Freaks of arabia

A community for young people especially arabs to connect through creativity, submissions of photos writing or art welcome

Jordan First.

August 3rd, 2011

Ears full of laughter, I slip my arm around my fantastic friend’s scrawny neck, dark and skinny, like we all were.

continue

”Oh fuck, I feel so fucking good right now”

I turned to look at Gaeo, ear to ear wearing his full faced smile,  I’d seen it a thousand times but it was still just as contagious. It caught the muscles in my face and forced me into the same open grin, I couldn’t help it, I loved him, we all did, how could we not.

We shambled down badly lit streets, barking at each other, young and wild with a hunger for adventure. We did this every night, we never needed anything else. We were flat broke, dressed in the same clothes we always wore,  no money no drugs no women, just two nitwits wandering around midnight Amman.

I’ve always felt a deep love for Jordan, but now as I chain-smoke Newports and reminisce I realize it wasn’t Jordan that I loved, it was the people. It was the simplicity of the friendships we built, the lack of need for communication, the solid knowledge that everything would be alright because we had each other.

In the short time since I’ve left Jordan, I’ve more then doubled the amount of women I’ve slept with, I’ve fallen in love, held a job, bought a car, got into the college I wanted. Everything has fallen into my lap just like I knew it would,  but there’s always been a sort of hollowness to my smile, a lack of excitement when I go out, don’t get me wrong, I’m far from sad, but I feel a lack, and I think I know what it is.

It’s you, all of you, you know who you are.

I miss being woken up by a group of people, telling me to get dressed cause they’re thirsty, telling me to stop being a lazy bitch and get up, we’ve got bitches to fuck, places to be.
The truth is we never had anywhere to be, we never had anything to do, we just wanted to get fucked up, if we couldn’t do that we tried to get laid, if we couldn’t do that we’d pick a fight, anything to get our blood flowing. We were bored and stupid, lacking everything but ambition, we didn’t know shit about the real world and we were untouchable because of it. Nothing hurt too bad, no bruise was too sore, no emotion strong enough to overpower our reality, we were indestructible, nothing could harm us, nothing could get in our way, we used our dick for bitches and our hearts for each other.
I’m writing to remind you, to never grow up, to never get too serious, because deep down, each one of us knows, we’ll never be alone, we’ll always have each other.
At least, you’ll always have me.
Ba7ibkom kol yom aktar.

Popularity: 24% [?]

How to buy Spirits in Ramadan

August 9th, 2011

Personally I’ve never bought alcohol during Ramadan because that would be illegal. Like many young substance abusers with no domestic storage units, I suffer in silence, using Ramadan as a convenient rehabilitation period. However someone who isn’t me, went on an arduous quest for alcoholic beverages of any variety yesterday night. This individual told me: “I felt like I was picking up drugs. I spent longer buying the booze than drinking it.” And I replied: “You deserve it, you grimy scumbag, drinking during an Islamic holy month, I spit on thee with my new-found religious conviction.”

“Some guy meets you by the car outside the liquor store, you tell him what you want, he writes it down on a piece of paper and you swiftly give him the money, he runs inside, comes back with another piece of paper with directions on it,  we took one right, two lefts and one more right then U-turned into a deserted dirt parking lot. Then we waited. It seemed like forever. But eventually a car came, it didn’t even have lights on, someone handed us a black plastic bag through a window and they just drove off. Thank God, it was all there. The whiskey smelt like honey-nectar. We drove around looking for somewhere secluded to drink it. We mixed it into a big Pepsi bottle and disposed of the liquor bottles to be extra careful. It was difficult but satisfying, like a prudish religious girl.”

“Hmm. Corrupter of pure souls. Honeynectar, you say? Where is this place?”

“Don’t bother I went by today and they were closed, I guess they only open every once in a while”

I wonder what the real punishment for selling alcohol in Ramadan is? Does it justify this ridiculousness? How come all the fancy bars still do it but the liquor stores don’t? Are the wealthy being encouraged to be amoral? These questions and others go through my sleepless, sober mind all night, as I wait patiently for Fajer prayers.

Popularity: 66% [?]

Dear Brain (response to Dear Heart)

August 12th, 2011

 

                  It wasn’t easy, knowing that all you told me were lies, that my beliefs were lies. Your lies made me break down beating for optimism and unrealistic fantasy, it your lies made me what I am. I don’t know why I listened, was it because it made me comfortable? Did it make me feel special listening to your empty words? I listened because I was terrified of the truth. I’m just a childish heart that pounds for nothing, I pump and thump and dump blood while you control it all. I will never be satisfied with this truth; it takes away my joy in life. I’d rather survive on lies and castles in the sky. I’ll forgive you; it’s not your fault. You didn’t break us all down; my fabricated fairylands fell apart too. We’ll never be the same, even forever moves on. Maybe this is what growing up is like, learning to beat slowly. I’ll get better, I’ll figure out right from wrong. But you taught me never to trust anyone; listening to those words only leads to self-destruction. And don’t come asking me for my friendship, because I’ve changed, moved and I won’t look back, even the soul knows about this.

 

 

                                                                              Sincerely,

 

                                                                                             Heart  

 

Popularity: 15% [?]

Life in Amman

July 13th, 2012

I originally wrote this for my friend’s website lifeinthisplace.com if you have an opposing view and would like to submit it there or here please go ahead

[Wow, Jordan's changed.] Girls dressed in a dizzying medley of short skirts and rainbow heels. And they’re Arabs. An Arab girl invited me here, a Palestinian, [not like me], a real one — she lives in Ramallah instead of fondly pretending to remember it.

I see her, lips and toenails painted red to match her dress, not much left to the imagination, an ass that makes you believe in Allah. Shaking her hips, queen of the dance-ring, she spills herself all over the technic-colored floor. 51, full of aliens,  I can’t handle it, too much. Thankfully I haven’t paid the cover-charge yet, I run to vistas and smelly roofs and Petra beer, no entrance fee. Back to MY Jordan or what’s left of it.

In my Jordan — the one I remember, at least — no self-respecting Arab girl lets you bask in the crimson gardens of her virginity. That’s for her husband, the knight in shiny armor.

  ~

Slightly stoned, I am swinging back and forth on my friend Shoegazer’s roof staring at Old Amman, waving her goodbye.

Like Williamsburg, [old Amman is] being reclaimed by artists, homosexuals, expatriates and other undesirables. But the forces of reputability are still holding on strong, bored twenty-something males jeering at every girl and weirdo who passes by.

I don’t know who the blonde girl sitting next to me is, but her sea green eyes and her Dutch accent remind me: Eva.

I like arguing with her; it’s cute the way she pronounces words. Words like goals and dreams and ambitions. She wants to save the world, with that button-nose and thin lips, smiling, contagious. We’re all full of laughter drawing arrows in the stars; I wonder how long this Jordanian stuff lasts.

“I’m so glad I met you, everyone I’ve met in Jordan is fake,” she says with an air of finality.

“That’s because you hang out with the rich Jordanians,” I’m saying. “They have no ideals or religion to live on, so they buy things and do things just to look better than the other rich Jordanians. It’s a very competitive culture. Everything’s a fad.”

I pause a moment. “Jordan’s still real, Eva, you just don’t know where to go.”

Honestly, I have no idea where this “real” Jordan is. Is it in the refugee camps amongst the squalor and destitution? Or is it in the palaces amongst the stacks of dinars that nobody knows what to do with? Is it in the rage of the protesters crying for justice?

“I went to [Club] 51 and the girls I was with said I should wear a shorter dress,” she says. “I was surprised girls are like that in the Middle East.”

So am I, Eva. But I can’t let you know that. No, I must appear to be an expert on this schism of time and place — it’s where I grew up, after all.

Tribal rivalries, pouring coffee in Bedouin tents, exchanging honor for monetary payment, hoping they’ll throw in some hash. Women who cling to their hijabs while their daughters wear the shortest skirt at the club. No one understands it. It’s a fucking miracle that this walking contradiction of a country is semi-functional.  The police in amman are an armed gang sponsored by the government and they’ll arrest you if you have the wrong last name. Go outside Amman, to Madaba and you can watch schoolchildren burning down police stations. They don’t need a police force there; they find the very prospect of one insulting. They have their own justice system; the scales of blood and honor.

Still, can’t we all just take a moment to appreciate how delicate this place is?

I feel an indecipherable dark energy, swinging back and forth with Eva at my side. I picture the swing falling apart, the stone underneath us giving out, the building coming apart into a thousand pieces, us falling straight down towards the abyss.

I can still feel it hours later as Eva and I hunt for a taxi.

“Amman’s a bad town for psychedelic drugs — negative energy everywhere,” I say.

I see it in the security guards patrolling an embassy. In the unhappy men sitting on sidewalks and benches, meowing at Eva.

“You mean like Ecstasy? I like Ecstasy,” she says, licking her lips.

I like Eva. My arm feels comfortable around her, too comfortable. That’s her problem — Eva seems perfectly calm in her own bubble.

Suddenly, I want to break it. I want to shriek so loud her ears bleed. Look around you! I want to sing a song so ugly it will shatter her illusions. A song for this rotting city of mine, for the wide vistas and the dilapidated buildings, for the alleys where we drank 7-Up and gin, for streets we loitered on, for the little coffee-carts, for abu-7ejleh snack, for the Westernization and impending doom of traditions I’d never thought I’d miss.

 

Popularity: 100% [?]

Brain snacks?

September 23rd, 2011

Syrians in Aleppo take major pride in their cuisine and have the Arab countries going. But I know for sure they can’t cook for shit! Pride is also a wall. And walls handicap people, who will fall behind in time. Like food in Aleppo might have been good centuries ago. Their ego-walls made them fall behind. As for me I embrace the life of chaos and uncertainty. I am uncertain about everything, I can’t be, or life will contradict me. I’m a free thinker and I always doubt myself. As philosophers say, you can never know anything. That’s how I am. At least I’m not a conformist living an illusion. I just live the moment and grasp the positive illusions like love and getting high. But sometimes I wonder if life is worth the battle with so many delusional robots. This world has made it so that everyone’s an opportunist and worships money. Especially hopeless Arabs who go pray and then steal or scam you. There is so much corruption. This life has to be a faze…

Popularity: 21% [?]

Truth

September 8th, 2011

i’m throwing in the towel and you’re closing in

and the cool night air hits us like a storm, and the trees are still and the lights shine bright

the moon glares and tries to be complete, with time it grows and shines like a beast

and the wolves howl and they wait for the fullness of the moon that hits them like an electric shock

we fall and we marvel at the glory of it all

and we still throw it in, and try to make sense of it all

but the truth is, there is no truth

the sense lies in the dreams of the crow

that flies and waits for the scarecrow to fold

and the scarecrow is standing through it all

it has to protect that which makes sense

but the truth is, there still is no sense

we fall and we’re shattered, and we find that it’s all

just tumbling down so beautifully and so bold

and the stripes are still there, they’re shining with blue and hints of rain

and the rainbows collide, and form a pot of gold

but the truth is there is no gold, no luck, no faith, just consequences of fate.

But the faith is restored, and it waits to strike again, it will come again and again until we are no longer sane

and the sanity lies in the fact that there we are all insane

and we are feeling like we are small, when we are not even that

we are a fragment of the truth, tinier than that

we know it is cruel, and we still throw it in

you’re finally here, and we marvel once again

But the truth is, the marvel was never gone.

Popularity: 22% [?]

have you ever been elbow-deep inside a goat’s vagina?

September 3rd, 2011

I want to be like a goat. denying itself nothing. A goat’ll eat a bicycle. A goat’ll eat itself if forced to. A goat is simple, plain some may say it is dumb.

But what is smart? Smart lies. Smart dulls itself with drugs. Smart is toxic. At least that’s what I’ve been taught. Smart wears suits and attends lectures. Smart diligently takes notes. Smart drinks too much. Smart is full of nervous energy. Smart divides itself for breakfast. Smart builds bogus ideologies and piles itself upon them. Smart is self-sustaining and persistent and self-loving and it destroys anything it finds unacceptable.

So about this goat-fucking business…

As an arab i feel it is necessary to correct this misconception. This is not the story of O, the goat does not happily submit to our will in leather straps.  We herd the goat. Make sure it is happy and satisfied. We are gentlemen about it. We are never crass with our goats, we never force them into anything. If anything the goats force us. Cruel bastards. We are only their loyal shepherds. They have chosen us, they do not ram us with their horns, we make sure they are not bothered by our presence. We fear our goats. They remind us how much we have lost of ourselves. How much we trade to make the sands dance. Tragic figures. We are scared shitless of our goats and our women and our birds. Petrified by the phantoms of freedom.

Popularity: 74% [?]

Waiting

September 2nd, 2011

To wait is to exterminate all your urges to create, it becomes that you are delegating your time to procrastinating.

I’ll give you some advice; don’t wait.

When you wait, you are killing all your juices, you’re drying all your crying, and you’re dying! Stop and think, but don’t wait. Take your time to become and do, but never wait. If you get it, then start it. If you don’t, then find it.

To wait is such a passionless attempt to live and forgive all your senses in their trances and their dances.

I’ll give you some advice; don’t wait!

Never wait! State all the contents of your heart when you start to feel and appeal to the dire senses. Create all your diamonds with the silence of your thinking and your desire to create.

And smile! Do it with a smile, do it patiently and thoughtfully, as slowly as you want, but don’t halt all the working and the doing and the smiling! Be happy! Be dappy and dapper, with a tiny hint of snapper!

I’ll give you some advice; don’t wait!

Popularity: 21% [?]

Happy Eid!

August 30th, 2011

The hairy man in the mosque keeps singing Allahuakbar and I cannot sleep, I’ve taken the sleeping pills I’ve masturbated as much as I could but he keeps singing. And it is not really my type of song I cannot dance to it, I need more excitement, I need more oomph! Ramadan has ended, raid the liquor stores desecrate the streets, sing your heart out in every bar even if there’s no karaoke.  We must overwhelm them like cockroaches, liva la vida loca, we are all cockroaches but sometimes we can fly.

