Shoes

Buroj

The first thing to do when entering a traditional Palestinian house is to take off your shoes. So take them off, be aware to not flip them, they can be licked by the demons, as my grandma says. Welcome to my house…

The First Pair: The Mirrors

The mirror in our tiny bathroom is older than the occupation, its broken sides are glued with tape, one side will never be fixed; it is swaying like a raccoon on an oak. On the half-broken shelves, you will find old nail scissors from 1993, surprisingly, they are almost functional, and my father’s razor, the one I used to shave my hairy legs with back when I was in ninth grade, cutting through my bloody skin. Now, as I turned 32, I use his razor to shave my imaginary beard. It feels good to be in front of that same mirror. I have the longest monologues; I dance and cry my watery innocent racoon pupils out. They leave my eyeballs and wander towards you, to catch a glimpse then come back to the monologue, for it to transform me into a portal of imagination.

Imagination has kept me company since the day I started to save memories in my skull and muscles. Imaginary friends, scenes, lives. When I was a child, I had a classroom in my room—I was teaching all my stuffed and imaginary animals. I had a completely different family than mine. It hits me now, that in one of my imaginary worlds, I was the boy character, a boy with a problem in his leg. For that he was getting bullied and he fought back. I was this brave blonde boy with the light beard and the blue hazel eyes. Through creating another life in my imagination and acting in it in real life, I had the chance to escape the reality of my own. I could have what wasn’t accessible in real life. As a result, it gave me the power and ability to always stand up for myself. Once in elementary school, the teacher asked me to go outside as soon as she entered the classroom because she basically didn’t like me. While walking outside, one of my classmates started laughing and saying, “Oh, look at her she walks like a man,” and everyone joined his orchestra of laughing. Back then I thought that this was an insult, therefore I shot back and told him to eat shit. He didn’t expect it, but he swallowed the air in front of him and I hoped it tasted like shit in his mouth. From this incident onwards, I felt that my strength and my shaky legs could hold me at every occasion.

Even while lying sprawled on our Berlin bathroom floor. There, on the other hand, our mirror is split into one big mirror with a wooden frame and another four small parts sticking out under it, reflecting the wall behind, which is filled with words written by me, my friends and everyone who visits our bathroom, a small, closed theatre with one portal.

Both mirrors open to each other through imagination, reflecting me, water, clear, unapologetic, and fully naked. Alongside the rays of each and every wildflower of my honey eyes…

***

The Second Pair: The Bike

It is the fourth of April 2025, precisely 22:49. Around me four walls with different shades of pink—dark, light, lighter one revealing deep skin and lastly fascia pink with glitter. Four walls building a room, located in our small, detailed house encircled by gardens blooming like spring in paradise. Our garden is infused with colours and birds, you can find bird houses, ants houses, cats roaming around, snakes in the summer, lizards jumping here and there, every toothbrush that we ever used in our lifetime, bikes holding plants and cactus in every corner, even one dangling from the corner of the high ceiling. On the stretch of the cleanest neighbourhood in the village are my uncles’ houses, every house another heaven, every house another tale. Our neighbourhood is located in the village of sheep, let us call it like that, in the south of the Galilee in occupied Palestine. It’s dark now and I can’t fall asleep.

I remember the reason behind my pink walls, back in my teenage days I fell in love with my best friend. At first, I didn’t understand what was going on! Why was I feeling this way! Counting every time we kissed on the cheek, having her picture on my phone’s home screen, hurt occurring whenever she ignored me at school, every time we met, my heart, ahh, it skipped a beat. She loved pink. So I turned my room into a pink palace with me and her in my imagination. Once in ninth grade, while we were sitting outside on the stairs of the school yard, one of our common friends back in the day, told me: “Hey, you are a lesbian.”

“What does that even mean?” I replied.

“That you fall in love with women,” she said. I panicked and made a yak with my mouth. Same mouth that would sing her a poem to put her to sleep.

Apparently, she could see what I was hiding inside. It took me eight years after this to admit loudly on my way back home after a long night shift in far away Germany, while riding my bike beside the lake, shouting loud and crying louder:

“I AM A LESBIAN.”

My bike is my forever free place…

***

The Third Pair: Pink and Purple

I came back to visit the shades of pink and spring at the beginning of March this year to fast Ramadan and celebrate Eid with my family. After 15 years of being away, just writing it down reveals the pain of this truth.

