Wilted jasmines look like popcorns
… that wasn’t very poetic, right?
I was just watching the bushes sway outside my window.
There is no wind today
Just the hot air breathing
I have turned on the A.C. and the fan grumbles quietly

I feel as if my heart is in my stomach
Huh.
**** it,
I really am forcing it out today..
Whatever
I rested my palm on my stomach
As Faizan’s strange playlist chattered nonsense
Outside the blanket shroud I had built
Around myself
And I could feel the beat
The rhythm
Like a drum or a gong
I don’t know why it matters to me
Maybe because I feet as if nothing else does
Right now
I know that sounds exactly like something
A sentimental teenager would say

I don’t know
I want to talk to myself
A heart-to-heart
I want to ask that *****
What is going on
What is wrong
What the **** is wrong, girly!?
I want to hear her ramble on about stuff
Be bored of her talk, but feel kind of happy
That I’m the one she’s confiding in
I wanna give her a hug
To show I don’t have words good enough for comfort
Which I probably do
But am too lazy to fish them out my gooey head
(Besides
I think the poor **** needs a hug)

I wanna zone out and nod along to her words
Just so she can let it out for once
But that *****’s a *****
She acts tough and all smart
But she’s a sappy preteen girl inside
I say,
“Yo, Ayesha, you can cry, you know—”
And she goes,
“Yeah, I know.”
A flip of that inexistent hair
That she long ago butchered
And, bam, she gone.
She tells me
"Yo, Ayesha, you can cry too, you know?"
"I know" I tell her.
I don’t know what to do
So I lie around
Feeling this stupid ***** dance in my stomach
In my wrists
In my temples
I run my fingers down my neck,
Feeling for the echoes of the gong
That keeps talking, talking, talking
Untiring
As if calling me to my people
gathering us together for a battle
that is yet to be fought
yet to be fought—
yet to be ******* fought

And, hey, my
Money plant doesn’t even look rich
That *****—
(Hey, I got a rhyme!)

you are afraid to die in your sleep because you think you will forget how to breathe. it’s okay if you do; this mortal, dying body isn’t something familiar to you.

neither is the air you breathe, or the soil beneath your feet, or all what this body craves and all what it needs — but it’s okay, see, you’re not lost. not yet, anyway. you simply don’t know where you want to be.

you aren’t even sure if you do want to be.

but here you are.

here you stand, in all your glory, void of any connection to this planet and its people, and your ears ring. you listen. you don’t care, but you listen and you hear voices, coming from beneath your feet, and they’re calling out to you — they’re calling out your name, telling you where you need to be —

and it’s right here.

damascus. she’s a city built on seven and she has many names — the ones you call her are the ones  your heart claims. jasmine blooms at night but thrives under the sun; shameless and proud, aggressive and loud. and you love it more than you’ve ever loved.

it’s damascus, and it’s a holysite come nightfall, at midnight. you follow your heart and wander around, and you forget not to breathe so you end up drowning in the jasmines — the yasmeen, and that’s when you realise it —

you are more alive than you have ever been, standing right there, in all your glory, with the yasmeen framing the old streets and glowing in the moonbeam. you are more alive than you have ever been.

you try not to breathe, but it’s too late, and your fear of dying in your sleep is replaced.

a newfound fear of living forever swims in your head, haunting your thoughts like a shark with its eyes on a prey. you’re afraid of living forever. it’s okay if you do; you know that the world will someday turn gray, you know that it will all fade away, but you won’t be alone.

the voices calling out to you — your ancestors, kings and queens, artists and their muses, the ones who wrote history and the victims of the margins, the saints and the sinners and the ones who got away with their sins — their voices will always be there, echoing in the air you breathe, calling out your name from the soil beneath your feet.

they will always be there, and so will this city — damascus, the city with an infinite faces and endless names. the city, the beloved of fate, the sister of destiny.

and if she were not fate’s beloved, how do you explain her immortality? and if she were not the sister of destiny, how do you explain the fact that you ended up here, with all your mortal, dying glory?

A little wit I think I have,
A little strength I believe I have,
A little heart I sure do have,
A little soul I currently have,
A little beauty I thankfully have,
A little friend in you fortunately I have,
A little grace inherently I have,
A little luck hopefully must I have.
And yet you look so confused,
when I do not fear the so little that I have
                                                                ­                  -storm-