Author: Zaki Monzer

tragedy and hope , beauty and pain

Stars and djin , real story

Post author By Zaki Monzer
Post date May 1, 2023
No Comments on Stars and djin , real story

It was Summer 2013 during Ramadan ,
I went with my cousin, neighbors, and our mosque friends to a summer camp.
To cut it short it felt like another place another world back then , all green , green hills like those in japanese anime and , and each group took a cirle or group of single rooms with qarmid ,
I vomited all the way over there , not because of traveling distances but because i was sick , i was sad because i couldn’t fast and i didn’t know i even wasn’t supposed to fast because of traveling..
We played football , wrestled , and set our bags in the rooms and spend the day outside,
They told us of the many things to do at night and it looked great ,
Then it was time for dinner , everyone from all groups sat in a cafeteria that was up above the hill and we began iftar , i wasn’t fasting and i ate all day so i wasn’t hungry , i finished the first one , got up and went outside , maybe because i love empty night spaces , maybe that’s who i am , i looked across and i saw the shop open , i wanted to buy chips but the money i had were in my bag in the room all the way down there , it was the most far to reach room in the entire camp , but i went on walking, the camp was all lighted up , even our circle , but except out room, no lights no electricity , i opened the door, ticked all the switches , nothing , ticked again , nothing..
I brought my bag and sat on the doorway to catch some light, got the money and turned around to put back the bag in the closet, when i put it , a song came out , it exploded through all the dark room and i was looking at a dark abyss not knowing what was there , a djin voice was laughing , a laugh so terrifying and sarcastic i couldn’t even imagine before , it echoed without a single point of if ,
I ran
And it’s funny that when i think of this now i laugh although it was one of the most terrifying and frightening moments of my life , but i ran , i ran alllll the way while fearing to even put my legs on the ground , i was flying
And how i wished someone was filming how i ran , i still till today don’t doubt i would’ve broken the world record…
I just remember legs, lights ,grass and me screaming for the captain,

everyone rushed out , i couldn’t speak , but they got the few words i was telling , djin down there , i don’t remember anyone laughed but they were speculating and i was too, we told let’s go all together and figure it out , we went and when we reached the room the lights were all back again , still surprised , we searched for someone , nothing , anything here there , nothing , for the next two hours it was others reading doaa and prayers on me and then we went to the nught prayer , i was scared because my feet were all liqued-ish althrough i just touched grass bare-footed , we went on , we played football , we swam , we had one of the best night , although now i don’t know anyone of these kids anymore , i don’t know anything about my childhood friends and my neighbors anymore , to get back , everyone was denying what i experienced then , but one things was sure , NO ONE , NO ONE slept inside all the rooms that night… we layed outside and slept on the grass , with a starry night and we woke up after sunrise with the sun burning our faces , when it was time to go we went inside again to pick and organize our stuff , i was putting all my stuff in the bag while sitting on the bed with my cousin and there was the captain and 6 others of us in the room wrestling , suddenly, the sound cane out again , i looked around ,it really did , and everyone is there … my cousin jumped and hugged me and we rushed to the corner of the bed , one was laying on the ground just got up and was jumping , others rushed outisde quickly and someone rushed and jumped out of the window and the other followed him to see if anything is outside … hilarious istg , anw it turns out it was a ringtone a boy had , and he never told anyone , he might have never knew it was his phone ringing , yeah that’s it ,a ringtone on the phone that rang inside an empty closest in the same time and circumstances that let this story to happen …

violet Winter

I watched myself crying

Sometimes i dream,
Some others i wander in reality,
I saw a qoute on a youtube comment section for someone the other day , that if you find yourself with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy you , the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world , and most probably for another people .
You see i dream ,
But whenever i wake up i am 100% sure i was in the real world,
I forget about this place completely,
This isn’t it , this isn’t the real life , and this isn’t myself,
And i keep searching here for people long lost inside my dream , knowing I’ll never find them here..

The other day i dreamed i saw myself ,
I was watching it from above ,
How he talks , acts , smiles… then the dream zoomed on my face , i was just watching my face as an external force , then he started crying..
I watched myself crying in a dream , for a long time.

And here i cry , on a youtube video , on a quraan verse , on a song , or an anime scene , or among a manga panel where nothing happens , or on a character sitting under a basketball net..
I cry because i feel that a piece of me exists there and I’m not with it rn , or probably,
I’m there and reading/ watching myself lost in spaces beyond space , and here i am , in a not so me life , nor mind , nor self , not even being recognized..

