How much shall this body endure?

As a queer witch-looking woman from Baalbeck, people have a lot of expectations about what they think I should write about. The septum piercing is usually the tell-tale sign of all the wonderful personal exposés I will share about the fights I must have daily to assert my queerness, and the discrimination I face in the eyes of onlookers at the Khalife Falafel 3a m7atet lzheiry. They brace themselves for the extraordinary words that will come out of my mouth as I share intimate details about the magnificence of making love to a they/them femme.

I won’t lie, exiting Heterostan has made me exponentially cooler and more cultured on important topics that I could write about. I read my essays today, and my blogs from before my frontal lobe developed at 25 years old, and I can’t help but wonder: what on earth could a cis male have done to upset me so deeply then? Therapy expeditions later, I realize that the cis male that has "done the damage" is my father... and his projection in my loved boyfriends.

Expectations are exhausting. They remind me how much I am constantly perceived.

How many people a day experience my existence in ways I never could? How many people have their senses absorb my existence without consent? The light reflecting off my ass? The sound of my misandrist voice shouting at the taxi driver who insists that I’m a sex worker 3al Tayouneh? The texture of my weird big toe that is still healing from that one rave last spring? How many people have information about how I exist, and how I take up space, without my knowledge?

Of course, this only bothers me EVERY SINGLE DAY… Except when I’m drunk at Tota, that’s when I want all the she/theys to perceive me fully with all their senses.

In 2024, however, I started being perceived by a very sexy bachelorette whose name will remain a mystery... because none of you know we have the same name.I fell in love with her two weeks after meeting her in person, after the war had postponed a reading she was supposed to be a part of at Zoukak Theatre. The night of the ceasefire, all hell broke loose, and any hope of getting some kitty was gone with the wind as she told me that bet ahla 3a Ras El Nabe3...

Weeks later, the show at Zoukak ran again, and she performed and talked about sour and a magnificent woman she used to visit, and I realized in the depth of her mismatched black-on-black style and 39 bead bracelets that I am lost for her. Months later, another reading opportunity came up and she sent it to me, and of course, wanting to impress her, I signed up. I’m a big smart boy. I write too. Hey everyone, come see me puke my heart out on stage so that she can fall in love with me forever.

It worked, I think.

She does love me back regardless of the unnerving way I performed as my mother in that show (li bya3ref bya3ref), but what I surely know is that day, a lot of people realized my writing is decent and haven't stopped asking me to write since then. One time I was in Riwaq with my girlfriend and Dima Mikhael Matta. They talked for two hours about how imperative it is that I write again. Dima, who was with me at the original show, went on about how great it would be to hear my stories again, even if it's the same story I performed but rewritten. And my lover went on about how I should be a feature on Cliffhangers and share my experience as a queeraye growing up in Baalbeck.

It reminded me adde bstaghreb when people stare at me when I’m in Baalbeck, forgetting that I look like... well, this.

Points at self.

The problem is that Dima and lahaleebo are right, of course, but they always end up catching me at the end of a party when I’m overstimulated and shitfaced and I hit them with the: We'll see. 

(Dissociated smile on a resting bitch face while plucking my hair.)

You see, I can’t force myself to write unless I’m getting paid. (Not today though, I'm doing this out of pure devotion.) But seriously, I can’t write just by sitting down. Usually, I have a great angle or idea pop into my head that I capitalize on, if I happen to have the time.

Which is why I am writing to you today from my airplane back from Om El Donya, Misr, after a shitty trip to shat Iskenderia. Ayre shat el hawa. (Clearly I’m not on an airplane bas ken nezel 3laye l wa7i nhareta.)

And now, I’m happy this introduction is over so that I can get to the part you've been waiting for, the main topic of the night:

The capitalization of Mecca for Hajj and 3omra, with billion-dollar complexes and luxurious advertising at Cairo Airport.

No really, that’s what I wanted to talk about.

I saw an ad for luxurious jewel-shaped collections of buildings advertised as a luxury experience when you visit Hajj to do your religious duties. And here I thought religious duty was suffering!

Suppress your needs, ibtulitum bel ma3ase fastatiro, ra7 y3al2ek Allah mn sha3ratek iza ma t7ajabte type of shit.

I thought the luxury vibes in white clouds were meant for heaven, not skyscrapers around Mecca.

Nonetheless, I understand. It’s like gays and theys in Berlin. We would also appreciate luxury residences when performing our pilgrimage duties in KitKat and Berghain.

I thought about this after a shitty day, where everything went wrong while trying to leave Egypt. My interview there got delayed on semantics, and dafa3et 50 geneh for nothing. Then I saw the police examining a body bag on the street before entering the stinkiest coffee shop known to man and did an interview with Quran playing in the background.

Then the driver to the airport wouldn't shut up about how horrible I am for only working and not seeing all of Alexandria on my 48-hour work trip.

Ending up finding out that:

I can’t exchange my money back to anything from geneh because ma bebe3o 3omle sa3be.

I can’t carry more than 5000 geneh outside the country.

Mind you, I had 22 alf on me. Mind you, that's less than $500. So they practically would end up taking 17,000 geneh from me and giving it back to the people, haha.

My bougie escort from the taxi company helped me wrap my purse in cardboard and 36 layers of cling film and check it in and pray to God it makes it to Beirut. It was my favorite purse. Anyway, I finally made it and got the chance to eat a soggy bagel while I waited for my flight surrounded by stinky men, old ladies, and one sexy cougar heading to Beirut. I’m pretty sure in a previous life I was killed in Alexandria because this windy, salty, dusty experience did not sit well with me.

The new Alexandria Library did heal a wound though. And the little shop they told me to visit: Melbalad.

A lovely girl called Omnia helped me as I struggled to choose a jewelry box for my lover who still hangs her jewelry on the door handle. The box I chose was $70 and my madam wouldn’t let me buy it. But it was the most beautiful box I’ve ever seen. 

I have pictures if anyone is interested.

Follow Melbalad on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melbalad/?hl=en

I just wanted to stop dropping her necklaces every time I opened the door to her room. A room where I have often felt good, often exposed.

Recently, after two decades of struggle with weight loss, I finally had a doctor believe me when I said I don’t actually eat that much. It turns out I have insulin resistance. And if anyone had caught it at any point, instead of assuming I’m just a “fatty,” I wouldn't have gained and lost weight four major times in my life. I wouldn't have had life-risking surgery to cut most of my stomach out in 2018 to become skinny and make my cis, Matthew McConaughey-looking father, proud under the pretense of health.

How Much Shall This Body Endure?

As I lose weight yet again, because I am taking the right medication and eating the right food, it’s becoming so hard to perceive myself.

I resent people more and more every day for being able to perceive me in ways I can’t. I am especially becoming more and more triggered by the men harassing me. There's just something about being harassed more frequently when you lose weight that makes me want to be as fat as my knees can carry without dying.

I resent looking better for men to jerk off their little insignificant crotch brains.

But in that bedroom, her bedroom, she perceives me as I am.

Skin and soul.

It’s very unnerving to be loved as you are, and a part of me is ashamed to admit how much I enjoyed taking care of her after a recent surgery she had.

The surgery required many weeks of post-op care.

I am ashamed because it allowed me to feel for once that I earned her love and subsequently now, I deserve it.

Now, I just have to learn how to deserve everything else.

Tags: WLW, weight loss, preception, relationships, weight gain, weight loss, body image, love, rleationship, traveling, Egypt