Hurl at me an angry fist or two

Red blotches on skin like cancer or sun burns or pomegranate juice

Luscious green starts to bloom… where is the bee sting, will it not pierce?

Pierced ears and that’s all. Then comes sharp pain, piercing a throat and mouth and heart

and eyes — my eyes water as if from formaline — and cheeks that turned red red red as I cry cry cry

Maybe the world is never hurting me, and maybe the world carries on as usual, placing its everything on everyone.

And maybe I alone feel hopeless, banging doors that have been locked with metal and copper

— wishing something would change, or a beauty would emerge, or my sorrow will disappear almost instantly.

And then I am mad. And no pain is externally caused, and I am just my own hell on earth. No fault falls on my father, or my biological mother, or the hundreds of people who live their lives in their world. Or the cruel rulers, or the tyrants, or the cannibalistic human-shaped animals, or the rapists, or the abusers, or the cruel rulers.

It must be that. I’m only a mad woman, and this whole world is my innocent mother, one who did no wrong, a woman who is as pure as 24K gold.

In her wisdom, in her righteousness, she tells me, “it is you who is crazy, it is you who tortures thyself.”

Tremendously.

Negligence and a stress that went unmedicated, untouched.

It is my fault for not fixing this sooner. And now I reap these consequences. Blast my heart then — my dreams are the prize, and I might very much lose them.

Will a message not be sent? Not crypted, not written with open ends.

Will a message of certain reassurance, that I will do that which I dream of, not be sent?

But I had just realized something. A certain message can’t be delivered, nor will it be useful, because what does certainty offer if I am not going to work for it regardless?

Maybe I need to leave this chamber of worry and stress and asking ‘but will it work out?’ and start actually doing, and ensuring with my actions that it does.

What is success but boring — oh oh very boring boring boring — stuff, repeated and repeated even while cries are cried per every wind gust.

And so I will set myself on fire, the type that moves hot balloons into the air, and set myself ablaze like a camper on a cold December star would do, and maybe then… years from now, I will find myself living my dreams.

I tried. I tried hard to make everyone happy, to make tears disappear as if I were a magician, or evaporate, as if I were the sun.

I tried, and I failed, and what happens then when, you know, you fail and then never tend to succeed even after trying hundreds of times? You get depressed, and sad, and angry at yourself for being useless because for a lot of reasons you think you are only worth anything in this pathetic-durationed life (we live too short) if and only if we can give unlimited resources to others.

As if my soul deserves nothing just for being there -do I have to earn the right to live life, and enjoy nature and blue skies, and spend days happy and free of crying?

So my heart is not a vassal of the lord, and I am not the lord, nor at the very least, his messenger. Why am I forcing myself, or ruling it on myself like some sort of gold-delivered words, to heal everyone, think and be considerate of everyone, and pat the shoulders of everyone?

I am just asking a question I know the answer to -because my brain has been trained since young. What child can I be when I am the eldest daughter, the ‘mother’ of my younger brothers?

What silly little girl could I be when I am a girl and can’t laugh, scream, talk, or cry too loud? (and yet… yet, he and she, my father and mother, fought so loud in the mall, in the supermarket, at the beach, out in public, where more than neighbours could hear them.)

What love could I receive when I was alone, in a boxed apartment, recieving drops drip drip drip of love that should’ve been pure, and happy, and safe, and warm -not cold or scorching hot, but wasn’t?

And so if I can only get loved when they are okay and not fighting, and so if I get very good praise from teachers and relatives and friends only when I am kind and smart and brilliant, wouldn’t the baby, the child, the little girl in me translate healing others, making them feel good, and being what they want me to be as the triggers of recieving warm, concentrated and undistracted love?

Look on then, as I circled my life around exactly that. When I was good, when I fixed problems, I was thanked- and when I didn’t solve anything? I got nothing- ha, I would actually get something, the question of why I didn’t help, or fix, or heal, because after so so so long, they got used to me solving their problems.

It all came crashing down then. I fell into a spiral of grief at the love I could’ve and damn should’ve received -if only I were born to better parents.

And I fell into a spiral, too, of anger at myself, but it was really the grief and mourning of my beautiful, beautiful soul who was burnt and left to freeze in the cold, and abandoned and misused to the core, and left to fend for herself with no safety net, when I should’ve been living the other spectrum’s end.

Happy and joyful, worry-free and hopeful, not this life of stress and remembering — all I do is remember, remember, remember -, of crying like it is a beloved hobby (and getting up to see the tears staining the grey pillow case), of periods that come where I wish and pray this would be its end.

