Ashamed of my Body

All so convinced that you’re following your heart, cause your mind don’t control what it does sometimes. We all have our nights though, don’t be so ashamed, I’ve had mine, you’ve had yours, we both know, we know.

You hate being alone, you ain’t the only one. you hate the fact that you bought the dream, and they sold you one. 

Darake Ft. Rihanna – Take Care 

His body is the body of an underwear model, his teeth are bright like the guy on TV trying to convince you that buying this tooth paste or that teeth brush will get you laid, his face is structured like the statues of Greek gods. He is a perfection in every physical aspect. His tattoos are designed perfectly to showcase his physic, his heart is shrinking under the pressure of all these muscles he is building layers above layers on his chest. 

And he added me on Facebook. 

It was puzzling for me, honestly, as I sat there trying to understand the reason why someone like him add me to Facebook: I wasn’t going to accept his friend’s request, as I never add people I don’t know to Facebook, but I was puzzled with the reason of why someone like this guy would add me to Facebook: It wasn’t the smart comments I made on a mutual friend’s post which made him add me, as his comments assured me that he has the brains of a woodpecker, so, it wasn’t for the pleasure of deep and intelligent chats that would explore the universe and its mysteries. It wasn’t for my good looks either, I’m, at most, cute, and I have been abusing my own body with fatty food and stressful smoking for years now. If it wasn’t for my eyes, which everyone claims to be pretty, and my well studied demeanor, I don’t think I’d ever get laid in the first place. 

I deleted his friend’s request, finally, after I came to a conclusion that I was satisfied with: I noticed that every single picture of him, posing in a way that always shows his humanly impossible biceps or his perfect six abs, got 100s of likes from his friends; he has 100s of friends who are all sexual charged, just like him, and he has been collecting more gay men to left his low self-esteem up high with every like they click under his topless photos. 

I tried to put this story behind me, but I was still puzzled with it for another hour or two, I wasn’t puzzled by the reasoning (if any) behind this guy’s friend’s request. I was puzzled now with the reason why I was extremely surprised for getting the friend’s request in the first place. 

I am ashamed of my own body, that’s for sure. I hate the gym, I just can’t stand the gym, and I’d rather be online surfing Wikipedia for some historical event that no one else in the world cares about other than me and the guy who wrote the Wikipedia page, than to go to the gym, work out for hours, and be happy my biceps are bigger by an inch, which will disappear anyways if I did not work out tomorrow, and the day after and the day after that, and the day after that. 

I should be satisfied with my body, I mean, I’m slim in a healthy way, I have a belly, but it’s more of a pump on the road rather than a gigantic tummy that people we’d think I’m hosting an alien baby in there. I’m tall, but not too tall, and my body hair is strategically located in the right areas to make me look fabulous. 

Yet, I feel horrible whenever I get naked, alone in the shower, in bed with my boyfriend, as I’m changing my clothes to go out in the morning and walk the dog. I feel horrible when I’m walking in a gay bar here in Beirut to find that everyone has a body that, in my head, looks better than mine, that every t-shirt they wear would fit right around their biceps, and hug their six abs perfectly, while my t-shirts are loose around my body. I blame myself for not working out, not spending a lot of money on a gym that I’d force myself to go to, and I’d still have the same anxieties regardless of how many cardio classes I attend or how much weight I can carry with one arm. 

In my head, I blame the media, every single aspect of the media is imprinting expectations on the images of male and female bodies. Magazines, TV shows, advertisements, porn movies, even waiters in high class cafes, even the people who are indirectly pressuring me to conform to this image when they conform to it themselves, making me the odd one out. 

I know, logically, that I’m fine, I’m a good looking man in his late 20s who still has the world ahead of him, but in my heart, I feel bad, horrible even, every time I see a man who conformed to these expectations and managed to “get there”. Why is it too hard to accept all kinds of people, of all colors and shapes and sexual preference? 

Everyone is selling and I’m buying it regardless of how my brains are trying to force me not to: Underwear models are perfect, porn stars are perfect, guys in the street are perfect, I don’t look at them anymore to enjoy a glance of the male body beauty, but rather to feel bad about my own body. I am ashamed of my body, and I want to change it, but I don’t want to spend my money on a gym I’ll feel forced to attended, I want to look like that guy on Facebook, but I don’t want to be him. I don’t know what to do, I honestly don’t. 

