56 observer I don't want to be a saint, I want to experience the world I don't worry about being heroic like men do I refused to be a mother Am I going to be like the immortal witch in the enchanted rainforest? Warthog companion? Free diving alongside giant manta ray? Sounds good but I think it hurt her feelings when the kids ran away And I was too little to be good company and she was too grateful It was kind of sad Am I going to be a wizened Cairo granny describing summers in Alexandria when it's all under water? Am I going to float above this village and remember tante Z bobbing in the waves? There's this European woman in her sixties who lives in Heliopolis She blogs She's always alone. She goes to galleries and small out of the way restaurants. All the magic artsyfartsy nooks. She sketches and paints. Seems like she's a runaway. Feels like it. It's so odd to think of people running away to Egypt Everyone's usually trying to escape It's odd to think of my mother running away from her tropical paradise fishing village Nobody wants to be where they are I just realised I make friends with people who are more comfortable speaking Arabic But they speak English with me Am I supposed to be living with a pink haired non binary Japanese toilet using Google employee in San Francisco? Was that supposed to be a thing? My Palestinian ex is in the city His mama's dying, it's really hard He was supposed to be escaping to Canada I don't want to be a saint I don't want to be a soft place anymore Nobody held me, not even my own mother I don't think I would know how to receive it I remember being puzzled in Dokki The girls wouldn't let me shut my door They sat next to me on my bed and squished my shoulders and patted my head and one of them made me tea I stopped crying but only because I was confused And I realised some people get that all the time And that I'm a knotted up calloused soft place I will squish you but I don't trust you or myself even a little bit Sometimes I think I need to be tricked into being loved |