumbs
only in those rare and passing circumstances)
constructing people like buildings
only the scaffolding is imaginary and when
the architecture folds in on itself
soulless
and my beloved figurines come toppling down on me
why do I still get so surprised
so stung
so lonely in that
hollow and distant way
(like your Mind is echoing
in on
Itself)?

My Mind is like quicksand
devouring streams of memory with ease
forever unsatisfied and craving more of the same
sharp edges and all
praying for a satiation in some distant future
She knows will never come

Only here
in this tiny universe
can I spell out anything resembling rationality
from the mess and junk and tangled tendrils of my Mind
Only here
can I extract bits and pieces of thoughts
and try to puzzle them together
until they make sense
until I can separate “Me” from “Reality"

And what doesn’t make sense
what I need to understand
is why I feel so beset
with this heavy magnetism that
overpowers me to the point of
paralysis
(with little to no room for breathing)
and why it was you
who pushed me into this feeling
and you
who is still pulling me along
far past the threshold of my resistance
and I am done
and it stings

You tell me that I am young
That life has merely licked me, not stung
That I do not understand, that I have not yet lived
Enough to grasp the substance

I have known disease
Slow tears, muted pleas
Pain that nothing could appease
I have known the smell of hospitals for summers
The beeping and slurping of machine in massive numbers

I have spoken to voiceless loved ones,
Loved ones with teethless mouths and twisted tongues
Distorted jaws and wheezing lungs.
We have spoken with little green charts
And broken hearts
From the inability to connect the mouth to the thoughts in the head
And I left without understanding,
What they had said
Because I eventually had to let it go
(I still don't know)

I have spent countless summer nights
In nature’s garb, floating silently in a river
So warm that my limbs, skimming the surface, didn't shiver
Under a clear sky, the stars like paradisiac lights
Without anyone ever finding out
About these wild and primal escapades

I've drank, I've smoked
I have burned my throat
With coarse lemon gin
Until I could no longer feel my skin.

I have been frightened
Yes I have felt fear, like a noose around my throat being tightened
Like a gruesome black crow, perched on my shoulder
I have often awoken affright at night,
Longing, praying, for the morning light
I have felt fear, wild, fierce and turbulent fear
More than anyone will everyone will ever know
By men, by life, by myself
Desolate under the sheets, like a forsaken toy
All by myself

I have seen Paris in the rain
Traveled the French countryside by train
I've woken up to New York window views
And seen New Orleans afternoons, filled with heat and blues.
I've swam the Mexican Baja waters, turquoise and clear
With snakes as sharp as spears

I have known humiliation
Causing my cheeks to turn carnation
A spoon, emptying my insides out
Like a gourd

I have loved
I have known the aching pain of a swelled heart
And the way it can tear you apart
I have gushed torrents upon my pillows and sleeves
Tears running down my chin like guilty thieves
From a lit-up house

I have known death, and grief
The meaning of "never"
Whimpering in the school bathroom
And cold, lonely nights

I have seen the works of Van Gogh, Mondrian, and Miro,
Modigliani, Cezanne, and Frida Kahlo
Of Monet, Gauguin, Matisse, Magritte, and Picasso
I have wandered through hallways of masterpieces
Holding tight to my grandmother's hand
And I have wept shamelessly for joy
Before Degas's La classe de danse

I have been diagnosed
I have undergone computer programs designed to shift my brain, to better it
To get me to be normal, to submit
I have had brain-altering medicine shoved down my throat,
Like stuffing a goose,
To make my brain run a little less loose
And I have submitted and gotten use to my brain being altered.

I have had kisses that were mere trifles
Frivolous, yet fierce and acute like shots from a rifle
Lips of mere flesh, not sweet godly nectar
And gazes that meant everything
That seemed to connect with an invisible yet indestructible string
Iris like distant galaxies and pupils twinkling like black jewels
Eyes that seemed enkindled by some ethereal fuel
Speaking of emotions far too secluded, cryptic and cluttered
To be worded and uttered

I know the way in which violence resides
Not in commotion, brusqueness, nor physical harm
But in silence
In the time that covers pain and secrets
In the slow impossibility of trust
In the way that some secrets become inconceivable to tell, time has so covered them in rust
In that dull, dismal ache
In all that is doomed to remain forever opaque.