“In life comes power, done and dusted. No weakness, nor impossibilities, merely choice.”

I love you rolzpolz. I will dance for you I will sing for you though I know not how to sing or dance. I know only how to live and it is only in Jordan against all odds. Surrounded by the forces of decency and holiness, only here can you really learn how to live. Because they keep trying to remind you of death, that’s all they think about, they are infested with it. But I am immune, I am a freak, I will create a dancefloor if one does not exist, you cannot stop me from living. Your death-cries only to serve to remind me that life is too short to ever stifle myself! So yes, I will die, I welcome it, like Eid after a month of morality laws and hypocrisy. But until  I die you will find me in the cesspools of sin, slightly intoxicated screaming “ITS MY LIFE ITS NOW OR NEVER” dancing like a maniac, with no rhythm or reason, just life, all of it. Fuck this depression, I don’t care what the doctor says. Come, dance, shake your body like you’re going to lose it tomorrow morning, free yourself into the dust of the night, never falter, never miss a beat. It is merely a choice, will you stifle yourself till you rot in the ground, will you live only inside your ego, or will you rise above the mediocrity around you and find the magic in everything and everyone and every song and every pretty girls laugh and every guy trying to get laid and every sky and every tree and every animal, will you love everyone? Can you forget yourself. Or are you too caught up in your masks to ever forget hate?

Popularity: 71% [?]

Life and Death

August 30th, 2011

In life comes death, done and dusted. No two ways about it, not one nor three.

I find it reassuring, the only truth that exists in this realm; we are born and then we die.

If you are hoping that this is going to be a depressing dark collection, then please flip away, because it is no more dark than it is light.

In life comes consequences, done and dusted. No easy pass, no fluffy rainbows nor butterflies. To hope for less than more, always pokes the beast within the fire. Flaming wooden boxes spontaneously combust for lack of interaction within the four walls. Death, again, lingers, and reminds us of all of this. Strange enough we feel it, we demand it, and we reprimand it. Slowly drying out our souls, our fears, our dreams.

In life comes power, done and dusted. No weakness, nor impossibilities, merely choice.

Popularity: 53% [?]

A middle finger to all that is decent and holy

August 29th, 2011

Hello honest hard-working citizens who do nothing but eat, pray and shit. I’m here to pray too uncle. No no I’m not buying hash from the park I swear!

“I want to feel your all-consuming fear. I want to devote my existence to something I’ve never seen or touched. I come in peace, do not worry, I know my long curly hair sets off your alarms I’m sure my black jeans and necklaces aren’t helping.  That cigarette in my mouth. That’s not mine, that’s someone else’s. A horrible person. But I’m not worried. That fucker will be sent straight to hell. Scum-bag substance abuser, destroyer of honor, enemy of all that is good and mindless. Allah is forgiving, yes but not to people like him. Freaks. They have a special place in Allah’s inferno because they corrupt others. They use the lord’s overused name in vain. One time this asshole who put the cigarette in my mouth, you know what he did. He questioned! He asked if Allah is real, once he told people, stop believing in fairy tales and get a real life. You are ruled by fear, fear of hell, fear of a parking ticket, fear of your mother. Stop he said. Look around you, we are all the same, we all have cocks and cunts, we’re all one big pile of feces. You are worse then no one and better then no one. He told people: you are a piece of shit and tommorow you could be splattered all over a bus windshield. Life is too short to ever stifle yourself. Why are you so afraid. Let loose in all directions. That’s the only way to ever gain something real. Why do you hate. We have no time for hate and fear and honor and revenge. That’s all you can think about, you are blinded by it. Open your eyes and love all that is around you, smile always because that makes others smile, stop being organized, stop filing into lines to throw your noses to the floor, become one with the chaos. You might just find that your dull life becomes astonishing.”

At this point I am forcibly removed from the mosque and accused of being possessed by Satan. But I am only possessed by my own indecency, I am myself and I am a piece of shit but I love myself and I love you, pieces of shit throwing me out of the rooms where they talk to the skies. Ask favors and beg for absolution. I love them but I’d never want to be one of them, I would never want to give up my mind to some invisible dude in the sky because an ancient book told me to. They claim to be peaceful and loving but they lie. They hate me, real, seething hate, I’m sure a few of them would love to see me dead but even in the grave I will have my middle finger raised to all that is decent and holy. Will you?

 

Popularity: 68% [?]

Freaks of arabia

A community for young people especially arabs to connect through creativity, submissions of photos writing or art welcome