Amarji The Website of Syrian Author Ammar Abdulhamid

An Oriental Tapestry

Can You Digest the Fruits of My Depression?

This pretentious City is not my home.

And yours is not the vulva I was meant to plough.

Let these be the last of my illusions to be dispelled.

Let them be the last of my growing pains.

I am a man now. A man.

It certainly did take a long time for me to get here.

But I am here now -

           having finally shed away

                                 my adolescence

                                      at the ripe age of thirty-three.

                             (a not too unusual case

                                              by our standards)

I am here.

I am cold.

I am mature.

I am…dead.

Dead.

(Your phantoms cannot give me warmth, anymore.

Just as my dreams can no longer give me hope.

 You,

 the City and you,

 have taught me how to hate myself so well…

      I can no longer court hope.

      I can no longer find or understand it.

        Faced on its own terms,

              Reality has proven quite

                         the

                      unruly

                     mistress.

                                 It has been murderous even, murderous.

                                 It killed hope.

                                 And laughed in the face of r e s  u  r r  e  c t i    o    n. -

              After all,

                      that is supposed to be the essence of its mercy,

                                 or so I am sometimes told.)

Now,

    someone like me,

           someone foolish enough,

                    usually,

               to believe in humanity,

                    and love,

                   real love,

                          would normally feel

                                                       free

                                            even when caught

                                                                in the intricate tapestry

                                                  of Your promises

                                            and lies.

         (And how often You promise.

          And how often You lie.)

So why does Your love enslave me so?

What sort of Viagric essence do You exude?

What sort of impotence within me

                   is

               crying

                   simply for the opportunity to

                                                            die

                                                               in You? –

       So that I find myself so powerless,

             so absolutely powerless,

                 in the face of You,

                 in the face of my love-lust

                                                   for You.

Seldom do love and lust thus intertwine,

                              but for me, in Your case, they did,

                                                                           they do.

Can You see now the source of my depression? –

There are still too many pale faces around,

                     too many putrefying souls

                         that I yearned to save from the world,

                                                   from themselves,

                                        from me.

     But I couldn’t even try…

As a messiah,

       I proved to be a colossal failure, I am afraid.

I needed much more salvation than I had to give.

I needed to be saved myself.

I needed you by my side.

I needed to face the City, and win.

I simply needed too many things.

Too

many

things.

I was the Awaiting Messiah.

The

A

w

a

i

t

i

n

g

Messiah.

Can You comprehend now the nature of my depression? -

I cannot even save myself,

    not to mention You, or anybody else,

        from this sectarian quagmire  we    were    b o r n   in……to.

Can You digest now, or ever, the fruits of my depression?

Can You afford to?

Can You?

Can You?