“You shouldn’t be proud of your origins” she added: “you are a citizen of another country now, and this is the only nationality you should be proud of!” My friend was almost paralyzed, but replied “How can I ignore 8000 years of history?” She replied back and said “You didn’t make that history. You are [...]

Fourth year of misery and mysteries; Where are we now and where are we going. For how many more coming years? For what? Hope had abandoned the land which once wrote the very first letter ever. Logic seems bizarre on the land where the wheel was invented. Beauty disappeared. Nothing has left but hideous streets, [...]

Written March 12, 2007 by Mama for her blog “Emotions…” and cross-posted to the Olivebranch Network.
Fear is the only feeling our kids experience under the new “democracy”, my house was badly damaged by an exploded fuel tanker close to my house, the suicidal attacked the nearby police station.
As a Muslim I thank Allah that [...]

I am not an organized kind of person, but since I have not been out in the street in over five months I thought that I’d better make some inquiries to see how life has changed outside the house walls. To my surprise, it turned out that buses no longer pass by my once safe [...]

I’m the invisible girl living next door
I’m the invisible girl drinking coffee alone across the street
I’m the invisible girl studying alone in the library
I’m the invisible girl singing in the shower
The one who always walks on the sideway

They say she never came here
She never lived here
I’m the one pouring tears at night
Smothering the sobs with [...]

Eightth in a beautiful series of paintings by Baghdad Artist

Update: (Problem Solved, many thanks go to my friend // occasional OB tech-support man Greg)
Hey everyone, not quite sure what is causing the posts to interact with the over-all template, nor on how to change the font troubles I’m having in post. I have some incling that it may have to do with enabling the [...]

I have not become an official bookish person until the age of 21. I owe it to my drama teacher, who had made Hemingway’s yawn-inducing Old Man and the Sea sound so gripping. But it was not only him that has brought the book worm demon out of me, rather it was the ‘banned’ tag [...]