Today we celebrated my uncle’s birthday, I wanted to be there on his birthday, to be in their company once again. One thing never changes about exile, the feeling of goodbye, it doesn’t leave you, not for a second, every minute carries a wind from the very close farewell.

It’s 22:51 now. Why am I this awake? Is it you that I am waiting for? You know exactly where I live, the street knows your name. Why don’t you come, My Beloved? I will wait for you in every corner, in every flower, in every cactus, in every atom of the air, in every brick of those tales… I will be here, so you can find me, whenever you come to visit. Come to see my hair before it gets too long. Perhaps it is growing longer and longer each day, down my ears, down the back of my neck, despite my cousin’s new barbershop five seconds away. I can’t go, not yet. It is not acceptable for me to go, everyone will talk about me, if they aren’t already, saying that I transitioned, before me even saying it out loud, they actually helped me realise that I am transgender! Due to my short hair, wide clothes and me not being married yet, they think that I transitioned. The criteria scale of being a woman and a man is very narrow, it can suffocate you, but this very village feeds you air like the bird uses its peak, constantly and always. So you can expand in each and every form.

“Shave us barber, shave us with your silver razor,”¹ I was humming this song in my heart when I shaved my head for the first time to the fourth level in Rishikesh, sitting between a stranger’s hands, they felt familiar and comfy, in a small purple barbershop in front of a dusty mirror, tears running down my cheeks. I imagined myself as the groom, getting shaved by the barber of the neighbourhood, my father’s cousin, I was thinking about you, waiting for me to pick you up. The Ganges river streamed down my eyelashes. Every tear capturing a wish, crystals holding us together.

“Aweyha, I ran after the horses to become your family, Aweyha, the air blew, throwing me on your doorsteps, Aweyha, I prayed to the god of the sky to stand by you.”²

***

1. A Palestinian traditional wedding’s songs, sang in the day of the hamam/the groom’s shower, where the hair and the beard get shaved and cut. “احلقياحلاقبالموسالفضة.” Translated to English by the author.

2. Another Palestinian traditional wedding’s songs, sang in the day of the hamam/the groom’s shower, where the hair and the beard get shaved and cut. Translated to English by the author.

ايويها،ضليتاركضوراالجوادلناسبهم

ايويها، هب الهواء ورماني على مصاطبهم

ايويها،دعيتربالسماءينصرهم

The Fourth Pair: My future Self and the Moon

“It must be the moon.” I mumbled blushing. The first time I talked to her, butterflies flew through my spine, exchanged with love and amusement. My body turned into an amusement park. Recalling the night, the moon was shining through the window on my left side covering itself with the dusty heaviness of the air, perhaps shy to appear completely. Did anyone catch a glimpse of me while scrolling through content of queerness, quotes of poetry, pictures of lemon trees in Italy, lesbians painted in the land of grapes, kisses and more kisses? Did anyone notice the carousel rolling cotton candy in my heart?

It was on one of those long library nights, in the medicine library, I was sitting in one of the grey cabins built out of two grey walls rising halfway through the ceiling on a super comfy chair upholstered with red fabric and in front of me a grey desk. Something brought me to this platform, unknown mystery; my future self? Maybe. The moon, shining through the window on my left side, started to uncover its shyness and slowly appear as this biteable cake. I dug my fingers into the dark blue exploring, finding fellow queers and to my surprise back in those days I could find fellow Arab queers and my first girlfriend, we stayed together for four months before deciding to separate. We met once in real life in Acre, every detail is saved in the paths of my railway. This meeting was a rollercoaster on this path, it was my first date and it was in Palestine, in front of the sea, barefoot. Nothing to hide. We sat in the parking lot of the sea, the night was light and spring spread its smell with the splash of the waves, we kissed, she laid her head in my lap and cried, I cried too. My body was swinging between fear and desire, I was scared to be seen, to uncover, to fall more into her, because I knew that sooner or later, she would leave and we both did.

I went back to the virtual moon land looking for new love, for more familiarity, I am nameless here and I could be my lesbian self with less consideration that anyone will know me and tell my family about me being a lesbian on the internet. I could also rename myself into a cloud, flower, word, quote, cake, carousel, shams (sun) or you. It felt freeing to ride my bike in the virtual moon land. It led me to my second Arab girlfriend, who I spent four years with. Between a distant relationship, a couple of meetings, corona leading to longing and me moving to Berlin our relationship started to lose its Balance. Berlin made me desire real life dating. And Berlin, the city that puts you in balance, you may fall, you may rise and you may stay meditating in tree pose. I asked her if we could open the relationship, which she accepted and after that everything is history. We tried hard to make it work, to rebuild but the damage was bigger than the bricks. We couldn’t stay together. I discovered recently that four years later I have not completely healed yet.