Love, entitled!

I dare you to let me be your, your one and only. Promise I’m worthy to hold in your arms.
So come on and give me a chance, to prove I am the one who can walk that mile… until the end starts. 

Adele – The One and Only

How do you really describe love? I mean, if you are sitting in your darkened room, listening to Adele and wondering about love, how would you put that wonderment into words? How do you describe an emotion that have effects on you that spread across both your personality and your mentality. A feeling that has power to change you both emotionally and physically. How do you really describe a feeling that has the capability to temper with your inner soul itself and play around with you; an emotion that has the power to lift you up high in the sky or drown you down the seventh sea! A sense that really can make you cry with burning tears, jump to catch a bullet for that you hold most dear and fly with spiritual, almost religious feelings, to the heavens above.

Love, my darling, is a homemade cake, made by you for me on Valentine’s day; as you fall for yet another cliche; and you make it to be heart-shaped; and you wrote “I love you” with chocolate creme on it.

Love is a game of cards, we play on opposite sides of the table; I always get the Knight of Hearts at every deal of cards; and you always gets my heart with every single silly joke you crack on the table.

Love is the delightful kiss you print on my lips before you leave the house in the early mornings, heading to your work, it’s the touch you leave on our sleepy dog’s ears as you say a silent goodbye.

Love is a phone call I call in the morning, just to hear your voice, just to say good morning, just to make sure that the world is still in order, and that you’re still in love with me.

Love is a glass of wine, a third that night, that I drink while watching your face coming closer to me, kissing me on the lips for the first time in public and smiling a shy smile afterwards.

Love is your arms; stretched to welcome my body at the end of night; as we slowly reach to the remote controls; and turn off the TV, and we whisper our goodnights in a sleepy voice.

Love is  your hug when I need it the most, your sweet skin when I kiss it the deepest, your soulful eyes when they speak secrets, your playful lips as they reach to mine.

Love is not an emotion, I came to discover, love is as complicated as a human being; love is so wide and indescribable that it cannot be brought down to a simple emotion; love is a human being, my love, and that human being is you.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Shattered Bones

Angela: I’m afraid that I won’t… (cries) have the chance that I had with Kirk ever again.

 Brennan: You will.

– How can you be so sure?

– Because nothing in this universe happens just once, Angela. Nothing. Infinity goes in both directions.  There is no unique event, no singular moment.

– I don’t know what that means.

– It means you will get another chance.

– You promise? From your heart?

– Better. From my head.

Bones – Season 1 Episode 17 – The Skull in the Desert 

Face down on the wet ground, I scream in pain, I turn my head around looking at my foot, stuck in the metal of my bike and cracked in front of my eyes; and pulses of agony are travelling from my toes up my spin all the way to my brain. I froze in time trying to calculate the losses. I remember taking a turn on my bike on the wet ground in a cloudy morning after a heavy rainy night. I remember my fall, which took a split of a second, and my face as it goes, in the speed of gravity directly towards the concrete; my palms as they hit the ground and my body as it smashes on the road; then comes the pain; solid, colorless and constant; I am at loss of words; as I scream primitive sounds aimed at no one, I think of the worse: I just cracked my bones falling off my bike.

From nowhere comes my boyfriend, my lover, my knight in shining armor, my sweet man, my partner, my bed-mate, my one and only, my Mr. Right, my reason to smile in the morning and to sleep at night. He stands helplessly studying the matter; he doesn’t want to pull my foot from its location, stuck between the metal of the bike, fearing that he might add salt to the wound; also, he doesn’t want to leave me on the ground; he slowly pulls the bike away from my broken foot; he helps me to try and stand; but I couldn’t put any weight on my foot. “It’s not broken,” I repeat in agony, but I knew I was just telling myself lies to ease the pain.

Sitting on the side of the road, waiting for him to deliver the bikes back to where we rented them from, I look up as the sky begins to rain again; softly at first, then getting harsher and darker. I try my best not to, but with the frustration boiling inside, and the pain reaching a limit I can’t even describe; I cry.

