Author: Zaki Monzer

tragedy and hope , beauty and pain

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…

Fall green

Somewhere

I’m writing this in an unexpected way
Because events in life happen in an unexpected way
And when they are expected even
Unexpected feelings hits you .

I was reading across a saying by the prophet that is : ” the faithful in their matual amiability , compassion , and sympathy , are like one body that when one organ is sick , the rest of the body responds with Insomnia and fever “
It’s not hidden the suffering im passing through
And that maybe I’m an open book
Its not like i crave attention
But i don’t consider anything my own so i share all my thoughts even in public.
Because for a guy like me with my mental illness im everything but my thoughts.
But if a kind of such faithful people should be around me , a kind of a loveling brotherhood or friendhood , if its really okay for you to find a place where you feel at that its okay for you to live , to grief and to have someone pat you ..
Then why there’s none ?
Am i for that extent invisible ?
Or that the problem is an inner one ?
What if there was a community for the faithful but i wasn’t one ?
When will i stop questioning myself and everyone that passed .

When will i ever get an answer , to get a hint of that place , of that people , somewhere somehow in the world.. when you don’t have to ask to get an apology or care or understanding or a good word..

black Spring

Of monsters and hopes

I wasn’t afraid of my monsters under my bed when i was a child ,
And i dont believe in monsters under my bed now ,
But i dont believe in myself either..
I prayed for god to show me the way
And i wasn’t here
I walked through the path of hell,
I longed to my bed,
And I’m fighting 24/7 the monsters i don’t believe at,
To relieve the self i dont believe at..
so this is a redemption act
I tried to guess but why should i pass through them ?
Then i remembered i asked god to show me the way
I went in the way into my closet,
I hung myself in all the people i killed,
I ran through a football field looking, at the sky screaming to heaven,
I was jumping in a bar im the shire,
I was the schizophrenic old man in the town party,
And i walked over the sea with my bare foot ,
Its a death , a forgetting , and a rebirth , a redemption ,
I asked god to show me the way..
But i was away,
I spent 500 days to reach peace
5 years to reach myself
And a single seccond to tear it all up,
And then reload it all
Again
Again
And again
Goodmornings
Schools
Runs
Prayers
Paint
Language
Write
Read
Watch
Go
Come
Play
Cry
Mess
Scream
Shower
Sleep
Repeat
Over
Over
And over again
Im not afraid im wasting my time because im not
Im afraid im still far away from the path i asked god for
You see i asked him for the path of heaven
But it runs through a miled of clouded hell right ?
So you can’t ask why is it so fucked up messed up life self mind time going on
I wanted to out as peaceful as i can be
Now i want to get out as strong as i can ever be
That if , if i got out , i found i ever existed
Hope
Tangles on a string
On a tinyyyyy tiny little string
Like a slow , spinning, rolling , redemption ..

Summer white

The year of the rabbit

It’s the year of the rabbit,
I’ve been through a really existential roller-coaster,
And the only certain thing i know in this sea of years,
In this sea of uncertainties,
Is that I’m a rabbit.
I went through that hole without getting back
And some went down searching for me without getting back ,
And i went down wanting to know me and i didnt know where ,
I was learning japanese the other day and a single word irritated me , “where” .
Maybe what brings me back ain’t a place that i belong to , but “where” is it ,
Where is them , and where is i in the first place,
Here goes another theory , go on on a rabbit hole in search/pursuit of wonder , but but but what if , you go there , because you’re running from your self and all its bad acts or character ?
And what if the rabbit hole , and these dimensional worlds going from a narrow hole into a wide landscape, were real , but you weren’t,
What if you , yourself , is the tiny self hallucinations of these worlds…
And what if you didn’t go inside that world out of reality , but rather that that world went on outside you inside of reality , and reality went on outside you inside of that world…

Was it that you went in , because the world demanded it for you to exist in a certain time in a certain space and go in , and if so why demanded , whats your worth when u can’t find yourself , and you want to discover it , jumping in the hole of it , but you’re afraid of jumping in the hole in your self.
What is called the rabbit hole because the rabbit got in the hole , or that the hole gets you to the rabbit ?
Did the rabbit get in the hole or was the hole the entire rabbit’s world ? The entire rabbit’s self ?

We rabbits are happy rabbits
With fear , doubt , hate , shame , sadness , madness , emptiness ..
We rabbits are absolutely happy , glad , thanking rabits.

red Winter

I run

I’m glad I’m in a place in my life when someone asks me what do you do , and i respond ” i run “.
Like im having the urge to explode all of it out,
And this urge came from when i was even a kid ,
I ran away in school
I ran away from classes
I ran away from the neighborhood and wandered through streets
I ran away from the hospital on my brother’s birth and get lost on the streets

I ran away when we were on a family trip on the snow and i just wanted to go far , far away into the white abyss…
I was a kid , i didn’t have any objective , i just wanted so…

I always as a kid used to imagine and think of plans and strategies of breaking out of home and running away , and i was really little i had noooo goal of it i was just planning and saying tomorrow I’ll do this , next week I’ll do this , I’ll just go , I’ll just begone and im just a lost kid who’s family is grieving about…

I grew up and i still wanted to break out
From my family
My social life
My country
From this world
From it all
Because you see
I lived a million lives through it all in my head
But i never lived a single life through it all
Because i don’t belong to any of it all
Im in the normal base life
I don’t belong to any space here
Sometimes my heart aches because i can’t explain how i view things , god , or life
And that im alone just watching everything from a distance …
And sometimes my heart lifts and just screams of joy,

Maybe that i belong to that unkown,
Maybe i wanna run to the time i wasn’t even born,
To that void,
To that unknown,
Now i try to run to it through my mind in the media i like,
The worlds i dive into,
And through my legs in the tears i sob , not sweat, the tears .
And maybe I’m running towards that kid on the snow..
And i wake up every morning to the same alarm “and i was running far away , would i run off the world someday ?”
Someday, somehow, somewhere , far far deep away..

Blue Fall

Standing on the edge of memory

Post author By Zaki Monzer
Post date February 25, 2023
No Comments on Standing on the edge of memory

You can remember as far as youre young ?
-Mmm yeah
How young ?
-Around months young only
How so
-I feared a toy in the photograph place my mom and my uncle took me to.. i still remember it , as much as i remember many visions of my childhood , things that are to hard to believe i do remember .
U think you remembered because it was stuck with a feeling ?
-I dont know , i dont think so , many memories of happy feelings i dont remember anymore , i lost track of dates i loved some people , i dont remember even when did i love exactly certain people , and when did i tell them that…
Do you remember any chat with any one ?
-I dont remember anymore .
Neither photos ?
-Neither anything , im usually nowadays asking the other person im talking to if ive told him this before or not..
What about life
-I dont remember which year what happened or what event in which year, i dont remember which year i was supposed to graduate or even which year the pandemic happened or which year a football game i loved even occured , its like i lost track of time and years , and sometimes im afraid that everyone still remember except me.
Do you remember anything hard to remember ?
-I remember faraway distant dreams from ages ago , i get flashes , without any meaning or any connection or any feeling i just recoil them back..
What about things you love ?

-There’s nothing i can hold to , its like , its a point , and each time im stuck and i try to remember , my world , stories i liked , people i loved , memories i had , things i went through , all my redemptions , all my changes , my development, There’s nothing , i sometimes wake up a blank space not knowing or feeling everything about the day before , its sad when it was a day to remember or when you feel whole , faithful, good , etc and you wake up with a hole , and trying to chase a dream you left a minute ago , just to forget it too immediately..
Then you’re stuck with what?
-My thoughts , my intrusive thoughts
Did you try not to think about them?
-Yes
Did you try not to fear them?
-Yes
Did you try to move on from them?
-Yes
Did you try to make yourself busy with whatever?
-Yes

Did you pray
-Yes
Did you stand with everything, with everyone
-Yes
Did everything anything anyone stand by you
-No
Did you remember them
-No
Did you try to remember
-Yes
Did you remember
-Remember what
Who you are
-Who am i
You are me
-I don’t remember