When I was a teenager, I used to have nightmares that I didn’t enjoy sharing. Not sharing, however, was also painful. I had already written some poetry in the classroom and during my free time and I had found a sense of relief that came with diving into the heart of a deeply felt moment. I was also able to say anything I wanted without needing to say everything. So I turned my nightmares into poems since they weren’t good for much else.
I was first introduced to poetry when I was 13 years old in an English class and still living in Cairo, Egypt. The assignment was to write a poem about a piece of music and I chose a rock song, one that I will not disclose out of embarrassment. I had examined poetry before in other english classes, but this was the first time I had contemplated what I was writing. In doing so, I had found a form of literature that was actually a joy to read and partake in.
Let’s set the scene. There is winter snow in Cairo’s dusty and overpacked streets. I’m in a taxi and there is a person with an unclear face and a handgun shooting at the congested, immobile traffic. Afraid and helpless to escape, I drop my head below the taxi’s dashboard and rest it between my thighs with my hands on my head. The gunman abruptly begins approaching the taxi I am hiding in. He’s already shot at the vehicles ahead of us. I’m sitting shotgun and although I never look up at him, I know that he is right beside me and his weapon is raised to the window on my right. I know because I can feel the desire to destroy life emanating from the other side of the glass. It shatters and I wake up. The main theme of a series of nightmares I had been having that year was mortality – my own and that of others.
I was living in Cairo at the time, going to American international schools to get my highschool diploma so that I could return to the US when I was old enough for college. It was a trying experience for me that filled my life with tremendous stress. It came from the struggle to fit in as an expat from America. Despite being half Egyptian, I had never learned arabic or anything about the culture. I was raised in a house on Staten Island in New York until one day we moved just one short month after my tenth birthday. My entire family was also stressed, which of course also compounded my stress. In poetry, I found an outlet. I could be heartfelt and honest in my writing, yet always make it cryptic enough that people wouldn’t figure out that I was writing about myself and my feelings. Sharing stress with stressed out individuals who can barely cope themselves is hardly a safe or smart way to find comfort. So to my friends and family, my work came across as just little stories told in rhythm and rhyme.
Eventually, the nightmares faded and became less frequent, but I continued to write. Poetry had somehow evolved for me. Instead of just writing for therapy, I had begun exploring ideas and encounters that I found wonderful. I started looking carefully at my environment and when I found something particularly moving, I would pay close attention to the details of the experience. I wrote about what the pace of living in a big city was like and how that pace shifted from daytime to nighttime. I wrote about what it looked like when people got lost in dance and music. When I got into high school, I wrote about the pretty girls.
I remember one girl in my senior year who would intentionally frazzle her brown, wavy hair. It almost looked like she had woken up and gone to school without brushing it. It wasn’t off putting, though. To me, it was excitingly different from the other girls. I described the feeling of seeing it in a haiku as being akin to the exhilaration of riding the curves and unexpected turns on a roller coaster. I lost that haiku, but I still remember her hair.
Fast forward to today, my nightmares are pretty much gone. I’m back in New York and about to graduate from college in May, God-willing. Unfortunately, the time and freedom to write poetry also faded. Adult life had sadly taken that away and put responsibility and a profession in its place. It has been a year since I’ve written a verse, but I miss it. And like an old, but comfortable friend that you don’t see often, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to pick up right where we left off when I have my reunion with the medium. I had just started to try out spoken word poetry and I was allowing myself to be vulnerable as I shared it. I liked the idea of crafting words about feelings that were meant to jump off the page. I think that once I’m done with my Bachelors, I’ll make time for it, again.
