A diary of queer self-discovery

"You are the center of your own world, that's why I can't be a part of it, you're not in love with me, you're in love with the idea of me"

[anotherqueerarab-blog]

Identity

Who am I? I ask this question almost every day whenever my mind strays from the daily mediocrity of the everyday life of a middle-class third world college student.  It’s not easy, having an identity crisis within a country that seems to have been defined by an identity crisis. Am I bi? Am I gay? Am I queer? I’m definitely not straight but I don’t know which of these labels define me. And which of those communities would or should I pick anyways? The LGBT community in this country would give religious toxicity a run for its money, and quite frankly my experience with the LGBT in the US hasn’t been ideal either.  I was either looked at as a piece of meat, a pretty face or not looked at at all. Very few queer men have stopped to ask me about or listen to my story, and I doubt few if any have ever genuinely cared. Am I simply boring? Are my feelings, my thoughts, my internal world less valid and interesting than others? Or is it just their vanity and superficialness combined with my own poor judgment that has led me to see these people for something they’re not. Or is it just too much to ask in this day and age to be viewed as more than a dick and an ass, like a fucking human being? I don’t exist only through the lens of others, I’m not a tree in the middle of the forest. I think, I see, I write, I experience. And although I may not be a bona fide artist or have any semblance of talent, I still matter, or at least I should, everyone should. Everyone contains a story, a constellation, an amalgamation of views and experiences. Why does it feel like society thrives on the mediocritzation of internal worlds, on a redundant feed of selfies and bodies and dicks and vaginas and flesh and bone? I’m as sex-positive as the next guy but God damn it I have a brain and a heart that demand satisfaction. And I’m not seeking the pleasure of some great love or philosophical debate, but the simple pleasure of friendship, camaraderie, companionship. I don’t care about the number of likes or comments, I care for the quality of feedback, for the level of understanding or at least attempt at understanding, for true effort. But why is that so hard to find?  I’m not the next Eros or Adonis or any greek Sex/Beauty God nor do I want to be, I’m not the next Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, and I wish to be either even less. I just want to be given a space to breathe, to express, to feel, without the constant fear of being ostracized or Thrown into jail, yet that somehow seems to be always out of reach. Maybe I’m asking the wrong question, maybe I don’t fail to understand myself, but rather the people that I cohabit the earth with. So maybe the question to ask is: Who are you? Behind all the masks and below all the layers of constructs and traditions? what do you really want and how do you really think? What guides you? is it a thrust for knowledge? for connection ? or plain old reproduction? 

[anotherqueerarab-blog]

Anger

I don’t know why I’m angry, or at whom I am angry. Anger was always the easiest emotion to Identify within me, my heart feels tense and heated, my head becomes lighter as my eyes lose focus, and I am controlled by the sudden urge to destroy, to end everything around me. I fantasize about killing people, destroying buildings, I internally smile as I feel the pain and suffering I would cause. I don’t know why I have such darkness within me, especially as I seem to prefer the light. I mock morals and morality as I follow them, I am human and full of contradictions after all. I blame others for unfinished projects while I am full of them. I don’t know what I’m doing and not doing and I am afraid of the results quite honestly.

[purplebuddhaquotes]

A flower does not think of competing to the flower next to it. It just blooms.

Sensei Ogui (via purplebuddhaquotes)

[anotherqueerarab-blog]

Futility

All have felt futile as of recent, life, love, work, school, family, tradition, the universe. But I must keep going, what else is there to do? 

[purplebuddhaquotes]

Real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect yourself. The greater the love, the greater the chaos. It’s a given and that’s the secret.

Jonathan Carroll  (via purplebuddhaquotes)

[hollywood-noir]

[anotherqueerarab-blog]

Awake/Asleep

I wake up in the morning feeling drowsy, with the pain radiating down from my elbows. I’m flooded with dread and a desire to go back to sleep to escape this pain, but sleep evades me. I wash my face, brush my teeth, take my pills and wonder, how will I fill yet another waste of a day. I haven’t found meaning, not in traveling and camps, not in alcohol and drugs, not even in sex and love. Nothing seems to be filling, and sure as hell not fulfilling. Everyone keeps telling me to give it time and patience and just explore, but maybe I’m out of Energy, and almost out of time. I sit in my room all day wondering what to do, I’ve read all the books in my library, I’ve hung out with all  of my local  friends and been to all the beautiful local places. I’ve watched all the episodes of the The Simpsons and Family Guy on YouTube and I’ve stopped enjoying them a long time ago. I have the time but I don’t have the will, I don’t have the will to do anything or to even want to do anything, perhaps the worse part is everyone that keeps telling me this is normal, that I am normal and fine and it’s just another day and another time, but it’s not. I don’t feel ok or alive, I need help and I don’t know whom to turn to. Another day wasted on the internet, another night wasted on coffee and meaningless conversations with friends. Fall asleep, wake up, repeat.

