Before drowning, before trying to clutch at a straw

The bag is worthless without the traveler, so the traveler is worthless without his memories that fill the bags before leaving.

I was never a traveler in the sea, I never boarded a boat, I did not even learn swimming, I left myself in the wild for fear of predators at sea, fearing the curse of all pirates.

But I lived among other waves, and drowned not far away.

We do not care about the sun’s absence, we fear the sunrise of another day on our grief, the sunrise of our isolation, which is renewed whenever the night’s features are absent.

You told me that there is an island where a great treasure is hidden, you only have to trace the ancestors!
I followed my father, I was silent in a sea of ​​blood, I followed all the religions, I was weak under the oppression I had imagined. I followed my intuition beforehand to a thousand swamps I lived in. No treasure or island. Mothers, fathers, your imagined sketches end when your memories become beyond all these ideas, just a fleeting idea, a great treasure you cannot touch.

There is no predecessor before any one of us, you manufacture yourself, even if you have a large number of your components, shaping your features.

You try hard to know the path, sit for days trying to understand the step and beyond, but you do not step away, your fear of the unknown once it begins, it doesn’t end, as well as your search for your destination, your desired loss.
I whispered to her, Don’t leave…

They do not leave the fragrance and do not take it, as if the smell that emanates from them at every parting moment is just a heartbeat, but it’s unforgettable, like the sound of life after an isolation in the forest, coming to you, clinging to it, embracing you, as if you are the sadness of cities, or their next victim, you who love the cities like girls who do not leave the perfume, they only leave your shadow and place, and the ringing sound when the glasses touch.

She’s never been to the sea, but she fears it. Only our moving compatriots, like our souls, that did not know the taste of rest, like hers. The mothers are just tiny fires, always putting you in their cages, even if they were infinite.

What is a memory?

 

A leaf of the plant Gar that they put on the graves, its perfume does not disappear, an endless tear deep in the heart, a taste of salt does not disappear, on the wounds, the tears and joy.

A compass only points to pain, an hour for comfort and grief lasts forever.

What is a bag?

Mothers’ prayers, songs of a village, poems and hair clippings, a bunch of shabby photos, and other thoughts on the path, your thoughts that always lead you to suicide.

The more we determine to leave, the more we cling to the place.

Travelers are always afraid of losing a bag. They can understand all things before they leave, but one moment of tears is sufficient to kill the thoughts of rest that have been painted even for hours, parting is a bag, a damaging bag.
All the tales about the sea and the drowning, the planes and the crash, about the cars and the explosion, do not stop travelers without bags from diving deep into an adventure.

Truth is a burden you don’t need on the other side. As long as you know that the path begins with an urgent need for life, this straw will be enough for you to survive, enough to understand that you are a mysterious ancestor of an upcoming generation.

And a bedtime story for children did not have your fears, and your constant concern of bags packed with stories that did not grow after.

Mohammad Haj Hussein

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