I have read, for pleasure,
The works of Balzac, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Voltaire
Of Bobin, Gaude, and Baudelaire
Of Flaubert, Hemingway
and good old Bradbury, Ray
Émile Zola,  Primo Levi
Moliere, Rousseau, and Bukowski
I have read, and loved, and understood

I have known insomnia
The way a beach knows the tides
Sleepless nights of convulsive, feverish panic, of clutching my sides,
Of silent hysteria and salty terror.
I know what happens at night, when sweet slumber seems so far away
The worries and woes seem to multiply and swell in hopeless disarray
My lips grow pale, my eye grow sunken
As a time ticks by, tomorrow darkens




I have witnessed horror
In the form of a blue body bag
Being rolled out with a squeaking drag
By two yellow-vested men
With apologetic eyes
That seemed to say "Oh god
We're so sorry you had to see that
Please, please
Go home
And try to forget"

But you are right
I am still just a child
Naive, innocent, and pure
I have known nothing dark or obscure
I have not yet lived.

We sat across the table
and I couldn't look away
from all his tattoos.

Without thinking,
I stretched out my hand
and extended my finger.

I began to trace
the arcade tickets that ran
the length of his arm.
He grew up with his grandfather
and they spent hours in his arcade.
His grandfather was his first best friend,
so the tickets they won were his first tattoo.

I could feel his smile grow.
He loved his tattoos
and now I did, too.

He left a mark on my life.
Just like the ink
on his skin.

I see him everywhere.
I can't tell if he tattooed himself
in my mind or under my eyes.

There's no escaping
or replacing him.
There's just no one like him.

He had a kind of goodness
that could be seen
in the smile that
would burn into the back of my mind,
haunting me for years.

He was just dorky enough
to get a laugh out of me
when I had the weight of the
world on my chest.

If you're lucky enough
to even know him,
he'll put a tattoo in you, too.

Whether you want it or not,
you will never forget him.
Trust me, I've tried.

He comes out of nowhere
and he helps you.
He asks for help
just as much as you.

It's just enough
to make you think
that he needs you, too.

God knows he was what I needed.
I needed him like
an alcoholic needs his whisky.
He was my whisky.

His finger tips
had a different kind of ink
and he was part of me with every touch.
I swear he had needles
in the tips of his fingers.
His touch always stung,
and now I will never
forget that sting
that is now stuck
in the parts of me he touched.

All the hugs,
the intentional and unintentional ways
that we touched.
They left their mark,
their pain-riddled stain on me.

The stains of him were left
with memories and stories
and they were attached
to songs that I can no longer listen to
and places I can no longer visit.

He came into my life so quick
and he left just as fast.
I think about him often.

I dream about him often.
It's like he stops in now and then
to catch up in chat in my sleep.

He took a part of me
with him when he left.
But his memories remain
and I don't want them.

I think about the goals he had
and I hope he achieves them.
I just wish I could be the one
that gets to congratulate him.

He will be leaving in August
and I will probably never see
or talk to him again.
But I will never be able
to forget him.

He is the one tattoo
I wish I could remove.

When I am dying, let me know
That I loved the blowing snow
Although it stung like whips;
That I loved all lovely things
And I tried to take their stings
With gay unembittered lips;
That I loved with all my strength,
To my soul’s full depth and length,
Careless if my heart must break,
That I sang as children sing
Fitting tunes to everything,
Loving life for its own sake.

They say farmer’s son will learn to take care of seedlings;
smith’s son will learn how to forge and beat the iron;
baker’s son will learn how best to bake
to conquer best the market…

They say some birdies grow up knitting nests;
***’s foals grow up carrying loads;
cubs grow up learning how to roar most

to scare most the jungle…
The blood brothers2 were brought up
like sibling cubs of the lion
as if Mesopotamia was forest.


On birth day3 they learnt to blow lives out of bodies as candles;
a witness will tell how a citizen was received
by Mukhabarat4 waiters
one of such days,
and describe conviviality at Saddam’s
where the evil has born the arch evil5,
and where they learnt the art of making people yell!

At bees biting babies6 Uday was taught to find rejoice;
at parents wearing Adam’s garment7
in front of children
his father’s great power was worth of praise! 8
and he burnt to rule like father or more!



Would the Maker of the Heaven and Earth hold the fit
at the fate of Nahle Sabet9, the cake thrown to swine?
Would Mucius’s10 soul hold the fit
at the fate of Saad Abd al-Razzek Nihaya11
whose medals and stars were made spots
fit to throw to bin after the half of his life
hurled down from the sky?
Would the pearl Ilham Ali al-Azani12 be thrown like dirt to bin,
father’s fear of Allah tried,
and shot like a sneaking thief,
and the abu sarhan 13 stay without a prize,
and cause more devastations in the garden of Allah?

1. The lion and his cubs: Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti and his two sons Uday Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti and Qusay Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti. - 2. The blood brothers: The criminal brothers. Though crimes committed by Uday, the first born of Saddam Hussein, have been the most reported by media, his young brother was not less cruel. In April 26, 1998 he ordered Colonel Hassan al-Amri to ****** on a grand scale at Abu Ghraib, Iraq’s largest prison, and more than 1,500 prisoners were all massacred the next day. – 3. On birthday: Reports say that Saddam’s sons received pistols as presents on their birthday! – 4. Mukhabarat: Saddam’s secret police. – 5. Where the evil has born the arch evil: such is the description of Saddam’s house. He taught criminality to his sons, and his first born became crueller than father. Uday told Latif Yahia, his body double, whenever he seemed weak or squeamish as a child his father would beat him with an iron bar and then force him to watch videos of prisoners being tortured. – 6. Bees biting babies: This is one of the tortures applied: naked children in a room with a bee hive, being stung hundreds of times, and their parents were forced to watch behind glasses! -7. Parents wearing Adam’s garment: men forced to **** their wives in front of their horrified young children! - 8. His father’s great power was worth of praise: First you note the irony. Uday told Latif Yahia, “Just wait until I become president. I’ll be crueller than my father ever was…” - 9. Nahle Sabet: A pretty architectural student. The girl resisted and rejected Uday publically; he threw her naked to his pack of wild dogs which ripped her to pieces while he watched, drinking champagne and laughing! Here is the testimony by Latif Yahia: «It was the look he was sporting on a crisp, dry winter day in 1987 when he drove around the campus of the University of Baghdad looking for action (for women to ****). He caught sight of Nahle Sabet, a pretty architecture student from a respected middle-class Christian family he’d noticed when he occasionally attended classes. He cruised past her slowly now, honking, trying to get her attention. She refused to even look in his direction. Two days later Sabet was a few blocks from her family’s home in a Baghdad suburb when a Mercedes sedan screeched to a halt on the sidewalk in front of her. Two men in dark suits got out and identified themselves as secret police. They told her she was wanted at headquarters for questioning and led her into the car. Headquarters turned out to be a farm Uday owned several miles from Baghdad. The frightened girl was hustled into a drawing room, where Uday sat at an antique desk. “You’re very lucky,” he said. “I’ve chosen you as my new girlfriend.” “You’re insane,” Sabet stammered. “I want to go home!” “Strip her,” Uday ordered his guards. The burly men pounced on her and ripped at her clothes until she was cowering naked on the floor. Uday towered over her, unrolling his favourite wire cable. “First I will beat you. Then, if you’re good, I’ll allow you to please myself and my men.” It took Uday and his men almost three months to break Sabet’s spirit. Then Uday was tired of her. Her face was ruined; her body was a mass of bruises. He had the guards take her out to the kennels where he kept his attack dogs. He’d told the keepers several days before to stop feeding them. Nahle Sabet was then smeared with honey and tossed into the kennels, where all evidence of the crime disappeared.» – 10. Mucius, (Gaius Mucius Scaevola): God of bravery and heroism in Ancient Roma. – 11. Saad Abd al-Razzek Nihaya: An Iraqi army officer decorated for bravery in the Iran-Iraq War but that didn’t help him or his new wife. Uday saw the couple walking together, took the girl to a hotel suite. She pleaded with him not to defile her - she had only been married yesterday. Uday beat her until she was ****** then ***** her. Then they heard a long, piercing scream, then silence. The girl had jumped from the seventh floor. Her husband cursed Uday, and he was soon sentenced to death for ‘insulting the president.’ – 12. Ilham Ali al-Azani: Uday always slept with the winner of the Miss Iraq contest. But when attractive student Ilham Ali Al-azami won she turned him down. Uday abducted Miss Iraq to his palace. He ***** her over and over again and then as ‘punishment for her defiance’ allowed all his bodyguards to **** her for an entire week. Then Uday circulated a rumour that the girl was a **** and let her go. The girl’s father, a devote Muslim, was so ashamed that he killed his own daughter. When the aging father appeared at Uday’s palace Uday had the old man shot.- 13. Abu sarhan: Uday seemed proud of his reputation and called himself abu sarhan, Arabic for "wolf".

Excerpt of Gallows Bird in Heaven, http://www.amazon.fr/Gallows-Bird-in-Heaven-ebook/dp/B005JKMW66

Source of the note: www.meritummedia.com, visited 2013/05/19