[purplebuddhaquotes]

“I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms.”

—

E.M. Forster

[anotherqueerarab-blog]

Chapter 1 : Prozac

On the first of August, after months if not years long of troubles and pains with my hands and wrists, I was diagnosed with a nerve compression in both of m elbows. My doctor dismissed it as a problem due to posture and my rampant technology addiction, he prescribed me a Prozac like medicine and instructed I use a pill a day in order to combat the nerve pain and reassured me there will be no side effects and it will all be over in a month. I was relieved to finally know the cause of my ailment and its nearing end. However, his predictions proved false. While it remains unknown to me whether this medication increase my anxiety and depression during my transition to the US in mid-August, my reliance on a medication to function and keep the pain under control was far from being a boost to my ever-weakening ego, and of course my brain went into working and creating possibly fake side effects and using the medication as an excuse for any inappropriate behavior or an out of character mood. I would blame my unsociable behavior on the medication, my un-productivity on the medication, my hanging up on the phone and being a dick to my family on the medication, and the list goes on. Finally, I was out of pills, but not out of pain. I’ve decided to give myself some more time before deciding to visit a doctor and pull myself together through the withdrawal symptoms with the help of friends. I was having suicidal ideation and feelings of extreme isolation that come with the cloudy days of mid-September, and that’s when I met him. He had greyish blue eyes that would change color during the seasons, hair that hit the sweet spot between red and blond, and freckles that covered his almost cartoonishly white skin. His face was capable of radiating such strong passion and emotion. Unlike me, here was someone with a heart that was profound, someone who could actually feel intense emotions and not in an endless state of grey. What I felt was more like an endless cloudy day with some small sunny patches in between, what he felt was intense days of summer heat, blissful days of spring and violent storm filled days of winter. His face and mood were in a constant state of change as we discussed an assortment of subjects ranging from philosophy and religion to food and small town living. I was raised by a photographer and a teacher, and as a result I was given a very critical eye for details and perfection, I don’t see the full half of the cup, I see every small scratch and indentation on the glass, every spec and impurity in the water, but here was someone who somehow turned that part of my brain off, a man nonetheless. We strolled around town as we enjoyed an ensemble of Thai food composed fried imitation products and egg rolls dipped in a sweet and spicy sauce, all of whom remain alien to my taste palette as he was alien to my understanding of the world, but nonetheless ever so tasty and captivating. He’s shown me a couple of places as we walked around town, and as we walked towards the park he’d come to notice the ever growing bulge in my pants. As he noticed me shudder from the cold weather as the sun had just set, he sat opposite to me off and slighlty lifted his shirt and offered the body heat emanating from his waist in a calm whisper-like voice. I put my hands on his sides and as I stared into his eyes I couldn’t resist his soft plump lips. I would spare the details but to say it was a long fun yet sweaty night. As I was heading out of the apartment, he offered a coat against the cold winter of the midwestern plains, and that was it, I fell for him. Although it was a  small act, I couldn’t help but read into it, perhaps things that were not even there. I ended up accepting the parting gift after a pride driven rejection and heading back to the dorm while holding a buffoon-like smirk that emanated from the depths of my soul. “What the fuck just happened?” 

[purplebuddhaquotes]

“Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage. Courage is the most desperate, admirable and noble kind of love.”

—

Delmore Schwartz

[anotherqueerarab-blog]

