Category: Home (to me)

Just give me
Your wild young heart
Let me borrow it 
Just for a while


Let me be a teenager again
Experience what's like to be careless and free
Free of commitments 
Of responsibilities 
Of the person I don't want to be 


Give me a one night on a cliff
Holding sparklers and running around
Dancing to the loud music
Feeling the breeze
Feeling what's like to live in a moment


Leave me someplace I was never in
With a memory I never lived
With an experience I never wanted 
With a person I never met
Give me the chance to live again


Let me borrow your love of life
Your teenage blues
Your sunset cruises
Your red lipstick and your waterproof mascara
Your happy eyes and genuine smile
Give me back the feeling that everything is okay
Because we are living now
And tomorrow will never be


Give me your young serenity 
The long days at the beach
The long hours of swimming in cold pools
The long hours of tanning on a lava sand
The sunburnt skin and the red slippers
Give me back a day where it was okay
To live


Take me back to a time 
We drank colored frappe 
And avoided grown up black coffee
We ate greasy burgers
And laughed at people who order salads 


Take me back to the first text
The first smile
The first touch
The first hug
The first warmth
The first time we felt alive


Give me your young life
Just for a day
Let me breathe again
Let me feel like I exist solely 
To dance
To sing
To laugh
To love
To live

A dusky night, an everlasting rain, a seraphic touch, and your voice humming to the red Betelgeuse in the Orion.

It was only the night and I, and the tears in my eyes, all my loved ones slept, why didn’t you sleep too? Everybody slept, and you were still awake. I looked at the sky, and the Betelgeuse was still awake; I asked it what’s wrong? Why are you still awake? I heard it said: “The rhythm of the humming enchants me; I am in love.”

I am lost, my friends. I hope my voice reaches you; I hope it tells you how much I feel, maybe that’ll lead your way back. I hope it tells you you changed me, you confused me.

Was it just the hum that swept me off my feet? It was breathtaking. It’s been a while, and I’m still humming it and closing my eyes to see it, to see your deep voice with the light shudder and the cold breath.

We talked for hours, and I put my hand on my chin and listened without any interruption for hours. Remember?

Forgive me, but I can’t remember anything you said, I wasn’t listening. I was too distracted by the way you were talking, the way you smirk with every sordid detail, and how your nose twitches when you’re talking about something morbid, and your eyes, God, your eyes. I can’t remember what color they are; I remember they were my favorite color in the world.

I wish I can save your hum in a frame and carve at the bottom: here lies the humming of my darling abyss; so melancholy yet so divine. I could draw it if you let me, I could draw the way your voice fades, and then chirp a little like a nightingale.

Was it twilight? Or was it night? I can’t remember, you were sitting in front of me with crossed legs and talking, how can I notice anything else? And then, at one point, as we sipped our hot coffee and then looked at the skyline, you started humming the ever-most stunning hum, so beguiling that it could be mistaken for a hymn.

And I’m still stuck there at that one moment past 9 pm on a gelid night, looking at the skyline, but the only thing I saw was your warmth beside me. I closed my eyes because it was so beautiful, your warmth, it was so beautiful that I didn’t want any view to distract me from it.

I’m stuck at a hum.

Let me tell you about the last pastry shop I visited. On my first day back to work, I promised myself that I would wake up an hour earlier and walk to the pastry shop to try almost everything they have, then walk back to the office.

It’s a tiny bakery/pastry shop located in a quiet neighborhood in Beirut. The pastry shop is called NEO Gourmet, attributing it to “Nelson, Edward, and Oliver,” Nada’s (the owner) sons. On the day of the explosion, Nada was in the shop with Freddie, her husband, when everything fell on their heads. She thought that Freddie was dead as the blood on the floor was enough for her to think the worst.

Five months later, NEO Gourmet reopened with the same warmth but less enthusiasm as the destruction and trauma remain, even if not visible. Nonetheless, the aroma of the fresh bread and choco-flakes are stronger than the smell of pain. Actually, it’s more of ‘pain’ au lait. (this is the worst pun ever, I’m so sorry)

Can you imagine more pastry shops like this in Lebanon? It’s not your normal cute coffee shops, because believe me, I know. It’s similar to the ones you see in Christmas movies and movies shot in small and unrealistic towns.

I feel intrigued about making this my new scavenger hunt for 2021, hunting down small and unknown pastry shops, to my thighs’ despair. I’m still thinking, still contemplating what’s more important to me, insanely lukewarm pastry shops or a nice light number on the scale.

I love these little pastries so much, and I plan on visiting one coffee shop and one pastry shop in every country I travel to in the future, especially the European ones. There is a certain culture in these brown little shops with their bitter coffee and cheap croissants; there is certain heaven in foreign creme patisserie and glorious frames decorating the walls.

For today, I will settle for having NEO Gourmet as my new to-go spot, the one I seek for safety. For tomorrow, let it be a little coffee shop in Europe, Eastern Europe, where time stopped a few decades ago in the poverty of communism and little match girls.

I’m feeling quite warm, do you?

If you know any pastry shop similar to the one I described (and is in the cover photo), do tell me about it, maybe we can go together? I’m not sure I have a comment section here, but you can always reach out to me anywhere; I’m easy to reach and 65% responsive.