Malak El Halabi Quotes

I still smell your absence on my skin. It smells of insomnia and rusted key locks...

Perhaps your notion of relationships is different than mine.
You want something that would be a long term safe bet. I don't believe in that. I don't believe in eternity or safe bets. I believe in the unavoidable now and that the unavoidable now in the condition that it is pure with the best intention is eternity in itself.
I want to love you and to feel your love as much as this is possible, as far as this takes us, and I hope it will take us far.

You taste like the last drop of whiskey
at 3 am
after a lousy day
like the first gulp of coffee on a Monday sipped behind a desk
hot and bitter
like the burning at the back of the throat
after the first cigarette
You taste, boy oh boy, like my next mistake.

When the wind blows in your face,
when you feel you are losing your head,
when the going gets tough,
and when all else fails,
look inside you,
you are not alone.

I will be waiting for you at the end of every blind alley, under the lonely streetlamps of a city that will no longer be ours.
When the wind grows colder and the huge piles of settled leaves sit there for a week or two, unshielded from the curious gaze of passersby, I will be waiting for you.
I will be waiting for what could have been and for what will never be;
For the letters that never arrived, the letters that were never sent, and the letters that will never be written.

There are people you meet that light the darkest corners of your mind. They don't ask you questions. They don't intimidate you. They just look at you and they smile. They smile because they know what it feels like to have been where you are or because they have this inner ability to understand where you are coming from. They don't hold your hand. They don't hug you. They don't tell you it's going to be okay or shower you with words of love. They give you some of their time and a bit of their presence. And something only few people really master:
To listen genuinely to what you have to say.

I want to be the thought that takes your mind off the road and your hand off the steering wheel.

Noah's ark is on the tombstone of drowning desire and I am walking furiously on water.

I learned by heart the lines of your face. I can draw them blindly on a water canvas.
Your face in the middle of an inflamed argument. Your face in the middle of a mild one-- when you're at fault.
Your face filled with rainbows of laughter. Your face filled with clouds of distress.
Your face, fluttering, when I open you the door. Your face, agonizing, every time I stand waiting, for the elevator.
Your face, eager, when you kiss me. Your face, surprised, when I lead you to bed.
Your face in the middle of pain. Your face on the outskirts of pleasure.
Your face, with a baffled look, when you wake up. Your face falling asleep, with total surrender.
Your face the first night we met. Your face the last night we parted.
I learned by heart the lines of your face. They all led me into hell.
They all led me into heaven.

Our mornings were never "rise and shine." They were "rise and fight." They were loud and ravaging. They were heavy and unnerving, like the after-math of a war, with unresolved territorial disputes.
They were never serene, but they were beautiful. More beautiful than the smile you wear when you step out of the shower, more tempting than the sight of you brewing coffee from across the kitchen bar, more promising than a glorious victory, bigger than all our tumultuous past. Bigger than you. Bigger than I.

You have the face of a man who gently caresses field flowers and dandelions. And a smile that is like a dagger, cutting the sun in halves.

And I will remember how we made the sun blush every morning.

Build my night with your cheeks.

At the end of the day, you should try to remember that it's not about the number of followers you have or the numbers of likes, comments, and shares your posts are getting.
It's the number of people who will be present in the hospital room when you fall terribly sick.
It's the number of people who will remember your birthday like they remember their first name.
It's the number of people who will invite you to celebrate Christmas or new year's eve.
It's the number of people who will actually show up to look at your newborn child or to bless your newly bought house.
It's the number of people who will actually cross an ocean to see your face.
It's the number of people who will wipe your tears when one of your parents passes away.
It's the number of people who will make a slightly larger than a thumb effort to be there for you.

I watched you storm towards the restaurant door. It was a chilly December morning and the birds sitting on the high wires in the neighborhood refused to fly any longer.

Beach reading: Planning on reading, but failing relentlessly due to the heart-stirring view.

He says "You are my property" and I feel relieved. After all, no one wishes to shatter what he owns.

He warned me of the lion's den and I am glad I didn't listen.

Now that your eyes are open, make the sun jealous with your burning passion to start the day. Make the sun jealous or stay in bed.

You have the body of a god and the smile of a demon. I walk towards you, barefoot, a believer walking a religious path. I wrap my arms around your neck, a priest hugging his crucifix.
I offer you my all. Burn me like incense.
Let's make all the church bells in hell ring just for us.

Killing me softly, and I never felt more alive.

Be your own solace

You dance the troika in the opening of my veins and I only protest with a murmur.

And then there are those you stop counting the years with because they are here to stay.
They are here. And they aren't going anywhere.
Nothing will make them flinch.
Nothing will make them think twice.
They know you at your worst,
the worst you didn't even know you had.
They know the sound of your mood swings, the color of your anger, how you curse when you curse, how you shout when you throw a tantrum. They know when you're avoiding a subject. They know when you're lying. They know when you're jealous. They know your vices by heart and they celebrate them. They celebrate you-- vices included.
They know your lost dreams and how life fucked you over. They know the battles you lost. And they think your fabulous when you think you're just an unlucky mediocre person who once thought will make it big in life.
They know the last time you were happy. They see the unspoken sadness in your eyes. They know the words behind your silence. They know the photographs playing in your mind when you're looking afar.
They know YOU, the naked YOU, the raw YOU, not the embellished YOU people see, not the YOU that will be read in biographies or in elegies once you're dead, not the YOU that introduces you to others.
They love you from the bottom of their heart. They are your family regardless of their blood. They are your squad. They are your people.
And no matter how many times you make them open the door, they can't walk out. They just can't

-Do you want me to leave?
-Yes
-Do you want me to stay?
-Yes
-Do you love me?
-Yes
-Do you want me?
-No
-Then leave me
-I can't
-Then stay with me
-I can't, I can't, I can't
*Equation of a fucked up relationship

There was warmth in his large piercing brown eyes. The kind of warmth that tucks a child into bed. The same kind of warmth that dries your wet hair on a rainy December afternoon.

