Zahra Dhakkar
December 6th
You see, none of this is real. Yet I am housed in brick and mortar. You pinch me, I feel. You raise my blood pressure. I am flushed like a newborn. Hot as in the onset of menopause. What if what I am going through is an episode. The what ifs can be endless. The what ifs I enjoy are my flights of fancy. I am a shapeshifter. I embody whatever my eyes land upon. Something simply like a leaf gently carried by the wind is my conduit. As soon as it lands, I float and embody another and another. I begin to create mounds of leaves. Creating three circles perfectly spaced out and portioned. Soon, my mind tires. What is true/real, untrue/unreal. Subjective, subjective, and subjective.
Down to my elbows
I am digging for meaning but driven by purpose. Purpose governs my waking moments. I move around my thoughts and ideas first in my head, then when I feel the throbbing begin I press back onto my chair and close my eyes. The goal is to calm the waters that have emerged. Soon, in my stillness, clarity emerges from the cobwebs of my brain.
To classify things into good and bad can be simplistic. For mundane things like types of food, clothing to wear. For I am an excavator. The ghost of the past become. It does not matter if the sun has risen or if it is in the highest point of the day or sundown. In solitude, I dig. Sweat emerges and gradually builds. I am soaked and I begin to shiver for I am sitting under the air conditioner. In a large room with closed windows. But, now, I find myself second guessing my reasoning. For I know myself as a drifter by nature who re-emerges spent. Be kind to oneself begins to rumble in my head. I wonder, where is the magic at work here. I begin to speculate, and speculate. I arrive at no conclusion. Resigned, I give way to the sensations that I am feeling. In this state of acceptance, I find peace. Cocooned, I feel like a newborn oblivious to the nuances of the world and all that it entails.
My outward appearance appears calm and cool. Like many insects, one emerges de-shelled, feeling the newness of everything. In this state, wonder, often lost with the passage of time, becomes renewed. You are once again a child feeling wonderment.
November 1st
I am an animal in an enclosure. My enclosure from top to bottom is encased in concrete. Steel bars serve as my window. Sometimes distorting my vision is a range of colors—pale tan uniforms grooming, cleaning, and feeding me. Then, a parade of color as hordes of humans fondly walk by, momentarily stopping to gaze closer, snap pictures, the clicking sound and flash of camera startles me, I open my mouth slightly and growl, my growl builds, I have the undivided attention of my watchers. A staring match soon begins. There is no contest. I have honed this skill to intimidate and unnerve those that dare to stare. Soon, I am bored and lose interest. I begin to groom myself. A truce, unwritten and unspoken, exists, collectively understood, however momentarily. Time seems to stand still. In the distance, the orange, yellow hue grows in size until the sky is covered. It is time to hunker down and await a new day.