I don't know

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this revelation. With this revelation of my conflicted sexuality, where I live both men and women and yet can't stand most of both. With this revelation of my course conflicted heart where I'm in love with a man that everything tells me I can't be with. With this revelation of a conflicted memory, where everything keeps changing and forming and unforming, where old memories and dreams are mixed to create new. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with these desires that I was given, these blessings that have so far been cursed, this life that keeps on repeating and repeating as I'd it was an endless loop of boredom and despair. I don't know how to act while the sky keeps falling on my head and the people around me continue living their small deaths. I don't know why I can't sleep at night or stay awake during the day. I don't know why my memory seems to fail to grasp the past as my consciousness fails to focus on the present and future. I don't know if something is broken within me or if everything around me is broken. I don't know why I haven't chosen the sweet release of death or the audacity of adventure. I don't know if I'm truly capable of love, or if love is even capable of existing. What I do know is that I am driven by this force to survive to thrive to fuck to eat to explore to experience, and I know there is jot stopping that desires. To hell with your drugs and conventions and altered desires and failed conceptions and assumptions and plans, I know what I want, I want me, yet I can't stop wanting you. Why did I let you charm me, love me, alter me, fuck me. Why did I let you alter me. I've become a even more estranged stranger to myself. I don't understand how I don't know myself, my truest desires and drives. You say I am a mystery but I am merely a mystery that you created, I exist for you now and without you I cease to exist.

Alas the fountain dries up.

Good morning.

[anotherqueerarab-blog]

Intermission : Crush

The manager of the cafeteria, whom I shall refer to as Zac, always had an interesting sense of fashion. He would always dress up in these businessmen like suits with the classical of colors ranging from beige to dark blue. He would also carry the businessmen like the air of restraint and officious verbal and body language. However, there were always small hints of some sort of attraction or affection in his demeanor. I’ve always entertained the idea of making a move:  Zac’s kind brown eyes, similar but slightly shorter stature paired with a skinny yet solid build and last but not least, his short stubble were simply irresistible in my eyes. But there was always that unwritten rule forbidding any sort of forbidden any sort of “friendliness” between staff and students within a university, paired with my international student social awkwardness and my ever so conformist demeanor have held me back from ever making a move. Until that night at the bar where our paths crossed in the bathroom, I was washing my hands as I noticed him eyeing me with a juxtaposed expression of interest and bewilderment, as well as an emanating smell of alcohol signifying he had taken a glass too many. Having had quite a bit of alcohol myself that night, I make a sly smile and compliment his sense of fashion as I’m walking away from the bathroom sinks. He turns and surprisingly lucidly looks me in the eye and slurs “Well thank you, if you ever need anything, anything at all, feel free to ask”. I hesitate for a moment as my drunken mind tries to emulate a form of realistic logic to process this invitation. His ring shone with a plate yellow, and his behavior always echoed the stereotype of a committed family man, a man raised on a farm in the midwest who climbed his way up in a society as he exchanged his boots for dress shoes and his high school sweetheart for a well-connected wife, but I’ve always wondered if he had entertained the life-wrecking question of “what if?” . What if he decides to throw all of that away for a moment? That desire to excel and to shine and to succeed and to conform? That meaningless competition and charade that we all partake in to lie and believe the lie of happiness and stability, a lie held by the toothpicks of belief and faith and marital loyalty. I compose myself and utter with a much heavier accent than usual and undisguisable look of surprise. “What do you mean exactly?”. He responds with a more relaxed expression on his face “food wise of course! if there’s anything you want to be cooked as international students, I’d be more than glad to provide and cook it myself even!”. Always the responsible businessman, even outside of his working hours  I suppose. I thank him for his kindness with a blatantly fake smile as I’m directing all of the energy that’s usually reserved for social pretension towards the seemingly impossible walking in a semi-straight line and not making a laughing stock of myself as I head out to smoke a cigarette with my red-headed partner in crime. Halfway through my cigarette, Zac caught up with us on the patio, he smilingly asked for a lighter and then proceeded to tell us the story of how he ended up in the American Siberia: “I have to always maintain this air of professional behavior”, he claims “ but on the first day my wife arrived here she ran towards outside the airport towards the car exclaiming: ‘why the fuck is it this cold here ? ‘” giggling as he tried to simulate her gesture of pulling her short down to shield he legs from the freezing winds. I was amused by his use of the word fuck, I thought I’d never heard him utter such a word. My brain started entering the whirlpool of thought surrounded by his utterance of the word fuck: I wonder how does he and his wife “fuck”, is it a satisfying “fuck”, or more of a dry routine marital “fuck”. Would he ever consider me cute enough for us to “fuck”, will I ever sway a man out of the boundaries of conformity and repressed sexuality? I shake the idea as I take another look at his face and the glee that the idea of his wife’s minor inconvenience brings him. He probably has two children and a beautiful blonde wife to return to. A tasty meal, a warm bed, a fridge covered by drawing of happy children, clean dishes tucked in the cabinet, happy photos of happy memories tucked away in drawers among an infinity of other memories and keepsakes. Memories which I’ll never get to know or experience or beginning to understand. A simple life lead by a simple man filled with simple pleasures and simple moments. I don’t know what to feel towards Zac, should I envy him for a life I’ve always wanted but never will? lust for his body which I desire to be mine and have as mine for the same time? be glad for his simple yet happy life that would probably cause me endless misery? but who am I to judge after all, I am but a mere side character in his story and the least I owe him is to not disturb his peace, happiness is the greatest treasure a man can find in life, and if the sacrifice is a part of his curiosity or soul or possibilities, than damned be possibilities, for they are but a small offering at the altar of joy, no matter how temporary it may be. I wish Zac a good night as I head out for my redhead’s apartment, thinking about the fucks that we’ve shared and the fucks we’re about to share, damned be possibilities, I’ve found my happiness in a man that shares his pack of cigarettes willingly with me, and I wasn’t about to let it go. 