Be the man who has the spirit of a ruthless tiger, ravaging every dusty corner of my soul.
Be the man for whom I will tame myself voluntarily..
Be the man who can make me forget my birth date in moments of utter dellusion.
Be the man whose arms are my harbor, whose lips are my shore, and whose name is my only salvation.
Be the man who erases my past and draws my future with trails of roses and kisses.
Be the man who makes me sigh behind the windows of Poetry, longing to be written.
Be the man whose cigarette's ashes are confounded with mine.
Be the man whose voice moves mountains inside me.
Be the man whose eyes devour the innocence within me with every piercing glance.
Be the man for whom I will transform exceptions into rules.
Be the man who will dare to tear this poem from my hands.
The man who will rewrite with the uncertainty of the futur every single one of my verses.

She is the woman that contradicts Simone de Beauvoir's saying "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." She is the woman that makes your tooth pain seem like a trivial matter in comparison to the heartaches she causes as she deliberately passes by your side. She is the woman that makes your throat feel swollen and your tie to suddenly seem too tight. She is the woman that is able to take you to the seven heavens with a whisper; straight to cloud number nine.. She is the woman that erases all other women unintentionally and becomes without demanding the despot of your heart. She is the woman that sends you back and forth to purgatory and resurrects you with each unintended touch. She is the woman that will ask of you to burn Rome just to collect for her a handful of dust.

How can I begin to tell you how much I miss you without using those three common words that can't even start to express the magnitude nor the depth of my emotions. How can I write in my own blood while wanting to revert its color. The color of blood is similar to "I miss you". It has been raped by writers and lovers constantly, ever since Cain and Abel. I want to be able to create a new alphabet that can simply stand in front of you without bowing. I want to use new metaphors that would erupt like volcanoes between the phrases of my readers' souls. Metaphors such as your absence is similar to eating salt straight from the shaker while thirst is devouring my tongue. Metaphors such as the lack of your presence is like being straddled behind the glass of my own senses.

We've never crossed paths before. I've never seen you walking down the street. I don't know the first thing there is to know about you. And the lines of my palm do not reveal nor disclose any untold secrets.

Yet, here I am, holding the door as I whisper in your ear:

"I'll be right across the street when you're done, my child.

Your black pupils.
Your dilated pupils.
Inviting and impudent.
Enticing and insolant.

Two invitations to... A different sky.

You are to my soul what God is to a mother praying for her child at the altar.

I recall those beautiful summer mornings with my parents by the sandy beach of Belek. My father used to teach me how to ride waves. I remember him constantly emphasizing the fact that no wave, no matter how big it is should stir enough fear inside me to keep me glued to the shore. He used to repeat those words while glancing at my mother with a smile that could set the whole sea on fire. My mother, sitting on the beach, too afraid of the deep blue sea, contented herself with building sand castles, ones my father would step on trying to drag her hopelessly into water.
Step on your sand castle and dive deep. Dive deep into the unknown. Life is damn too short for building sand castles.

Saturday evening, on a quiet lazy afternoon, I went to watch a bullfight in Las Ventas, one of Madrid's most famous bullrings. I went there out of curiosity. I had long been haunted by the image of the matador with its custom made torero suit, embroidered with golden threads, looking spectacular in his "suit of light" or traje de luces as they call it in Spain. I was curious to see the dance of death unfold in front of me, to test my humanity in the midst of blood and gold, and to see in which state my soul will come out of the arena, whether it will be shaken and stirred, furious and angry, or a little bit aware of the life embedded in every death. Being an avid fan of Hemingway, and a proponent of his famous sentence "About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after," I went there willingly to test myself. I had heard atrocities about bullfighting yet I had this immense desire to be part of what I partially had an inclination to call a bloody piece of cultural experience. As I sat there, in front of the empty arena, I felt a grandiose feeling of belonging to something bigger than anything I experienced during my stay in Spain. Few minutes and I'll be witnessing a painting being carefully drawn in front of me, few minutes and I will be part of an art form deeply entrenched in the Spanish cultural heritage: the art of defying death. But to sit there, and to watch the bull enter the arena… To watch one bull

Like a tenacious ivy, your presence clings onto the drab wall of my existence.
Cling harder onto me love, like a blood sucking bed-bug who is never satiated.

You are the Arabian stallion that neighs on the crossroad of my heart ache covering me with the dust of my own ardor.

This is the last time we have breakfast together:
our warm coffee mugs on the kitchen table
our cold bare feet on the blue tile

It was the moment I heard your laughter. The moment I heard us laughing, two cascades in the middle of a desert, careless and uninhibited.