Lebanon's Beautiful Faces

I was going to publish this post of mine in Arabic, but thanks to Mirvat, here's the translation for non-arabic readers.

I leave my house every day running away from my reflection in the mirror. I flee to empty streets and closed shops. My face lurks in the windows of the shops.

I don’t keep track of the hour. The days lost me. I get my first lesson in tranquilizers from the pharmacist and I see my face in his look, his gestures and the pill.

I open my mail. Friends. Strangers. Interviews. Tender voices. I say I am fine. I see my face blink between the silence and the words.

I search for my scream that is yet to reach out. An angry silence, dry, dances to the constant deafening humming in my head. I do everything for the violent banging to stop. I pray to be swiftly swept by menstrual pain so I would forget the pain festering in my thoughts. I pray to vomit it out with all what is stuck inside of me of disgust and hate and burned bodies and indifferent world. I pray for these faces to look away.
These faces that, every time I try to hide my eyes, take my hands away and stare at me.

How our faces resemble the heart and soul of this land. How they carry prints of our sand, our dust our papers and our dates.. How they resemble the vineyards of Bekaa, the apples of the mountain, Saida’s castle and Sour’s marina. How full these faces are of the summer’s sun, of December’s wrath, of rain dripples on the windows and of September’s last days. How our faces scream of springs, of mountain roads, of tree branches that witnessed our childhood, of stolen first kisses… How our faces draw smiles out of disasters and print the tears we dried with laughter… How you, My Lebanon, live in our faces…

On TV, a caller mourns Layal, the journalist killed by Israeli aggression, hoping Layal’s shining soul would live again through her gorgeous face, the voice whispers to her “you too are like my Lebanon, beautiful, smart worldly, your fate is to always die at the end”… All these faces… Lebanon every where I go… And I cannot look…

And you… you come to take my hands off my face, you demand that I look. You raise your voice “look, look!”, while you tie my tired wrists. And you keep demanding till I finally scream, a scream far out, out of the earth. A scream stronger of all the details in history and all the destinies. A scream for Lebanon’s beautiful faces.