[anotherqueerarab-blog]

Faith

What runs the world and specifically what runs my world has always been a question that mystified me. The world is run by money was the first answer that came to my younger mind, economy and economic gain and power were sought and respected by everyone, the golden rule as my counselor used to call it: “who was the gold rules”. However, noticing the many corrupt government and institutions operate, it is easy to notice that money like all other property can and will change owner at the will of those who hold political power, those who control the many institutions that regulate the flow of money within the economy. But that too has proven to be anything but permanent, presidents get voted out of office, dictators get overthrown, companies pull their funds from campaigns etc. Growing even older and coming to discover my sexuality, I realized it must be sex and procreation that run this world, no matter how intellectual we would like to believe we are, many of the reason behind our many actions are within the realm of the purely physical. We vote for the taller candidate, we choose the mate who’s most genetically similar to us, we find people with symmetrical faces most attractive, and almost every product and idea can be sold when they’re correlated with sex. But what is the purpose of sex? Procreation is dismissed due to the fact that most of the sex performed is not done with the desire to produce children, and pleasure is simply too shallow of an answer. Aside from the chemicals produced by our brains during sex, a very peculiar thing is also created by it as a result: a type of social bond. A specific relationship of trust and fragility and power and dominance, as well as a mix of a plethora of other emotions, are created. As much as one would like to classify sex into the realm of the purely physical,  a big part of sex is about faith and belief. We believe this specific act or specific person brings us pleasure, that this emotion and sensation are of at most importance and power, and this not only concerns sex but society as a whole really. Powerful people are powerful because they’re given power by other people, economy, law, morality, and religion all persist because of the power of our shared belief in them. In our modern world that is almost always claimed to be materialistic and irreligious, I would proclaim that we have become almost religious, it is only that we have substituted our gods for our governments, and exchanged our Bibles with the rules of law. Our “secular” society and institutions are run by the power of belief, and that is perhaps there greatest failing and weakness, for if that faith is shaken or challenged, they will crumble and our idols will change once more.  

[purplebuddhaquotes]

I must be an emotional archaeologist because I keep looking for the roots of things, particularly the roots of behavior and why I feel certain ways about certain things.

Fred Rogers (via purplebuddhaquotes)

[anotherqueerarab-blog]

Prologue

I don’t know why I was born, I was born this race, color, height and weight. I don’t know why I was gifted and cursed with this sexuality and this brain. I was always told I’m intelligent, that I’m talented, that I can do anything if I put up my mind on. But that as everyone comes to discover is a lie.  From a very young age I’ve come to realize that my socioeconomic status left much to be desired. I would always promised a plethora of things in exchange for good academic performance, a PlayStation 2  and a bike are two I remember from the top of my mind, and I’ve never played God of war or learned how to ride a bike. To add insult to injury I always felt different growing up, acted different, thought different. I was always the gentle angel kid who never did anything wrong, and how much I despised made no difference. I was expected to act a certain way and I just did I suppose, who am I to judge a 5 year old. A few months earlier I’ve met a book editor in New Orleans, and he told me my story is interesting, that I was interesting, and that my story deserves to be told, and as much as my self-deprecating impulses would like me to stop, my absolute boredom and sleep deprivation through this awful month of hunger and house arrest are pushing me forward. My name is Daniel, or my pen name is at least,  I was born in a small town you never heard off in the small country of Tunisia which you just heard of. I was born in a small Muslim family, assumed myself to be straight, until I fell in love with a man in America. As Typical as this story may seem and as annoying as Kurt Vonnegut-esque style may seem, they said my story deserves to be told, so here I am telling it to the random stranger or the internet bot parsing this. These words have stemmed from the void within me, and hopefully to the void they shall go.