My therapist asked me the other day what did i want to do really , i didn’t answer then , now i feel like looking back , that we just want to be understood,
We just want to share the burden of being,
To have some external element.. a person , group , culture , values.. that hold some meaning within us ,
To elevate all these fears and anxieties and suffering we’re having ,
And to allow us to connect ,
Discover some center within , something that we can hold on to and say I’m alive , I’m here.

“I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat. What to like, what to hate, what to rage about, what to listen to, what band to like, what to buy tickets for, what to joke about, what not to joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in, who to vote for, and who to love, and how to tell them. I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong.”
Fleabag , Fleabag series

And now I’m torn between
Trying to be a better man
Trying to accept the man I am
The people that I’ve talked to
And the books that I’ve read
And the TV shows and movies that I’ve seen
Are all I have to turn to
And learnin’ how to live
But when? (When?) When? (When?)
When? (When?) When will I ever learn?

Kimochi warui song

Summer violet

The real world

Work , walk , mosque
Pray , lay , fall asleep
You’re in another world before you know it
Sometimes i wish that’s how life is
And maybe that’s how it is

You’re in there
There’s people you know
But they aren’t the people you know
There’s people you don’t know
But they’re the people who knows you really
And they’re all just good
And it’s all a good place
And it’s all a good ceremony

There’s festivals friends and food
There’s madfa3 and suns
And yellow buildings with green floors
And a land not found in your wildest imagination
And a feeling that fills your heart
You’re there where you belong
And it’s all good now
And whatever you’ve been through
It’s over , it’s all over
That life you’ve been at was just a dream
And it’s all over now , it was a mere second
And you’re glad and happy

When u remember that
And u tell yourself that
And you hug it
“This is where i am now , it was all a bad dream , this is my reality now”
And you hug it
Like you’re hugging a pillow filled with stars
And you sink
Sink
Sink
Sink
In it

.
.
It’s a dark space
So it’s nothing
But you remember there was something right ?
Wait wait wait you were somewhere
You were still in that dream , that life
Your think and you open your eyes before you know it, where were you ?

It’s dark
There’s no one
You’re in an empty dark mosque underground
Ohhh you’re back here , you tell yourself
And you feel you’ve lived just for a second here
But here you are again
You pick yourself and go back
I wish it’ll all pass fastly like a dream

red Spring

Praying

Someday well go away
We will never see another morning
The sun will fade
The mountains will be moved
Our houses will be empty
More than what we feel

And i guess its meant to be that no one will hear our stories
And no will will hear our songs
And no one will hea all the screams we once hoped for
Of joy and pain and glory and heaet wrenching feelings

And i guess its meant to be to end
To remind us of who we are
Without having to live longer
To support the delusion that it wont happen

That we are just sands trying to figure it out
Trying to make sense
That we are on the edge of the shore
Trying to glorify all our colors that dont exist
The sands will either uncover earth or be sunk down
In the sea that stays
At least for another stride of meaningless times

Good god that stays
My heart aches for times beyond time
Where our memories will never be known
And our rooms and drawers will never be emtpy
And all that we collected
All that we captured
All that we gifted and take
All the letters we wrote
Will be even longing for the wind

Good god beyond the infinite
I will not grief
Youre the only hope
Because youre the all ever seeing
All ever protecting
All the ever holder of everything our souls dwelled into and with

And if we ever lived to share longer
It would be just with you
What good is living if not with you
What remains that that hold meaning not to you

Autumn white

Passing

It will pass
Even if you feel you’re not these
Even if the sturggle will carry on to the sun
Even if you feel that time is stuck in a long vivid dream
Even if you feel the uncertainty of dying
Even if you feel that you’ve seen it all
Watched all
Heard all
And all left now is standing on the abyss of an unknown infinite future
Feeling it will end the next second
It will pass

No matter if you struggled for three thousand years
Or lost everyone you love
Or even loved , passed through , lived
All that it could pass
And passed through unlived lives
It will pass

With the feelings stuck in this place
With the here and now we didn’t get
And the things you wished you’d get but didn’t
With these circles of round buildings surrounding your sense of time
You will pass

