It's been a long, long time since i've cried like i'm crying now.

It's almost painful because i'm so exhausted - i feel like the energy and fluid for all these tears have run out, but the crying controls me, and squeezes every pant and every drop out of me.

I tried writing about the 12th of March, 2008, when everything started to change. Several time's id tried, and each time this damned bravejournal did something wrong - i'd finish the detailed and extra-long memoir, press post, and then see 'the page cannot be displayed' or 'Log in again please.' Or it would randomly switch pages when i'm in the middle of it.

So i'm giving up until my inspiration returns. For now, my eyes are swollen and the skin of my face is burning painfully from the salty tears - my skin is just a little too sensitive if that could happen to it.

I'm waiting here for wessam to come home from college and set off to meet me. I always miss him when we're apart, so bad and so terribly. Damn, it sucks.

But that's not why i'm crying. I've just come back from the gym. I havent slept since  9pm yesterday. I am physically tired out, but willing to live out the night until it's time to go home, just to get my sleeping patterns back on track. I saw a 10-month-old baby at the gym, in her mother's lap. I couldn't stop playing around with her. Her hands were small and chubby and her fingers wrapped tightly around my index finger. She giggled and smiled at me. Her black hair was thick and soft and ruffled. Her face was unbelievably soft, as if she'd just come out of the womb. She tried to grab my gatorade. I couldn't stop smiling as i held her hand and coddled her.

But i felt a heavy load on my back as soon as i went off to work out. I set the treadmill on as fast a speed as i could handle without having to run (my heart is still a mess and i wont be running anytime soon) and i put it on a high enough incline to feel the strain with every step. There was something i wanted to detox from my body - something i wanted to sweat out of me.

It didn't work.

And now i'm sitting here, in my bed, writing and crying hysterically when i should be sleeping. It all just came out of nowhere as i was thinking about 12th of March, 2008. It was the first time i got drunk in three years, and it was the day before everything changed.

No, it was the night when everything began to change.

I thought about it. How we let our feelings out into the open with the help of a few vodka pops, and how that strained our beautiful, although somewhat stupid friendship. I remember the way he said "i think you deserve somebody who will take you seriously. You deserve real love with somebody who can handle it." It was a gift he gave me, a few nights after we went all the way into the open with our attraction.

"What if i don't want somebody else?" I asked, and i winced at him.

He hugged me. We sat at the dining table, staring out the windows to the view of cairo and the nile below. I cried, and he almost cried, and i was so damn disappointed that i had let myself fall so hard for him. I was so damn disappointed that he loved me back, but couldn't handle such strong and intense emotions.

I had the worst binge drink ever after that. I sat around crying, drank vodka and wailed and held my head in my hands like a little kid. It was something i never, ever would have done over a guy before. I sobbed until i couldn't sob anymore. My crying was so tiring that i blacked out from drinking too much, and woke up with vomit everywhere. Somehow i'd gotten on my bed. I was deeply sad and badly hung over, and after crying my heart out all over again, i lost all feeling, and i became numb.

And wessam had the power to bring those emotions back. I had become so apathetic i didnt give a damn about a single thing - i stopped taking my medication because i couldn't be bothered, i lost all concentration, i didn't give a damn about romance and love anymore. I didnt give a damn if i was being used or not, if i was spiraling down or not. The virginity i had guarded so carefully from so many people for the past three years, i decided i had to get rid of. And i made that decision the first time i met wessam - simply because he's wessam.

And within a month my emotions were back. But that was after an alcohol OD, a heartbreak, an OD on my meds that wound up with my stomach being pumped, and a loss of my virginity. When i considered that wessam could have been using me as a sex toy and i could have been walking into a trap, i just shrugged. "it's not like he's going to kill me." i said.

He told me he loved me that night, and he meant it. He wiped the blood from my legs. He curled up with me on the mattress on siri's bedroom floor, and wrapped me in his arms. He watched me sleep, waking up so many times just to kiss my forehead. I never slept so well in my entire life. We were practically strangers, but he was in love with me. And eventually, after overcoming the past troubles and being able to see Kris without yearning for him like i used to, i loved him back.

That was almost a year ago. And now, i'm supposed to be eight months pregnant with his baby. I'm supposed to be in school. I'm supposed to be balancing my six best friends with the love of my life. I'm supposed to be better than this - i'm supposed to be out of this depression. But i'm so exhausted, and the feminist in me is exhausted, but keeps running wild because i'm living in such a damned stupid place, and i'm terrified by the culture of this place - his mind is sometimes so egyptian that it scares me. I want to be away from almost anything even remotely egyptian/muslim/arab, because i feel inferior here. And i'm sick of it. I feel like a walking pussy and nothing more. Wessam's way of thinking, as well as his much worse cousins and friends, sometimes bothers me so much i can't drop it. I love him with every fiber of my being, but i hate the part of him that happens to be traditional arab. Because, when that part comes out, i feel like i really was created by god with the bone from adam's foot, and not his rib.

I'm tired of it. I yearn for trinidad, or the US, or the UK - anywhere else. I can't stand feeling like i live in a man's world, and i exist only as a part of it. I cant stand feeling like a piece of meat. I cant stand feeling like wessam's accessory whenever we go out to see his cousins n their fucked up, even more close-minded friends.

I love every single part of him except that one. And unless i fix his head, travel the world, show him how it really should be... that tiny part of him will drive me crazy. That  tiny part of him will force me to wear a veil when we're married (i'm not sure of that, but anything's possible with a muslim arab...) and that tiny part of him will force my children to become muslim  before they even have the maturity to think about who and what they want to be.

I'm exhausted, wishing i had a form of escape from this abominable place and abominable mentality. I'm exhausted, regretting my son's death. I'm exhausted, being constantly mentally tortured and tricked by my so - called parents. I'm exhausted, wishing i had a true motherly figure. I'm exhausted, after having to give up the closest friends i had. I'm exhausted, after all that's happened since the 12th of March, 2008.

And all of a sudden, on today of all days, i've unlocked the springs of sorrow that built from these misfortunes, and the dam is breaking down. I'm crying because of the past, and because of the future, and because of now.

But where is now?

Here is now. Here in my bedroom, under the covers, stuck to a laptop while the world rages on outside my huge windows and i'm just too depressed to be a part of it. I think of all the things i've lost and all i've never had and all that i'm at risk of losing, instead of blocking it out with the gift from god that i have now. And for the first time i truly feel what's happened in the past year, and it tears me apart. April 2nd was the due date for my baby.

So here's my project. I'll write all the memoirs i can and reach the point where it gets to the miscarriage by April 2nd. I'll focus on that. I'll honor his memory, because he didn't have a name or a grave. God, they probably just put him in the trash. Like a candy wrapper or a scab. The only one who truly cared that he had no name, no identity and no memory is me.

Wessam and i were sitting in his car on saturday, drinking apple malt sodas and chatting away about music and other random things. But a pregnant woman passed with her husband - the kind with a pretty big bump, and the kind that knows how to dress and has a nice sense of style. And both of  us, as soon as she came into view, stopped mid sentence and just watched her. The silence wasn't noticed. We were both in our own worlds, staring at her for the duration of time she spent in our line of sight.

All i could say is, "That's not fair..."

And wessam didn't even speak.

Goddamn, i'm supposed to be even bigger than she was.

Nothing makes sense about this. Nothing is fair. Nothing.

And i would rather crawl into a hole right now and never have to get out, no matter how many nails they drive down that hole, than i would go out today n sit in the stupid music studio and sing along with wessam's extreme talent on the electric guitar, and have everybody obsess over how good my voice is. I would rather stay here and close my eyes and never have to open them again, just to see if he really did count as a human being in god's eyes and enter heaven as he should.

My nameless child.... he would have been as much of a literary talent as i am, or as incredible on the guitar as he is, or as vocally skilled as i am. He would have been smart. He would have been as talented and characteristical and indescribably beautiful as we both are, and i would have been the one in charge of this extraordinary being - i would have been the one to give him everything that my parents never did, and i would have been the biggest part of his life, until it's time for him to start his own. I would have watched him grow into the talented and handsome and caring man he would have been. I would be feeling him kick in my stomach right now. I would have dedicated everything in my life to him.

But that doesnt  matter anymore. Darrel, zach, adam, damien, whoever he would have been - it just doesnt fucking matter.

I exist as entertainment for others. "You have a problem with feminism and rape," wessam said recently.

I laughed it off until he got serious.

But the thing is, until you've had somebody force himself onto you, let alone with the intention to cause sickening pain, you dont know what the hell you're talking about when you talk about rape. Those who take it as nothing, or even find it funny ( the same way wessam did, with all his fucked up drug addict friends) only treat it that way cause they don't know what they're taking as nothing, or are sick minded enough to find that funny.

He told me to hate trinidad, not egypt, because it happened to me in trinidad.

But in trinidad it's a rarity. You wont find a public school full of animalistic rapists who'd lock a girl in a classroom n perform a gang rape. You wont find sixty grown men in the same place fucking up three teenage girls in broad daylight. If the pedestrians saw it happening they wouldn't join in - they'd start an angry mob n tear those sickos to pieces. Rape there is an isolated incident. Here, we're harassed and assaulted in broad view and instead of being horrified, every onlooker with a dick just enjoys it.

Either way, i'm the only person in that conversation who actually understood the meaning of rape enough to know how the reaction should be. He can't expect me to be normal. He cant expect me to take it when he finds a gang rape of 1 girl by 10 men funny. It's that small egyptian piece of him again, coming out to haunt me and make me second-guess everything.

