After years, things fade back to shapes. Lightness occurs, Spring blossoms releasing their branches. All the dead weight of emptiness shifts because of a sound from the universe. Of growth and flight humming deep in brittle bones.

Is it death--the slide of flesh into earth? Is it a revolution of time and space?

We are dimensions of mass and gravity, lambent memories that once lived in the Void. Deepest dark from where creation leaps, first as sphere and cube, then finally hardening into flesh in which we writhe against form and a longing to return home.

The uppercase letter “U” looks very smug to me, especially when it is emphasized as “Ü”. “F” is how the letter “I” looked when it dodged to the left to avoid a bullet and its hair flew back. “I” dragging its tail looks like “L”. “B” happened when “1” and “3” became more serious about their relationship. I’m afraid to know what war “i” came from to have had its head severed from its body. Why is it that capital “Y” is more a question than a letter or a sound? How come emotions are combined into sounds that then combine into words? The letters of the English alphabet are strange shapes to represent my emotions, but I know no other languages well enough to escape from them. I am forced to express myself with the same language that oppresses me.

Obsession is a powerful feeling.

Some people even say that it is more powerful than love, lust or faith.

Religiously-obsessed people are either serial killers or clerics.

People obsessed with food are obese, with their arteries and veins clogged with accumulated fat.

Alcohol-obsessed individuals are alcoholics.

And I... am a woman of obsession.

I get obsessed over the tiniest minutiae of my life.

A broken nail, a frizzy hair, heartburn, the crinkle on the corner of the eye of the man I fancy when he smiles, a tattoo on the back of a girl, Boston Cream, Parmesan, one scene in a movie where everything seemed otherworldly, or worse, very worldly to me.

Obsession is my middle name.

I know it is kind of arrogant to talk about yourself. In writing school, they always teach us to branch out, talk about Mr. Ahmed the doorman, Miss Fatheya the grocer, or simply get inside the head of a dog and write.

I do that, sometimes. Many times. I write about those people and more in my fiction writing. Well, that's not just me, that's anybody. I mean, in our novels and short stories we can inside the head of anybody or anything, but still it would be our reflection of their heads. There would always be a "me" of us in those characters. Not that I encourage imposing a character on its own writer. They do this all the time in my country.

"Don't write about whores, or else they will think you are one."

"Don't write about homosexuals, or else they will believe you are one."

One dumb journalist once asked a female writer,

"Why are there so many lesbians in your stories? Why the focus on them especially?"

He went on to hint subtly -or not subtly enough- at this woman's sexual orientation and how a series of events in her life could absolutely, positively and dick-ishly -on his part- point at her homosexuality.

What a stupid man!

All men are stupid, I hear ya, dear lady in the back. Not really. Maybe men are emotionally underdeveloped than women. Women are the emotionally superior, mature creatures. However, it has been a common notion that if a woman chose to see herself as superior, then either she is impotent, or a dyke.

No disrespect at all here, I am just stating the ignorance of conservative societies. I don't see anything wrong with impotence, lesbianism or heterosexuality. Actually I have a problem with people being so sure of themselves. How in the Hell have you achieved this holy motherfucking wisdom.

Gender has been defined since the dawn of time. People are either male or female. Anything that chooses to be otherwise, is wrong.

Wrong! Dude, what in the Hell?

How can you easily "wrong" people?

How can you easily label them?

As a defense mechanism I started labeling people who judged me as well. Obsessing about them meant wrapping them in cellophane and putting them in neat categories.

Veiled bitches are ignorant, self-righteous low-lifers who are afraid to face their bad hair days.

Girls who get married in their twenties are screwballs who have had the mystery of the universe figured out once they first had their periods.

Misogynist And Proud men are sexually dysfunctional losers who totally rely on showing off their nonexistent machismo by lashing out at women, homosexuals, gender queer, transsexuals and people who dare to exhibit their faith in a different light.

Well, as you may have noticed, I tend to obsess about the later category too much for my own good. I mean, if they find out I trash them, they will literally shit on me. Words like "cunt" or "whore: sharmoota" or "slut" are only among the few accusations they have ready for me.

So why bother? Let them be and let me; also, be.

That's where obsession falls into place.

I hate those men. I cannot believe how ignorant and hypocritical conservative societies are when it comes to men and women.

In case of hardcore, feminists who believe that men are ignorant, cocksuckers who are not worth a dime, liberal, free-thinking, agnostic, secular men literally shit on them. They shit on them every other day or so. I had a friend who was a hefty womanizer and a liberal-minded yet spiritual Muslim, and he wrote a post pissing on radical feminists every single day. Wow! Now I happened to come across our hero -the misogynist and proud I am obsessing over- and he turned out to be a friend of my Liberal, secular Muslim, womanizer friend!

Holy shit!

Let's do some character sketching here:

He's a Sunni Muslim. Worst kind if they really identify with the sunni part and are too much of religious tools. He is a thirtysomething male, unmarried and probably not that rich -he fills his Facebook timeline with posts that despise the elite, the bourgeois and their extravagant lifestyles.

He is a poet. He only writes "clean" love poems, which is a poetic trend in Arabic poetry where you get to only describe the soul of your lover. You don't physical in your poetry or else that would be deemed too "scandalous" and "immoral".

He is a voracious reader and he used to enjoy being an alpha male in his little conservative country where he owns an ego the size of the Atlantic and he sells to the world that he owns a penis the size of a bazooka.

How does he prove the latter? By shitting on gays, women and minorities of course. He calls women "cunts" and "whores" all the fucking time, except when he is writing a love poem of course! Apparently his love poems are directed towards women who are terrifyingly mute, veiled, wrapped in clothing and submission. I have a feeling he won't do well with a dominant partner, although from what can I see he would make a perfect submissive, so in order to mask his submission he would marry a docile, sexually-ignorant twentysomething whom he'd fuck pretty violently only to prove to himself what a macho man he is!

What about gays?

He insists on calling them faggots. He shows exaggerated disgust and disdain at their sexual preferences. He goes on to write lengthy posts about how homosexuality is against nature and "if we were in a more conservative country, they would have those faggots killed, maimed to death or maybe stoned."

He believes that homosexuality, free gender expression, feminism, abortion, feminine liberty and secularism are all "societal diseases" that would be wiped off the Earth someday where a conservative, Islamic state was built!

Problem is; that guy is so involved in the cultural scene. He is a journalist and poet. He attends many seminars, book readings, cultural events, blah blah, and of course; he is the one who would ask the question,

"Why are there so many lesbians in your stories? Why the focus on them especially?"

Are those two bigoted assholes the same person? God know! I don't know anything about the journalist who spread rumors about the writer being a lesbian just to insinuate that any woman who dares to write openly and without inner censorship is a "fallen woman" a "bad, bad woman". But I don't think he would be pretty different from Misogynist and Proud up there.

Tell you what, guys, people like them make me really afraid. I mean, I am not powerful by any means. If someone spread rumors about my reputation or said mean things about me where I to publish my writings, I would be damned! Men like them tend also to loathe women like me, yet I am the one who has nothing, no backup, no support system, no shit! I am alone with my obsessions and the little voices going on and on in my head. However, do I have a choice? Either I write, or I wither and die. Besides, challenging bigoted, misogynist, religious freaks is so much fun. Especially when all they want deep, deep down is to prove you are a whore...so that they find it easier to jump your bones eventually.

So yup, obsession could be painful, but it's also a bucket of sunshine when it comes to writing about assholes ;)