Whenever you understand that its not meant
Not written
Not deserved
For you
And you run
Without thinking you’ll pass it
It will before you know it
Just run
It will with you
Like all the dreams you carry with you everyday from your sleep
And that it might eventually pass some day and be one

red Winter

شتاء لا ينتهي… لسميرة

تستفيق من غفوتك على كلمة “تسلملي”
والتي تعني اكثر من الحياة باكملها
الحياة التي هي مجرد غفوة

عندما رحلت جدتي لم اشعر إنها توفت
لقد رأيتها وهي تغادر روحها جسدها
وعندما حدقت بجثتها لساعات
وعندما انزلتها الى القبر
انا متقبل انها ماتت
ولكنني لا اشعر بذلك

عندما علمنا انها فارقت الحياة
بدأنا بمكالمة العائلة
كالمت امي لأقول لها
وبعدما بكت اردت القول ان لا تقل لجدتي لانها لا يمكنها تحمل اخباراً كهذه..
نسيت انها هي من توفى

ولا اعلم إن يجب علي الحزن انها ذهبت
او إنني لا أشعر بذلك
أو إني الأن يجب علي قضاء دهرٍ بأكمله بدونها
تكون الحياة غفوة الا بدونها

ان من بترت اطرافهم يعانون بشعور وهمي بها
يطلق عليه الطرف الشبح
اي عند الجراحون..
وعندما ذهبت هي
بترت مني حياتي
وفقط اشعر بها
ليبدأ شتاء لا ينتهي

لا تعلم كيف سوف تقضي صباحاتك
او مع من تشارك قصص القران والانبياء
او التحدث عن الله والجنة معه
او أكل السكر نبات والشاي

جدتي لم تكن تقرأ ولا تكتب
ولم تكن تعرف أن النجوم شموس
ولا عن حجم الكون
ولا عن أن كل شي يتكون من ذرات
ولم تكن تعلم أن الخليج لم يعد قن دجاج
ولا عن الاحتباس الحراري ولا عن المشاهير ولا عن المسلسلات والافلام ووو
ولم تكن تعلم من برشلونة ومن من
ولا اذا كانت الملاعب هنا او في الخارج
ولم تكن تعرف معنى جميع الكلمات الأجنبية التي كنت اقولها وكانت ترددها دائما ( هاو ار يو ، لوف يو سوسو ، اوهايو )
ولكنها لم تكن تعلم ايضا انها تملك اكبر قلب على الكوكب
وان جميع ابتساماتها على مر العمر كانت جميعها هي ذاتها
وكانت عندما تعلم بمشكلة شخص مارٍ تحمل همه
او همنا
ولم تكن تعلم عيد ميلادها حتى
ولكن كانت تحتفل بعيدك انت كأنها ولدت من جديد
او تخاف عند قولنا اننا سنسافر ونتركها
كانت تعلم الدعاء والاخرة،
من الآمن ان اقول اكثر من جميع البشر الذين عرفتهم..
وكانت تتذكر ان تقول “الله يرضى عليك” ثلاثين مرة في النهار
او عزمك ثلاثين مرة على وجبة او طعام كل صباح ، عصر ، مساء

كان بودي ان اقبلها
ان اقول لها ان الحياة لا تسوى عفطة عنز بدونها
او اعمل دراما
ولكني متعب من كل هذا
تعبت من كل الامور البشرية
والعلاقات البشرية
وحتى من تفكيري

دفنتها ، قبلت قدميها ، وقلت اراكِ في الجنة
انشالله
من سنة ارسلت الي صورة قدميها بالخطأ
لانها لا تعلم
ما هو البرنامج ومن هو الشخص وكيف
نرسل صوراً
عسى ان تعلم ان الجنة تحتهم
عسى ان لا اعيش دهرا طويلا مثلها ، بدونها
عسى ان افيق على يديها فوق رأسي وعلى كلمة “تسلملي”
من هذا الحلم…

الفاتحة لروح اموات المسلمين جميعا

Spring violet

Our names

How could i know ?
I wander
Why are you like that ?
They ask

Or why do you watch what you watch
Read what you read
Listen what you listen

Maybe that’s who i am
But i dont know what is it

I’m certain of me
But i don’t define it
And i know it’s not that fine down here
But it is warm
Very warm

Instead all the questions that passed
The winds that passed
The people and the waves
I wanted a confirmation