Under the rain, I walked the same city, eight years ago, Beirut was welcoming and warm; the sounds of people partying the night away is being heard from the bars on top of buildings despite the rain. I was young and mending a shattered heart; I had a nightmare that I will die when I reach 24 of age; that’s in four years, I think to myself and welcome the thought. It was a dark period of my life.

I sat there, on a side street, under the rain, and I imagined myself in that burned, twisted car that I know all too well. I imagined myself opening its door; the passenger door that I usually open and where I usually sit while Eyad is driving. I imagined myself cleaning the passenger seat from the shattered glass, and sit there. I imagined myself putting my hand on the wheel, which is the last thing that Eyad ever touched; and feel his last moment; the panic he must have felt as he lost control of the car. The painful second as he was hit by the incoming cars on the other isle. The moment when his precious soul parted ways with his beloved body forever.

I direct my anger at myself; I started punishing myself for not talking him out of that trip; for not hiding his camera and forcing him to stay the night. I start hitting my own face with my open palm, once after the other after the other. Destructively, I walk the high road without looking; hoping that a car would sweep me and end this on-going pain that is haunting me (and will continue to do so for years to come).

Sitting on the side of the road, the frustration is building up in me; and emotional pain reaches a level I can’t handle; I cry.

“Healing takes time, you know.” My beloved boyfriend tells me, as he smiles at me while I’m in bed with a grim look on my face; looking with half a heart to the cast on my left leg, “you’ll take your time, and the bones will heal, and you’ll walk first, then you’d be able to run; and before you know it; you’ll be back on the bike again.” My dog is sleeping next to me, she rests her head on my cast. The next day, she’ll guard my leg with her own life when the cleaning lady who comes to the house tries to help me stand; she doesn’t allow anyone to touch my cast.

A month, it will take me a month to heal completely from the fall off my bike. Eight years! It took me eight years to feel for the first time that I healed completely from the loss of my love for Eyad.

But, as I woke up yesterday, Sunday, warmly tucked in the arms of my boyfriend, my man, my one and only, and as we exchange soft kisses as we open our eyes; and as I smile at his jokes and he helps me get out of bed; I think to myself: Lightening can strike twice in the same point; Because nothing in this universe happens just once, Angela. Nothing. Infinity goes in both directions.

I smile.

Fractures of a Revolution

Baby I love you, but if you wanna leave take good care,
hope you make a lot of nice friends out there,
but just remember there’s a lot of bad,
and beware, beware,

oh baby baby it’s a wild world… 

Cat Stevens – Wild World

March 2012:

I call my Pierre, one of my best friends, on the phone again. It’s a Saturday afternoon and we were supposed to go to some park in Damascus to play cards with the gang. That, however, changed that morning when we heard the screams of protesters down the road from my house. He and another friend went out to join the protest, I told them not to.

We hear another shot, then a the sound of a big explosion. His phone is off.

I call him again, and rush to the door with my phone on my ear. It’s the other friend, they got lost in the crowd, he says, and he has no idea where Pierre is. He jumps to the window to try and see when we hear another explosion. I grab him by the ankle and scream at him to stay down. We sit, all five of us, on the floor of my living room. Hassan is asking us to pray to God, his voice is cracking, the agnostic inside me shivers, then gives up and start to pray.

We hear a loud noise; then the sound of a machine gun. His phone is off.

I call him again, while calculating in my head the odds of the possibility of regime troops storming houses in my area; we are five people from five different cities in Syria; we’re all guys. We’re a sitting duck for them to consider us a “terrorist group” and shoot us on sight. I keep my thoughts to myself, but our neighbor calls my roommate and tells him the same thoughts. My roommate is freaking out now. “Where would we go?” he asked me, and I thought loudly: “to the roof!”

I look through the small crack in my window, I see regime troops walking down my street with big knifes in their hands. His phone is off.

I call him again, I step outside our house front door, I look up and down the stairs before I start moving silently towards the building gate; opened like welcoming arms, I want to close it, limiting the possibilities of armed troops thinking of running inside, I start moving it slowly, trying not to get the attention of one of the armed troops walking down the road. “Go inside, you son of a bitch!” one of them screams, and I close the door shut and run back to our home. Close the front door behind me and lean on it breathless.

I slowly slide to the floor as the fighting rages outside, his phone is off.