In this virtual moon land, I was allowed to fall in love with other women.

The sole thought of loving other women was so terrifying to me before, that I hid myself in a grey cave, in a small medicine library, in a cold city in the west of Germany, with an artificial lake and a very nice old centre. But love could eventually find her way to me…

And slowly the moon appeared completely, shaking off the dust of the air…

***

The Fifth Pair: With and Without C₂₀H₂₅N₃O

In the summer days of last year, I attended a festival in an open-air iron museum two hours away from Berlin. I biked on a long path with my two backpacks and one trolley bag, set up my tent, smoked my joint and went to pray by the lake, near my house for the upcoming three days. I stood in the presence of the space, techno rhythm reaching me through the movement of the water, my soul dancing in a prayer position. Lights reflecting on the skull of the lake and in my gratitude. The virtual moon land finally turned into a real one. I am here and I am queer.

Every second in this place felt like home, every person that I crossed paths with, felt known and close, as close as the atoms around us. We danced along beats from all over the world, even Ruby was flying around us with her butterfly wings. We danced, we played, we loved. We dance, we play, we love. I went on stage completely free and started to move like Nicole Saba in her music video, “I am like that, انا طبعي كدة.” Old and new friends around me dancing and singing, I was content, we were content.

It was 05:40 on the last morning of the festival, chilly summer air numbing my toes, in my arms a fellow queer, it was the first time we meet, they were hallucinating from LCD, and I belonged to the awareness team, so I sat with him on an uncomfortable wooden bench, me, him and his boyfriend, we were hugging as if there is no tomorrow and perhaps no farewells and no death. He couldn’t believe that this was all real, this queer heaven-village, he couldn’t believe reality, we gave each other love as if this was the only reality. I can’t recall his name, but his hug and the smell coming out of his high mouth are things I will never forget.

It must be the moon…

***

The Sixth Pair: The Sinners

While making my coffee with the first rays of a random morning, my mom’s, sister’s and my voice were boiling like fire in my blood circulation: I am not employed, “YOU ARE UNEMPLOYED!” I should go back to work! People are working but I am not, what a SIN! Another ingredient to hell, to be the other, the sinner.

Leading me to remember The Others, an Arabic novel written by Siba Al Harz (a pen name). When I first found it, a door to heaven was unlocked. I was in one of the grey caves, overlooking a big green tree, this time searching on the Internet for lesbian literature in Arabic until I came across The Others or perhaps it came to me. Discovering the book felt like entering my ninth-grade imagination. The narrator (main character) and Dy (her beloved) were colliding into love, melting in and out of it. I felt every emotion they held, every interaction deep in my muscles tissues. My feet started to sweeten while reading, with the thought that we are the sinners. I read, read and reread, forgetting all about my exams. Unlike the anatomy books, my anatomy was bleeding with happiness, excitement, pleasure and even embarrassment. The water from my feet rose up to my vagina, jumping into a waterfall. The long monologue by the narrator, explaining the tiniest places of our psyche, was irresistible. Stopping everything just to read another page, just to reread the same page, perhaps I am doing it now again. It is the seventh of April, precisely 23:36, I am reading The Others, drinking coffee and I come across a scene where the narrator puts a mixtape in her lover’s bag after she’s left her, out of fear. On it is the song: “، حبيبتي والمطر My lover and the rain.”¹ Me and the narrator are connected through this song. I too prepared a notebook for my unrequited love and wrote this song down on the first page. And then, secondly, I stood in front of the mirror imagining myself as Kadem, singing the song out loud. To then, lastly, while cleaning the storage room in our house with my mom and coming across old mixtapes, I found a yellow mixtape with the same song on it. Was it you dear fellow Sinner? Oh, how lovely to be one.

If we are sinners, then let me love you for one more time…

***

1. “My Lover and the Rain,” is a poem written by the great Syrian poet Nizar Qabanni and sang by the great Iraqi singer and musician Kadem Al Saher.

The Seventh Pair: The Palestinian Sunbird and the Painter

Why is it so hard to rename my family name?