That it’s fine to be like that
That I’m not a burden
Not even to myself

It means that your therapist says all the inner counterattacks rituals u do
And it means to go back
To all the nice messages that were left behind
By left people

And it means
To hear your name next to a morning message
Like it is telling you you’re here
No matter how you are
You’re here now

Whatever the person might go on with life
Whatever all these times will be remembered
Or these places will sieze to exist
Or yourself will change or not

Even if it doesn’t matter you’re here,
You’re here

With all the unsaid letters
Or the non sent goodbyes
And the unlived lives
And the not given apologies
And the unreturned smiles or cares

Maybe if you asked me instead
Why are you doing this ?
I’d say for god solely

The dream ends
The night exists
Time fades
Spaces not be anymore
Your name said will forever be lost
God stays

And maybe it’s not hard to be here at all
With all what defines you
Even if sad
You the undefined abyss
But at least you’ve got that

And you’ve get to give yourself a confirmation too
By writing
Like now

By smiling to no smiles
By waving the doors without goodbyes
By living new lives yet to be lived
By apologizing to yourself for handling too much goodness

By returning morning messages, with names beside it
And it matters for once
That its okay to be here
And its okay to not be okay

If you’re not taking care of yourself then
What are you here for ?

Spring white

Chess and life

We might think of the way to live
To go
To decide
And sometimes we submit
We tend to run from both
But we engage completely
In the flow of possibilities
Where life got infinite more
On a larger scale
But chess
Chess is a game
And a game is not life
But it is in life
Where we might be down
In the paths of defeats
In our daily lives
But we escape to games
If we played , if we didn’t
It doesnt matter
If we win or lose
We run and escape
We become the board
Because we don’t want to think of life
Of the more infinite possibilities in it
But maybe in games
We can sense that small victory
Maybe in them
Whether we participated or we were just watching
We can have sth that culd define us
Way beyind our daily lives
Maybe that’s why we play games
And why we should play life
There’s no play
But we play
And we got immersed
We can’t get addicted to life
But we can get addicted to chess
And as the pieces move
Fall and rise
Kill and be killed
They participate of a very greater thing
Way beyond their understanding
And possibilities
Way beyond even the minds moving them
Chess is just life minimized
And life is just chess not glorified
And we can loose i both
And we can scream i both
And we can be im them
Here
But we can never know to where
Or who
Or us
Life is a game
But winning and loosing aren’t fast
Aren’t determined
Aren’t immediate and aren’t free
So we invented games to minimize life
To give psychological and mental and physical rewards more sufficiently
Easily
And faster than life
More time on them
More rewards
More addiction
More mind games

In life we dont know where we stand
We stand at a sea
At infinity
But in chess we stand in our minds
Standing on white and black blocks
And i think its a human condition to take the road-less traveled

Spring Yellow

Some saturday sunsets

Sometomes on Saturdays i get out to sit in the field beside the neighborhood,
There’s all sort of things,
Mostly parties if there’s a birthday or event ,
Either than thay it’s kids playing ball,
I don’t participate, but i name each of the old pals instead of the kids playing ,
And i wander through the old days ,
The people here are very kind and they give much care to someone old like me ,
I tell them stories at nights and the call me insane , mostly kids , while at morning they’re just busy playing and getting their cup from the sun .
Pretty funny for someone who was once pointed at as the last sane human..
But one day little gel was injured so he get off and sat beside me.
-“playing on sand is fun but rough right grandpa? ” he asked
“If u don’t know how to use if ” i replied
-“How’s so ? For what ?”
“u should flow through it , not just jumping and running over it , feel yourself as if you’re the sand… ahh i guess you’re still a kid.. maybe you won’t get it”
-“It just hurts ” , he said “the sand is hot too “
“One time we swam under sand”
-“under sea ?”
” No no under sand besides the see ” a warm smile was surrounding my face
-He asked ” And How’s that possible ? Plus u can just go under water “
” well dear , in our days water was just like fire now , it would burn you if you even touch it , and the seas where we swam where either of lava or sand , but here st the coast it wall just water , well that is until great girl joy came..”
-“Joyyy ? Lavvaaa ? ” he asked while making a disgusted face
“Joy waa a redhead , Forget it” i continued “playing is good when u can’t understand the world”
He sat there silent for a while , then he asked me curiously:
-“and how were you able to breath under sand ?”
“If i told you you won’t believe me”
-“well you’re no mind man(he means insane) i think , i don’t believe you , but I’m trying to imagine..” he said with a pure voice.
“Well im no mind but yesterday i was mind , today you are mind but if i snuck you into my childhood there won’t be anyone who’ll be friends with you , because you’ll be no mind too there”
He said then : ” maybe someday I’ll get it” and i laughed my eyes out.

Sometimes good witch anne was getting us oxygen under sand , other times star , or it depends , that so until the sand man came by” .

-“what is he or them ?”

“Maybe he was a fraction from my mind , but they , my friends , told me otherwise , his name was rolly , but a reptile man ended him”

-“another reason why you’re no mind is that you’ve been living alone for so long , you have no friends”

“i do some people come flying for me at times”

-“i hear such stories , but i don’t believe them”

“then u have mind that u turn off mind , anw go play i guess your wound is healed , sand man rolly told me so , but remember son , no one who has good friends is alone ” He looked surprised, his wound was healed in the instance without him noticing while talking , he went on and played , and i gazed from a distant at all the people and the kids , the next time he was about to score the goal he looked my way and stood in chock , he lost the ball and they were shouting at him but he only stood with his mouth opened , maybe because he saw a redhead woman with a hat beside me , he pointed at her and she shouted at him to play… i laughed my eyes out

black Summer

My ghost beyond time

My brother showed me a reel for their class in the school we used to attend for all our life up to high school,
I pretented to be neutral,
To show no emotion,
Like i always do ,
To be such a stoic.
Then when he left i broke down jnto tears ,
Then i listened to it alone and went more into an ocean of grief ,
Grief for childhood unfulfilled
For a life not completed
For memories i wishes i die at
For places i wish i stayed at forever
For people i hoped to live a million lives with
With people who even died
And others i don’t know anything about anymore
And memories that will be burried just with..

Im breaking rn
U can’t take the weight of these , but you gotta carry that weight , tillthe day you die.

Memories that will be burried with you forever , and maybe memories that might be only stuck with you and you only lived such a nostaligic deep joyful time and maybe no one of these kids remember them anymore , maybe no one of them still exists anymore , maybe life changes..
Maybe i changed but that kid in me is still the true me and still following the shadow of his younger life , unlived…
Uncontinued…
I was reading kafka by the shore lately and i came up across an interpretation for ghost stories im Japanese culture , and i remembered the one from oyasumi punpun , and about how the ghost are about souls grieving for older days.
What if my ghosts when i was a kid are me now..
What if what we feared me and my sistes , what we used to wake up each other for if anyone wanted to go to the bathroom at midnight when we were kids , is our older selves grieving for these memories of love
For these night nothing bothered us ,
We used to come home and turn tv and just watch cartoons
We used to belong into an inner world without even knowing whats the outer
And the outer was a school where we just played and screamed and made as much games as we could with our minds
Whyyyyyyyy
Why does life changed
Why does life do this
I might read a thousand book and story and know many philosophies and interpretations for why we grow we go what we do and socialize and fuck our selves in this modern era .
But i can’t take it anymore
Whyyyyy
Why did we leave heaven..
I ….I’m still struggling in my adulthood to move on from my childhood , from my teenage years and from very single stage in my life , because i was living in worlds i didn’t want to go away from , and it passed so quickly , and we grow up in an instant , and everyones not here , and youre not here , and the places aren’t here , and i dontknow what to do anymore , and days and days pass and you dont even think about it anymore , then comes a song , a scent , a face to reminds you of it ….. god if i just can in heaven live , maybe not in a fully heavenly landscapes and rivers , but in their , in my childhood , in the ground where i sat and watched cartoons every weekend, in the playground of the school , in the games we used to make in the desks , in all the teenage dreams , and in the all thinking we thoughts we’d lived , and people we thought we’d continue with but we didn’t, but we were happy , even though we were tired to wake up at 7 am everymorning , even my teenage years , in the unfulfilled not completed destroyed college life we had , and the many friendhips that passed too , and in all the neighborhood brothers who went far away , god , i just wanna return to that usneen real world , to that forgotten nostaligic place that didnt happen and didnt continue , god if i could become a ghost too i wish i could , to those pencilcase and night stories i made in bed , to those curious silent gazes , to those warm , warm hearts , we used to have , before we grow up without knowing…