All i want to do right now is slit my wrists. I havent done it ever since i met his mom, and wessam believed i'd only done it twice. He was oblivious to the real truth, that i had to make more than one slit for each session, and have at least two sessions every day. I have dark, obvious scars on my wrists now. And he checks them every time he sees me. There's no hiding. Plus, he told me he'd kill me if i do it again, n i dont want a repeat of what happened the last time.

He's all i have. I almost hate saying it but it's true. What are my parents? nothing. And  what did i do with my closest friends? I had no choice but to cut most of them off. And what of my siblings? They both take advantage of my parent's strong dislike of me.

Fun fun.

Give me a bottle of scotch whiskey to follow a bottle of painkillers. Or a shotgun, so i can blow my fucking brains out.

Shit, would you look at me? Nothing big and bad has even happened in the last few days and i've overflowed like this. My face is burning from all the salt and my eyes are burning from the overworking of the tear ducts.

Shit, i also need to sleep.

Lynn.

WOW... You are so sad. You seem like such a lovely girl, I can't believe people can be so cruel and unfeeling. I'm not sure what to say except your inner strength and obvious intelligence will get you through this hard time. It sometimes hard for us guys to "get it" To undertsand how to treat a woman properly. Not like property or something that is to be USEED and then tossed aside. YOU DESERVE THE BEST LIFE HAS TO OFFER... Your parents? FUCK EM' these awful dudes? DUMP EM' Even tho your blog was sad I could hear a strength in you, and tho I do not know you, I felt you were dealing with your issues as you need to. You have to take the time out FOR YOU... and the world these days is full of haters and abusers.. but not everone is bad There are some of us who still manage to love and live without destroying others, but they are few and far between. You WILL get through this sadness. There is a light inside you ... I could see that. I will pray for you and ask GOD to send you a guardian angel. Sometimes angels need an angel themselves. Hang in beautiful girl. Shawno

Hi Lynn, it's me again. I'm drawn to your site. We do not run parallel lives, and my life is boring compared to you but I am awed by your thoughts and the way you bring your feelings out -- My life is not as colorful as yours but I've been raised to sweep sadness and grief under the carpet, pretend to be strong and survive in a sugar-coated world. But I found out that sweeping DOESN'T MEAN "not" resolving. I have the power within me to TRANSCEND, just as you do. Use that power to your advantage instead of letting them all ...to win. Like what others have said, you are smart, we can see the light within you. Try not to self-destroy. You can be in control with more constructive things. Perhaps, I'm trying to make you angry. Perhaps. So angry that I hope to make you say "I'll show you!"...so that you'll come out triumphant and happy and healthy and smiling in the end. That's my wish for you. There's a bright future out there waiting. And remember, in the Karma Bank of Life, consider yourself the "depositor" -- these people who wrong you, they keep owing. In the end, you know who will settle big debts. Not you.

Uh oh it's me again. I can't help it. I'm reading and some words are making me cry. Okay, hopefully this will be the last. You don't have to listen to me because it is your right. I just wanted to say something about the baby. I know this isn't my place to go. But it helped my husband and I that we named our baby. We gave him a little memorial service (even just the two of you will do), and threw him a little ceremonial party to represent all the birthday parties that we will no longer be able to throw for him as his proud parents. Sad...no first birthday cake, no little league, no trick-or-treating, but the memorial gave us closure. Although not completely, it's as if a little comforting hand was rubbing on my back saying, "It's okay, mom, you did your best" even if I know I probably didn't. Doing my best -- holding that memorial service, having a little ceremony party with my husband eating Cody's Birthday cake -- that was part of doing my best, which I think may have come too late...but perhaps only in my eyes. Maybe in Cody's eyes, it is good enough...maybe it was the best. I still talk to him, I visualize him sitting on my dresser with little angel wings, or floating by the traffic light on days when I am having a bad day coming home. I "imagine" him holding my head when I have a headache, and blowing in my ear when I'm alone. It's all in my mind, but maybe it's not. Maybe indeed, thought is real, physical is the illusion. Maybe, it's all okay.

Lynn, you are loved... you are valued... you are not alone... YOU ARE WORTH FIGHTING FOR honey....

Hi darling. You're a beautiful person - there's no need for me to repeat this - and all these people, strangers in fact, can see it too. And since they're reading a completely open & honest journal, there's no misunderstandings. Your voice resonates. You're amazing. Remember that. You deserve, and WILL get your happiness.

Thanks for dropping by the Tree, Lynn. I'm sorry I didn't see your comment on "Westward Ho" before now...

Yes, the silence and the sheer magnitude of it all really does wonders for helping find one's center within the stillness. I just hate living in the city; it's noisy, it's stinks... It's just awful...

You can find that stillness within yourself, too, when things are getting overwhelming for you, Lynn. Just close your eyes and concentrate on the peace and quiet of the open desert... Feel the wind as it kisses away your tears; hear the sand as it blows away your pain; see the canopy of stars as they light up your life from the inside out... Use those times in the peace of the desert to help you heal your spirit, Lynn. Nature is powerful in her ability; let her in, and you will never be the same...