I have decided then that my heart is no vassal for the lord here on Earth. I will not answer your wishes, listen to your late-night cries, answer international calls just to be headached with fights you chose to remain in, or give up my joy just to earn this fake feeling of love.

When I am actually loved (I think I am actually loved. But I am not sure, and probably never will be. How can you ensure you are truly loved, and not tricked, or used as an emotional presence your lover needs, etc etc), I am given unlimited space to expand, and yet my lover is not chained or ordered to remain in this piece of land, and they can come and leave as they wish, and I wait for them or forget they, for a few hours, exist.

Love cannot consume you neither your lover, because then it becomes a poem. A poem, and it is just a matter of time before it’s written in dark, dark, dark crimson red.

Published originally in my newsletter on Substack.

Self love this, self love that, okay… and?

Have we no knowledge of toxic love, fake love, abusive love, conditional love?

I do love myself, I really do, but the struggle with how I view myself and my insecurities does not mean I hate myself, hate Alaa, but just means my love is broken, broken like the broken love examples I’ve grown within and around.

And maybe we shouldn’t be crying out vague calls like ‘love yourself!’ or ‘self love is self care’ or whatever new monetization trend there is, and instead tell people to face their faults, their insecurities, their imperfections, and look them all in the eye, and ask them what do they want?

Do my insecurities want me hating myself, shying away from social interactions, locking myself home? Or do they want me to set them free, to end this brain fog that calls anything inaesthetic or untrendy or unfit to some overseas beauty standards an insecurity that needs to be hidden, needs to be locked away from prying eyes, and leave this agonizing world.

Food for thought, does loving yourself erase the tangible faults or imperfections in you? If you are going to say ‘well everyone is beautiful and perfect’, which I personally believe to a point, then why do see people and think they are more beautiful than others? Why aren’t we seeing a truly unattractive person on the runways, in ads?

— It is all similar to Animal Farm by George Orwell, where all animals are reassured they are all equal, but only some animals are more equal than others.

As an Egyptian hijabi, why are the only hijabis I see on the media are of a specific type—wearing makeup and non full coverage hijabs. Egyptian media thinks that including one type of hijabis is inclusive, enough, and that this way they have done their job, but it just broadens up the constructs and walls between us all — how different hijab styles worn by women dictate not just how a woman is treated, but how she is perceived.

But back to what I was saying, can one love themselves and look at an ugly acne breakout on their face and say they love it? Isn’t that what love is, loving everything about yourself, or about someone? But isn’t this over worldly stupid — the presence of love in someone or in a relationship doesn’t cancel out their humanity -imperfect, ugly (and beautiful, too!), and vulnerable.

It’s crazy that I self-published my poetry book on my own… all the errands I had to run, under the heat, dealing with affairs who need better coping mechanisms than shouting at my face, all the papers I had to print and the 5 CDs I not only bought but spent half a day just to get the files on them edited (long story). Damn. A big damn and a huger kudos to myself for doing this.

I started writing poetry 6 years ago when I was in 6th grade in 2019. It was all thanks to my English teacher, Mrs. Shabana, who made a class activity; told all of the class to write a poem. That time, I wrote 3 poems, not 1. This time, I wrote 89 poems for I am the ocean I am the tears I cried, while I could have not written anything. All thanks to her.

Enough with this side talk. The book.

I faced this weird but truly justified situation where I couldn’t answer anyone what the book was about. They’d ask me what it’s about which confuses me –I guess no one tells young authors that they need to know how to form two strings of words about the book they wrote while crying their pain and abandon and confusion.

What ever do you mean by ‘oh what is your book about?’ –how can I now? I only write what I don’t know, else why would I put effort into writing something and discovering what I already know?

Writing is discovering, discovering your depths, your personalities that melted upon each other at some phase, your true feelings towards a memory, the boiling anger inside you that gets revealed as loss, as yearn, as hope that was crushed all over and over again.

I am the ocean, with its many waves and the sand that sticks to its planes yet don’t own, with its waves, high and high and high, that crash rocks in its nature but feels guilty afterwards.

I am the tears I cried, I am the sorrow I went through, but most importantly, I am the threads of tears that stream down my cheeks and soul and heart and my poor poor brain lobes. I am the embodiment of the pain I feel even though it had gone, of the memories I keep replaying despite the long time separating us, I am the rain that had to came down to feed the sprout.

Although I didn’t attain neither the 3 top winners nor the top 10 submissions, I had an amazing day at Bibliothek Egypt in Arkan Plaza, Sheikh Zayed — you can read more about how the day went in my Instagram’s post, here.

I am happy to publish I Save My Love For The Beautiful And Alive here since it is a piece very close to my heart as an ex-Egyptian expat who was born and raised in Kuwait, away from her home, and is now living in Cairo, Egypt.

I had a dream when I was young, running around and dreaming of my land. Oh, how I wished I could live in Egypt, and live among my people, eat from the soil of my land, and kiss the Egyptian sand.

So I, and Cairo, and Egypt have not known each other for long; I’ve only been here the months I had been bound to my MBBS, and oh… the memories I’ve made, and oh… the beauty I’ve seen.

I had left the blazing sun of the Gulf, and the unkind souls, and hateful mouths. Egypt was and has always been a place of tranquillity, and peace, and laughter, and the easy breeze.

Sun-kissed skin and warmth seeping into limbs. Cold feet turn warm, my mouth smiles as if it has a mind of its own, and I? I am above cloud nine.

I have never felt alone or unwell in Egypt.

An hour of boredom, a morning that started slower than usual. What to do? Other than wrapping my hijab and putting my shoes on, walking to the metro to ride to Cairo’s Downtown — the museum and sugar cane juice, El Abd Patisserie and bustling roads, the tourists and their fans as if it’s 50℃ when really it’s just 36.

I abandoned my boredom, or it abandoned me, and took a stroll through the halls and rooms of The Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

That pink building I visited years ago when I was young, maybe it was 2017, recently I went and visited it again. This time, the renovations were done, the weather was more merciful, and going alone spared me the headache of my family.

I was alone. I and the museum and my ancestors that lived a golden age of medicine, and literature, and trade, and art.

Thousands of years ago, when the world had yet to open its eyes, my great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers learnt to preserve a body for centuries, and across periods and generations; a time so long, I struggle to imagine its enormity.

The tourists there hit up a conversation with me. It went like, “How cool is that! 3000 BC? And we’re in 2025!”, “Yeah, like when the **** was that?!”

Shocked faces, sparkling eyes. My heart was smiling, and I was beaming with pride.

I stood on floors that witnessed the awe of all. The awe of all when they saw the mummies and pharaohs, and the tapestries that told a story of the ancients.

We had culture and medicine and art and life and trade and agriculture back then — and we still do, for aren’t we their great-grandchildren?

I heard the cars’ honk. I left the museum like I had left a machine that had taken me 5000 years back.

Cars and fumes and all that prove I’m in the 2000s. High buildings, shapeless and lacking character, of metal and steel. Sure, the Egyptian touch was left on them, unlike these in other lands across territories, but wasn’t it magical to see pictures of buildings, ancient cities, and monasteries, where the remnants of civilizations were discovered?

I slept then a night of daydreams and awe. In my sleep, I saw the grandness of Egyptians, the belief I had in me that I was born from and for glory — gold crowns and gold chairs, prosthetic toes and jars of herbs and spices and medicine that kept the cycle of life, at their time, moving.

I never dared after this trip to think I, as an Egyptian, was of naught, or meek or weak or unfit.

I will love Egypt the love I hid away in the deepest treasure chest — one I saved for beauty and warmth and everything alive, even in its death and in its hardest times.

I walked under another sun, like the many suns my ancestors lived beneath as they dug the dirt and planted the papyrus (cyperus papyrus) plant, that they later made into paper — paper they wrote in, paper they made books of, and oh my Lord did we write.

Oh my, did we write, and I saw that first hand, when I walked 100s of steps down the streets of Zamalek. Books, old and new and used and unused. I saw the culture that remained and moved to live on, and what bound it to life other than writing? Novels that shaped Egyptian culture, my people’s generosity, and their kindness.

I walked the streets of Zamalek. My pulse accelerated -from the walking and from the view, too.

Pristine white buildings and balconies with their blue curtains. The pots of plant, the people sipping their afternoon coffee, the cats that lounged under the sun, and then me- the girl who only ever wished of cool breeze, and a land that spoke to her and her called, and people who looked like her and spoke like her, too, and a buzz of life that existed no where else, and a merciful sun, one that warmed her as she sun bathed.

Unlike some other sun, in some other country, a sun that turned her hot and stuffy.

But Egypt’s sun only brought me warmth. And oh, how delighted I am.

And when the sun sets, and the night befalls, and the world seems to take rest under a blanket of a black tapestry -black sky, and scattered stars, and trees that seemed to struggle as they tried to reach and hug the black void.

My love took my feet to the bookstores, to the cafes, and to the castles-turned-museums, and the streets that had more trees than humans, and the Nile bank built on it cafes and sushi restaurants.

How could I ever live in Cairo, and in Egypt, and feel boredom? When I live in the land of the ancient kings, gold chairs and coffins, and the knowledge -all the books and poetry and literature and stories, the hieroglyphs that lasted eternity, so long that I can read them, and you can too.

So I sip my hot chocolate, and eat the carrot cake, sitting at a café I love so much, in the North of Zamalek, near an abandoned mansion that I think was once a circus(?), and remember… I remember that time I visited the Islamic Ceramics Museum, how I was left in awe, and I realized then that I needed time.

I needed time to see more, read more, eat more, stand in awe and pride more. I want to experience Egypt.

I pray Allah to grant me so.

— 20th August 2025, Wednesday

I was at the first session of a writing program last week, 8th October 2025, Wednesday, named Re-Imagining Homelands: Writings on Place, Identity, and Belonging by Wasl Collective and Common Circle, facilitated by Roaa Eid on the premises of Darb 1718, Cairo, Egypt.

Roaa had presented a prompt to write about home as if it was an object while quoting Warsan Shire from her poetry book, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, when she said home was like a ‘mouth of a shark’, and a mouth that ‘spat me out’.

I had taken that prompt, and the first thing that came to my mind was bondage.

Bondage, my home is bondage.

I have written the below piece then and there in the 20 minutes time space Roaa had given us, and my friend, Ibtesam, (after she read the piece) had said, “It did not touch my heart. It touched my part of the brain that is traumatized from family stuff. And the part of my brain that craves love. It touched that a bit too much. It’s tickling, still, you know”.

I don’t exactly want to leave, and my brain loves to be held here. Maybe the rope is a bit harsh, maybe my eyes water sometimes from the pain, but haven’t I learnt to be in this state? What is pain to me but a hug of reassurance and comfort, I am my own prisoner and choose to remain here shackled and roped. Or not. I am here because it is what I was born into, I opened my eyes and saw it hugging me, growing into my body as I grew up across the years. I am myself and I am everything I’ve went through. My comfort zone is my home, and my parents' house is the place I always wish I could be at- with my father and my mother, because who else did I come from? My cells yearn to touch what it came from, sperm and egg... and there became me.

Maybe if you pulled my eyes out you’d see I am a hollow skull- and my skull is enough for my existence. I am happy, I am satisfied with home, with what can I expect and the familiarity it holds. The thoughts rummage everywhere and nowhere at the same time. My thoughts swim and sing and dance and race and soar through the sky, and yet my skull stays the same, the same bone, the same home.

Is it right for me to leave this skull of mine, and bring my thoughts to life, and enter the discomfort zone, and leave my teachings (are they really true?), and leave my roots (should I be holding on to them even when it feels like I need to change- and why do I need to change? To fulfil some standard or a society's expectations), and maybe I should leave home because it is poison to me- but what if I said I want to be poisoned, and this is a state of rest and acceptance I with agree?

My heart is throbbing for all the memories I could’ve lived, and the people I could’ve been destined a life with- but what can I do except accepting it?

I opened my eyes to this cruel world and saw what others had and what I didn’t, a kind father, a carefree mother, and a friend or a brother who would’ve been there all the time for you — (I keep on wishing for a brother or a sister or a friend who I deeply connect with and yet I struggle and make excuses to not be a better sister — it’s hard to connect with a being that lives the life you so try to escape and love them and be a part of their life), and so I will forever be sad.

I will forever be sad and a bit too quiet. When something like parental love should have been given to me solely for existing -for being born, without needing me to prove anything or achieve something -not like scholarships I need to work hard for, or a cake I need to go and bake -but wasn’t my birth, my being of a daughter- not enough?

Will I keep on forever shedding- I will keep on forever shedding tears for this situation. Always. How can I not? Can I be blamed? I have this desire inside me, a humane and instinctive desire to be loved by my father and live with a happy mother and talk freely with my brothers.

Unfortunately, my fate was simply not that.

I was fated for something else. We’ll see what the future brings, what type of life will my life turn out to be, and will this certain cycle continue (Allah forbid, no. I would flea the lands and shave my head before doing so.) or will it stop and a new cycle will bloom in its place, or will it simply come to an extinction — will I ever get married and start a family where my daughter feels the safest with I and her father? Will my son, too?

And so what if I never let this sadness go, I will never let it go. It will reside with me because it is me, never separate from my existence, from my being.