I decided recently to use both of my last names, from my father’s side as it always has been and from my mother’s side, feeling the necessity to include her family name as well. This simple act caused a lot of contradictions in the family, even my mom protested my decision. After that, a day never goes without me hesitating about the way to write my name. So I decided to be anonymous, like it is in the virtual moon land. To avoid people humming around my ears.

Unless, unless it is you, my Palestinian sunbird, then I subdue. You know, I have never loved the way I am loving you right now. Is this the love that everyone talks about? Wanting to be close to you, by your side. Is it still forbidden to be held as a queer? Is it still forbidden to be a Palestinian? I would walk towards you, wherever you are to hold your hand. If they cut my legs, then my wings will fly me towards you. If they take my hands, then my mouth will sing you poetry. If they cut my wings, then my fluffy raccoon tail will jump me just to sit beside you. If I lose every body part, then I will return to my shadow to be what you want me to be.

My love, I don’t see you but you make me see myself, crazy the way I feel you, the idea of your sadness makes me cry, the idea of your laugh and happiness makes me bloom like the spring on our doorsteps. I took a walk in our garden, collected some flowers, told them about you, felt them in my nose, asked them if they wanna come with me and they did. They smell so nice and they are bright, full as the noon moon. If I were a painter, how would I describe the noon moon?

The sky is clear blue, reflecting the water of the red sea on a spring day. We were floating like a wave deep into a field of purple, an internal solid rock held our bare feet, you held my hands and I held your hands. My cheeks, a wildflower.

May I ask to hold your hands this time? I promise, I will never leave…

***

The Eighth Pair: The Poem and the Proposal

Mirrors reflecting memories,

they heal me

with the chemistry of poetry;

I propose to you

While I imagine

Myself as a boy

with pink slippers

Myself as a girl

with a cake in your mouth

myself as you

you as me

you and me.

Be beware my dear

For that,

I Am the sinner

The Other

I have no identity card

I am anonymous

I love my bike

And I am free

So free

And I will

Love you forever…

***

The Ninth Pair: Airport and Anxiety

I am the daughter who hates clothes shopping. Clothes shopping is my claustrophobic nightmare. My mom, on the other hand, loves it so much that whenever she visits I need to be with her on her shopping journey; this dress is for the friend who brings us Akob/عكوب¹, this is for your aunt, this is for your brother, for the nieces and etc…

While roaming the streets of Brussels in February this year, my mom entered random clothing shops. To find a piece, any piece one could buy. In one clothes store, they were playing a remix of Elissa and Nawal Al Zoughby, mixed with really bad reggae—where they changed Elissa’s and Nawal’s voices into another nightmare. Mom was looking for a long pullover, consulting the woman working there, who guided her to go upstairs. I was waiting downstairs with her coat and belongings, as a good son should do. There in front of me were shoes, all kinds of shoes. I imagined myself wearing one of those, maybe with a dress and this pink slipper with an ornament on it, I would have been the perfect wife! If fate had not chosen me in its queerness. Thank god it chose me.

Why did the shoes stick with me? Is it because of my foot fetish or did they trigger something in me? And if so, what?

During the time staring at the shoes, my heart felt anxious, heavy and tiny, really tiny, as if it was losing its place. At the same moment, I was waiting for a message from her on Tumblr, the virtual moon land, she texts me whenever she wants to, there is nothing between us but words, words that turned into attraction. To increase my anxiety, I logged into my bank account and there was nothing there either.

Maybe I am trying to make you all laugh, me included, because I know how a good laugh can optimise the activity of reading and relieve anxiety. Especially when the writer is a Palestinian queer woman, who feels that she is transgender, sitting right now at the airport with her parents and fearing that someone will aim a gun at them. So they use their two strong passports, neither of which she belongs to! The Israeli and the German one! Oops, I didn’t bring them this time…

Apparently, staring at the shoes wasn’t so bad after all…

***

1. Akob is a plant that grows in the mountains of Palestine, people tend to cook it with onions and olive oil and this plant never dies, it sends its pollen to the earth and it grows again.

Buroj, lives between writing things and not writing them. Sometimes waves create a movement in their soul and words float from their soft nest. Other times words stop to float but not writing. Instead, even in times of sleeping they collect branches with the Palestinian sunbirds, building an upcoming yet unseen nest. At times he thinks he is a man, a woman, everything and nothing.

Shoes

Share this: