in absentia — 2003

You tremble            like a flute

in his bed

half naked and delicate

His warmth     a sandstorm

that wears you away

Relax                 You are not here

to save anyone You

are not here

to be saved

Kiss him     Wake him up

(might he remember you?)

Or leave him and go

Nothing changes him

but you will peel

those sheets off

a butterfly

Or a wasp.

the fisherman’s friend

It wasn’t a usual summer night that year. Although the cool breeze eased the humidity, there was something surreal about the midnight sea at Ain el-Mreisseh, Beirut’s seafront. August always brings jellyfish, and they appear like plastic bags dumped by some indifferent god into the Mediterranean. But on this August night in 2004, the jellyfish glowed like grayish streetlamps in the navy blue sea. It was there he stood casting his fishing line into the dangerous depths.

The seafront is dotted with rocky footholds and baby islands on which the likes of him gather in search of solitude. But by the time I saw him, the other fishermen (if you can call them that) were already snoring. Or, as we say in Arabic, in their seventh sleep. In short, it was too late to say the man was night-fishing, and it was too early to say he was an early bird. It was the magical hour of 2:45am.

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what makes a disturbing movie

The movie Cloverfield completely devastated me.

Images of it have been haunting me since I first watched it. Sometimes, I remember some detail and sink back into the dark place that the movie took me to. This is, by far, one of the worst movies ever (emotionally speaking).

Tonight I uncovered the reason why this movie has caused me so much harm. It’s one simple fact:

Everyone that I — the viewer —  associated with eventually died.

This has to be the single worst ingredient in a movie. There’s no lack of horrible movies, or apocalyptic movies. But how harsh a movie is depends not on how many people die in the movie, but rather on who dies in the movie.

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