half past nomad

My hand is trembling. I can’t help it, it just is. This cup of tea? Yeah, it hangs delicately in my hand, shaking briefly now and then. I can’t stand up straight right now either, a slight slouch that I hide by straightening my back extra hard. People look at me as I walk by, walking so straight up, my eyes slightly bloodshot, a slight frown on an otherwise dead serious face, my hair a mess. It’s always a mess. I don’t care, I never did.

I’m unreadable.

People try and talk to me, asking me serious questions. I respond to my best, a slight blur of a speech that I hope they don’t notice. My eyes are darting, too quickly it seems, the world shifting in slow motion though. I notice the life extra around me; the clean clean green leaves, that tiny speck on the monitor, that quiet hush of the faucet in the kitchen, the steam dancing ecstatically on its escape into air invisible. I see what you’ll never see and I remember it all now.

I feel like a superhero.

I’m fearless, I’m courageous, I’m invincible, I’m unbeatable, I’m impossible, I’m possible, I’m unattainable, I’m unbelievable, I’m incredible, I’m ingenious, I’m bling bling, I’m #42.
I’m emotionless.

I’m drunk.
On fatigue, on exhaustion, on caffeine.

There are times when I push myself this far, to just sit back and think like this, to walk like this, to talk like this, to experience this cliff of lack of inhibition. Sanity is sometimes like a giant pendulum in murky waters. Shake not the pendulum, shake not the jar and your vision will be fine. Drop in a pebble , mix in some other waters or swing swing swing your pendulum a little quick and-

I remember being drunk at Taco Bell at 3AM and Shahid was there with me Akds, and he laughed and laughed and laughed with me though I can’t remember what the hell I was saying, just him grinning at me and saying “So this is drunk Waleed, eh” and me telling him that he ain’t seen nothin’ yet bro. You were at home, down the alley next to Von’s, in that giant 4 bedroom apartment. Atif once played a Yusuf Estes video where kids were practicing adhaan and you shuffled out of your room, bleary eyed, stubble bearded, half-yawning half-not trying to get in line for an invisible salat and I was leaning on that constantly occupied kitchen counter where Shahid would keep his giant boxes of cereal or was that Atif I don’t know man, I think it was Shahid because he really wanted me to try some, try some Waleed, trust me you will love this stuff.

On and on. Till I passed out someplace dark dark, dark as my eyes, heavy heavy, heavy as my limbs, sweet sweet, sweet my sleep.

Sometimes words don’t come easy. They just don’t.

You stand in a sea of letters, in an ocean of words and you look around nervously. You stand at the edge of phrases, at the border of expressions and you doubt doubt doubt.

Sometimes words don’t come easy.

You have a dictionary spilled open, you look at all the words that exist and you put on your working cap. You pick up your tiny tweezers, you pick a clean sheet of paper and your hand hovers over, your mind ponders over, your thoughts puzzle over these choices.

Sometimes words don’t come easy.

There are moments in life when your senses are enhanced, your memory is extra sensitive to each capture it makes and your heart is incrediby conscious of each molecule of oxygen it pulls in. Time itself slows down to stare at you; you win that staring contest. Life intensified is zoomed in and just like that, time recovers, your heart pumps normally, your memory crouches back , life zooms out and you’re left with a letter in your hand.

Sometimes words don’t come easy.
They honestly don’t.

In exactly 24 hours, my life will be back to what was once a norm. True, it no longer is but habits are hard to break. Especially a 7 year old one. In 24 hours, my parents fly out to VA. That means dinner with Jalali Baba, hook ups with Knicq and driving for hours to say ‘allo love!‘ to a Karva Karela.

Dear God. Let the adventures begin. Amen.