Pierre, a month or two after this mess, got shot in the leg repeatedly while protesting back in his hometown limiting his ability to walk and leaving ugly scares on both of his legs. When he picked up this time to tell me that a family hosted him when troops stormed the square he was protesting in, my only thought was to curse him repeatedly, then to ask him to come home. “Just come home when you can, alright?!”

May 2012:

I woke up before you, my love, and watched you for an hour as you breath calmly next to me in my bed. I grab my mobile and start playing games, trying to adjust the way I’m sleeping so I snuggle up against your body, while having the freedom to play my silly games. You wake up, and without voicing a word, you plant a kiss on my back. I smile and continue my games. Hours goes by, and we’re leaving the realm of sleep to the brightness of the morning.

“I’m hungry,” I tell you, and you smile, “we have so many friends sleeping over from yesterday and we don’t have any food in the fridge, I’m thinking of going down to buy some ready-made Lava peas for breakfast.”

You tell me to stay, pull me down when I try to get up, I laugh while hearing the sounds of my friends waking up around the house. One is opening the bathroom door, with its door’s announcing sliding sound, another is asking a third how he likes his coffee; and a fourth is opening the windows in the livingroom where he slept on the couch. for 20 minutes, we discuss the idea of me getting food, we get into one of our small arguments where we’re both saying the same thing but we want to say it in different ways; we laugh at ourselves and I pull the window open, on top of our bed, while saying that it’s “getting hot in here.”

Next thing we know, you and I are on the floor, with dust and dirt coming from the opened window that its glass would have cracked and fall on us if I did not open it a minute ago. It takes us a moment to realize that there was an explosion downstairs from our building. It takes us a day or two to realize that it was right outside the doors of the lava peas shop I was going to go buy breakfast from right around the time of the explosion  if you did not stop me.

In the afternoon, and after a long morning of clashes between people we don’t know and people we don’t care about. Hunger was the name of the game in my house; no food in the fridge, six hungry men are sitting aimlessly drinking another cup of tea to keep awake; I gather my strength and decide to go and find food outside. “It’s calm outside now,” I tell you, and you grim. “I will come with you,” you insist, and I trick you to stay home and run like the wind outside. When I return, with food and bread, I see tears in your eyes; you punch me in my stomach and you tell me you love me for the first time.

June 2012:

As we are preparing to go to sleep, we hear that explosion, it’s only you and I in the house. We have decided to sleep in the livingroom watching TV, was it “Arab Got Talent”, or “Arab Idol” that we were watching? I can’t remember now. I just remember sleeping under a soft cover, I remember the soft touch of your hand upon mine while we’re watching the show. I remember looking at you and smiling as you absentmindedly smile to something on TV.

The explosion, far away from my house this time, freaks us out, and the insured clashes after it keeps us crawling from the livingroom floor to the bathroom floor in fears of a mortar bomb that might hit our wall and kill us both. We were scared; we tried to laugh it off.

Two hours of heavy clashes, two hours of unstoppable shooting outside. We didn’t know, at the time, that a guy with a machine gun decided to use our very own balcony to shoot at the rebels from. We just found, in the next day, the signs of him jumping from the street to our balcony on the first floor, and the empty bullet carriers on the floor of the balcony around my flowers. We had all the doors locked from inside, including the door of the balcony, and we turned off all the lights in the house when the clashes started.

That night, I spent the night awake, assuring you every time you wake up to the sound of the clashes that it’s “only a dream” and tell you to go back to sleep.

The next morning, we walked in Qudsiya, the streets are empty, the place is deserted; no one on the balconies, no shops are opened, no cars in the streets. Suddenly, we arrive at the main square of the city, and we see the Free Syrian Army fighters, covering their faces with mask, sitting around drinking tea and laughing; we saluted them quietly and they replied the morning greeting. Every wall has the flag of the revolution painted on it; every tree, ever burned down car.

We walk down the street, and a man tells us to go back, “unless you don’t value your lives.”

We tried to go from a side street, but a man told us that he saw a sniper there. a group of men are standing in the center of the street with the supposed sniper, all of them looking up and searching for him, as if they are saying to him “if you’re really a sniper, shoot us.”

After we begged a car to take us outside the city, we looked back and we saw the street we were in being shelled from tanks nearby; we saw the explosions we used to see on TV right in front of our eyes, we saw the big splash of dust flying in the air; we saw death.

That was my last night in Qudsiya.

July 2012:

As I visit Qudsiya for the last time in my life, I get in the city with a car who accepted to take me for a huge sum of money, to pick up my clothes before I head to Beirut. The streets are emptied out, the power cores are on the floor, dancing like a snake. The silence is falling upon the city and not a soul, except for me, is there.

I empty my closet in my bags, and head out. On the other side of the street, an old lady stands on her balcony, she used to look at my flowers, and me look at hers, every morning when we drink coffee silently from opposite balconies. We never said a word, but today she simply asked me: “You’re leaving?”  When I nodded with a yes, she told me to “take good care, everyone is leaving my son.”

I asked her, why she did not leave as well; and her only reply was: “and go where?”

Me.

I have a passion for cats; yet I’m allergic to them. However, if I got to pick a pet; it would be a dog; a sweet white-ish dog that loves to hang out around me and sleep in my arms. I think about everything I do multiple times; yet I tend to do the stupidest things sometimes. I love music, especially the Top 40 kind of music; and I have the full discography of Madonna, Fairouz and Michael Jackson; although I don’t play them that much. I enjoy eating the same thing everyday until I get tired of it and look for a new addiction. I have an addictive personality; I get addicted to things, games, people, activities and anything you can think of. I love to swim but I’m afraid of drawing; I enjoy watching Tennis because usually the players are really hot (I love the upper body muscles, especially that of the chest, which are the most developed muscles in the Tennis player’s body).

Adele’s Turning Tables is the most played song on my iPod touch, which I jailbreaked two weeks ago although I have had it for over three years now; my favorite singer is Dido; and I think that my favorite song of all time changes according to the season; in Summer, I love Dido’s Sand in My Shoes; in winter; I enjoy Jazz music. I watch the movie Big Fish at least twice a year; and I watch the movie Nightmare Before Christmas every Halloween. I think that Tim Burton is the greatest person you’d ever meet in your life. I listen to the song Baby, It’s Cold Outside many times around Christmas. I’ve attended a number of Halloween parties; once I dressed as Batman’s Joker; once as a Danny from the Musical Grease, and in the last Halloween; I dressed as a deck of playing cards. My friends nicknames me multiple names; the latest one is the Knight of Hearts; and it has nothing to do with how many people who loves me but rather the fact that whenever I play cards I always find the Knight of hearts to be my lucky charm.

I got brownish eyes; and my favorite eye color is sea-blue eyes. I’ve never been with a boyfriend that is my type; usually I tend to fall in love with the mind of a man; so, I usually fall in love with people without putting much interest in their body or shape; and I always end up longing to have physical relationship with other people who are more my type.

I got clothes for when it’s hot and clothes to wear when it’s cold yet I always don’t know what to wear when I wake up in the morning. I smoke Kent Blue now; I used to smoke all kind of other brands but lately Kent Blue seems to be my favorite smoke; my favorite alcoholic drinks are the one on the sore side; such as Takila and Mexican beer; I hate Vodka but I find myself always drinking Vodka lately because I can’t find anything else in this city.

I’m cocky usually, and I tend to express myself in a way that people might think that I’m so full of myself; but I know that this is my own silly way to hush and silence the insecurities in me. I tend to over-dramatize things and over think about them; but when I love someone I tend to open the door for them to talk me into doing things; I usually get upset first and yell and shout; yet I always do the right thing later on. My starsign is Gemini and I think that I’m a typical Gemini; but when asked directly if I believe in astrology I usually say that I really don’t.

I had four boyfriends before, and I’m in a relationship at the moment; which means my total number of boyfriends is five; I had one Syrian boyfriend, one Lebanese boyfriend, one Egyptian boyfriend and one Italian boyfriend and my current boyfriend is Syrian. My relationship with him is a monogamous one; but we spoke of opening it up when the urge calls for it; and I’m happy with that arrangement.

I’ve got the concentration of a small child and I’m short on patience; I get bored easily and I tend to multi-task all the time. I have a wounded look and a child-like smile that always gets me what I want. I have a neighbour who likes to knock on my door whenever my friends are around; stand outside turning on a cigarette and never look at myself and order me to lower the music and the voices because he can “hear every word you exchange”. He likes to judge me a lot for having friends over, especially if they are females, and I like to tease him by pretending to be stupid and not understanding his intimidating gestures. I’ve got five best friends, four sisters and a brother. I have a Blackberry (that doesn’t work in Syria), an iPod Touch, a broken-down laptop with dislocated screen and a PlayStation II.

Finally, I’ve got a man in my life who thinks that every post I post here is written about him, so this post is dedicated for you.

Hanging around tall people

Yes; hanging around gay people makes you gay; the same way hanging around tall people makes you tall.

I can’t remember how many times in my life I was offended by the thought that someone took a side away from me because they think hanging around gay men would simply turn them gay themselves; if anything, their reaction proves simply that are self-conscious about their own homosexuality and are afraid that hanging around me might trigger it to the extent that they might jump into the first short-shorts they find and run topless in the streets waving a rainbow flag.

I believe that these people are usually straight men with an alpha-male self-image that they build over some insecurity they had; and it’s the only way for them to deal with the world without showing how afraid and little they feel all the time.

I mean; how do they expect it to happen? Do I look like a devil that might hypnotics them into sucking a cock? Or maybe it’s some sort of a virus (American engineered one, naturally) that infect them if I sneezed in their faces making them long to the warm naked body of a man? Or maybe it’s the simple evil me who is going to get them drunk then take advantage of them all night long? The only reason why I don’t feel that offended anymore is simply because I feel they give me too much credit, really.

Maybe also, there is a different reason why they feel threaten or enraged by my very existence! Maybe this male-dominate society I live in put in their minds that anything related to men is better than anything related to women; when they see a woman who acts like a man they call her “Ekht Rjaal” (The sister of men) meaning that her brothers made her a tough woman and helped her to be something she is not; they take pride in her (as long as they don’t have to be married to her). But when they see a man that acts like a woman (or related in any way to a woman’s behavior, like for example, getting fucked) they feel that this is degrading; simply because they think everything related to a woman is degrading.

When a man comes out as a homosexual man in our society; all the straight men in the society feel angry and betrayed; they feel that one of them made them all look gay (or like a woman); which is an insult to all of them; an insult on the very essence of their manhood. They simply see it as “A man who is longing to be with a man is a woman; because only women want to be with men.”

You know what? Let me tell you about Ramy.

Ramy is a straight guy; or this is what you see when you see him hanging around the streets of Beirut; holding hands with his foreigner girlfriend (who only dates him because of a pysdo-fantasy that she is some sort of a princess and he is her Aladdin) speaking to her with broken English and telling her things like “I love you the way I love the moon, now let’s have hot sex”. Ramy and I met in one of the parties I throw lately in Beirut in an apartment belonging to my aunt. He came around with his girlfriend; sat on my aunt’s sofa; drank my wine; made it in my aunt’s bathroom with his girlfriend; spilled vodka on her couch then got really drunk and started calling me names and asking me to stay away from him.

“You faggot son of a bitch; you want to turn me gay like you, you all do! Fuck you and fuck them all!” he says it so everyone can see; and everyone looked at me asking with their eyes on what the hell is going on.

He left, but not before trying to crash my aunt’s favorite lamb.

The next morning; Ramy was knocking on my aunt’s door; I was alone in the house as my aunt is away; I was sitting there, cleaning and counting loses of the night before when he knocked on the door. I opened up and invited him in when he explained he is here to apologize.

Helping me cleaning; he was staring at me with his black eyes; trying to ignore him; I told him he doesn’t have to clean and he is more than welcomed to leave the house. I explained that he doesn’t need to apologize or anything.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asks out of the blue, “Yes, I do.” I lied, not sure why. “Oh, I see. And are you a top or a bottom?” he ask with hungry eyes; and I could tell where this conversation was going from now on. “I believe this is none of your business; I think this is between me and my boyfriend.” He smiles; then comes closer to me staring at me with his big black eyes; I don’t know why I felt he was a wolf staring at his prey. “You know, if you are a bottom; I am sure I can show you a good time.”

I’m not sure of the order of things that happened later on; I remember that I punched him in the face; I kicked him on the ass; I kicked him out and I called his girlfriend and told her of the incident. I’m just not sure which action happened before which.

Let’s just say that hanging around gay people does not make you gay; it rather let you slip the already presented gayness in yourself out; but in all sick ways.

The Man I left behind in Egypt

I remember that I used to spent three to four hours on the phone with him weeks before I met him for the first time.

Recently out of a three-year relationship; I wanted to flirt with boys; I wanted to take someone on a first date and try to make him smile that enchanted smile that tells you secrets. I wanted to explore new people and I needed a new challenge.

He was sick with a heavy illness that I can’t remember its symptoms; therefore; he was stuck in bed for three weeks with his Live Messenger and Blackberry phone as the only communication tools he has with the world; and by God; we used them to the max.

I met him online on some weirdass silly dating website that I used to use; he sent me a silly picture of himself running around with gloves and a heavy grayish jacket in New York City; and another picture with white cool pants that I got hooked on; he looked sexy and funny but what attracted me the most to him was a smile that I can’t find the words to describe; was it angelic? beautiful? smart? smurky? I can’t tell; it was attractive; that’s for sure.

For three weeks, we would talk until our phone credits runs out, we would exchange stories of travels we went through and boyfriends we got hurt by, we would laugh at jokes we both are familiar with and we would say Good Night five to eight times before we actually hang up. I felt alive with happiness for the first time in ages; that feeling that you’re connecting with a person on a mental level and getting to know them; we liked each other and we loved how we liked each other. We got addicted to our calls and our jokes.

I would tell my best friend, Nour, about him again and again; show her pictures of him that he would provide me with on daily basis. She would assist to my conclusion of how hot and sexy this guy is. This guy that I haven’t even met yet.

Then comes the day when he gathered his strength; got three layers of clothes on and decided to meet me.

I booked us a table for two in my favorite steak restaurant in Cairo; I wanted to impress him; I wanted him to fall in love with me on sight; I wanted to have him to be mine. On the corner of my street, I waited, with jumpy heart; worrying that he might not be the person I pictured him to be.

Here he opens the door of his car; looking exactly as I pictured him. Perfectly tall, sweetly fashionable, and under these layers of clothes I could tell he had a rockin’ body. My insecurities kicked in; how come a beautiful man like this be interested in the average me? I felt exactly like a teenage boy looking at a movie star and thinking how this star is “totally out of my league”.

But then comes the smile; that angelic unexplainable unprintable smile. He smiled at me and told me that I look even better than he predicted. I needed to gather as much strength in my body not to turn into a tomato and keep the cool attitude on. I invited him to a cab; and off we went to the restaurant.

We flirted in ways I didn’t expect me to even imagine flirting in; I remember brushing my knee against his knee, that momentary touch pushed the blood up to his face; he was looking at me with that astonished look that I longed for. It was a perfect date.

A meal and bottle of wine later; he was sitting in my house; so magnificent and full of life; on a small couch I had in my bedroom looking at me and smiling; he was shy; and I loved that about him to an extend I can’t put to words.

I remember taking the permission first before I approached him; I remember sitting next to him and I remember the soft and wine-like taste of his lips. Our first kiss; a journey that lasted for a while before he had to return to his house.

After he left; I had that little storm of emotions in me; it started nice with the joyful memory of his lips, but then went soar: will he ever call again? was he impressed? should I wait for him to call or should I call him back? Before these silly thoughts take over me; I jumped in my bed in hopes that some sleep will clear my mind; but my phone started ringing. It was him; wishing me good night; and unintentionally killing all the doubts I had in my mind once and for all. I remember that we spent a month or so meeting twice or three times a week; we would go to restaurants or cafes; talking about anything and everything but we would always end up in my house; making out for hours.

To him; I told secrets I didn’t dare to tell to other people before ages of dating. After a hot sweaty session of love-making; I would sleep on his shoulder and hear his heart beat fast before it starts to cool down and calm down; until he falls asleep for a second or two then wakes up printing a soft kiss on my lips.

Then it all went down hell on the 28th of January 2011. The day the revolution took place in Egypt. I’m stuck in Downtown, and he is stuck in Nasr City. Our only way of communication is the landlines; after they cut off the internet; and the mobile services. I was working; my job as a journalist required me to be in the heart of the event. He was at home; his job as a man required him to stay at home and help his father protect the house.

As I left Egypt, after an incident that I faced when I was attacked in the streets of Cairo by Pro-Mubarak people, I gave him a phone call. I was short for words; the only word I wanted to say out loud is how much I loved him and how much I wished nothing but to spend one more night; just one more night with him. Yet, I couldn’t. I remember crying as I hanged up the phone. I remember that I couldn’t think about anything other than a small burn hole that I unintentionally made in his car seat couple of weeks earlier with my silly cigarette. It was raining outside when I got to his car; I turn on my cigarette then I told him how much I missed him. He smiled; that radiant smile that enchanted me and I lost control of my fingers for a second when he did so and the cigarette fall and burned a small hole in his car seat; yet, between the apologizes and the trials to turn off the small fire on the seat; all I could think of was that I loved his smile and that I loved him.

Little Did I know that …

Here we go again.

In the pursuit of happiness; a man goes many unpaved roads looking for a release, a shelter or a goal; however, many get lost in the way and get stuck in a hole. Temporary or not; this hole has an effect on this person, causing a butterfly chain reaction that might end up in shaping – or destroying – the very essence of this person.

I have been a traveler; a person of passion and a writer for years. I worked towards goals that sometimes I couldn’t fully understand or see, yet, I believe that I reached some; and I lost my way towards others.

Now, in this unbelievable period of my life; I have the chance to set aside and watch my life as it folds; stuck in a country that once was mine, and surrounded by forces that I cannot control; or predict.

Alright already, enough with the bullshit; let me tell you about myself; I am a man who is totally unique; just like everyone on this planet. The only thing that drives me to write this blog is the simple selfish desire to actually write and see people’s reactions to my writings.

Who am I? My name is not that important really, it’s rather common in the part of the world I live in. Names are just another way for people to label people; my name can tell you from which part in the world I come from and what religion my parents are; therefore, you will be able to stereotype me in some TV-enhanced idea about what kind of a person I am.

However, for the purpose of keeping you interested in reading my blogs; let’s just say that my name is Sama; a female name in the part of the world I come from, yet I like it and I will be called by it. Gender was never my problem and it won’t be my problem at the moment either.

I am a homosexual Arab man who lives in Syria at the moment. “Oh, wow, in Syria?” you might say, thinking of a way to politely ask me about my dead family members or the exchange of gunfire outside of my bathroom window. However, I will disappoint you; I live in Damascus; where the only struggle that I might face is to find a bar that opens beyond 2AM or to get over yet another fight with my father about my “sinful repulsive homosexuality”, as he delightfully puts it.

I traveled far and beyond, been to places and have stories to tell; yet I find myself stuck in Syria for now; in a country I was born in and had my first crush in and enjoyed my first kiss in. Little did I know that I’ll ever come back here and this return only lead to a relapse in my self-image.

I’m a child with a running nose trying to catch a snowflake; I’m a man of 27-year getting in a bus and listening to OneRepublic; I’m a lost teenager exchanging glances with an older guy; I’m a man with a younger boyfriend that sees me as his father figure. I’m off to my first day at school; holding my breath trying not to cry as I’ll be separated from my mother for the first time in my life; I’m an older brother; holding my 2-year-old half-brother as he falls asleep. I’m a child in a car with a fever; my father is driving me to the hospital and the streetlights look like fireflies; I’m a man driving a car; with two lesbian girls in the backseat making out while I try to avoid any suspicious eyes. I’m a child trying to be friends with a girl at school; I’m a man naked in bed; and my boyfriend is turning around and drowning his face into my chest. I’m in Beirut in my late teens; meeting the man who is going to change my life forever. I’m in Egypt telling my Egyptian boyfriend that I can’t stand him anymore; I’m swimming in the Indian Ocean; overlooking Malaysia; telling my Italian boyfriend that it’s not working out between us after three years. I’m in Turkey; making out with a nameless boy in public in Taksim Street; I’m in my mother house in Beirut; having a drunken sex with a stranger while my mother is sleeping in the next room. I’m a child sleeping my mother’s arms; I’m a man standing in the line for the visa appointment in the Italian Embassy; knowing that I will not get the visa. I’m holding my father’s hand as we cross the street; I’m older again; screaming at him: “I’m not a faggot; I’m gay; you’re sick with homophobia”. I’m stuck in a circle going round and round; falling in the gaps of time; and the only way that I can think of to make sense of my life; is to actually write it down.

And writing I shall.