Lies, Veils, and Country Songs

Lies

I’m tired of telling you that your bread is the best I’ve tasted, that your coffee is sweeter and your people most generous. I’ve exhausted myself with the same phrases of praise when what I want to say is simply shukran. Each of your cities is a paradise; each of your cities has garbage and stray cats. I love them all just equally- none more than the others. Like asking which freckle on my forearm I prefer- each a part of me, ingrained into my skin, a mark of who I am; by birth and by sun. Each city’s spirit and smog a tattoo, enduring henna stains. But I’m just a soundless breath in your city’s air, a filled chair at your table, a phantom figure, sometimes fad, that fades in a month. Despite my abstraction, I love your cities and I’ll taste of home, but until my year is ended my legs end at the ankles, floating just above the street. Though my feet find firm ground on my chest and my permanent address just above my stomach I do feel a need for place more granite and concrete. Spray paint my nicknames on bricks down alleys and own a phone attached to the wall. But I know that even when the same pigeon returns to my windowsill for bread crumbs I may not feel fully home and at ease for every city I’ve seen holds a piece of me though they may not want or care. So as I wake in Marrakesh or Muscat, Cape Town or Cairo, Damascus or DC, I will be in love, but a love not zero sum. It is not a thing contained in the heart but seeds scattered in every spot I’ve daydreamed in that grow without my care or tending to reach beyond the bounds of my hearts comprehension.

Veils

(feel free to add your own, there are lots of opportunities for things that rhyme with veil, which to me is very exciting)

Painted red lips, black outlined eyes

Powder caked thick, suffocating skin

Perm-fried, dyed, electrified

Contact lenses, iris barricade

Glossy shine, French manicured nail

How we all do have our veil

Hair gel-drenched helmet

Leather jacket despite sunshine

Dark sunglasses reflect and mirror

Cologne catastrophe, fence offensive

Woman conquest, your holy grail

How we all do have our veil

Tie tightened, centered smartly

Trim, fitted, pinstripe, and blazer

Oak desk barricade, boss embossed

Being, business card convenience

Certificate banner, corner office jail

How we all do have our veil

Swim in neutrality, abandon color

Embrace routine, regular, redundant

Shun spotlights for shadows

Plastic smile, upbeat masquerade

Sweeten self, personality bake sale

How we all do have our veil

Books, brain, brag; keyboard clack

Wit niche, smartass kitsch

Straight A, armed with blunt charm

Shun sympathy, seek solitude

Sincerity spent, self gone stale

How we all do have our veil

Dish dash, swish swash, skull cap devotion

Beard trimmed, book and beads bludgeon

Memorized words, forgotten meanings

Closed mind, closed heart, open mouth

Judgment day is every day, warn and wail

How we all do have our veil

Flower child, hemp, henna, hash, incense smoke

Organic, fair-trade, farm-fresh, all-natural

Meditate, yoga, part-time Buddhist

Your pedestal, legs of desire, artificial

Money can’t buy enlightenment as tofu and kale

How we all do have our veil

Sunday pancake breakfast, maple syrup faith

Bibles stacked bricks blockade, fort of verse

Belief in Lord’s compassion, ends with the other

Darky, different, demons, disclaim true diversity

Forget forgiveness from hand pierced nail

How we all do have our veil

Bar-long friendship, shot, laugh, chaser

Illusion conversation, talk at, talk at, not with

Speak plastic sincerity, delve deep to dispel desires

Hone sellable humility, dim illumination

Revelations intoxication, cheap as ale

How we all do have our veil

Soft-spoken, supple spine, sinuous sinner

Excuses, apologies, ask pity, crave sympathy

Snub inner strength for victimhood’s fame

Energy, emotion, empathy succubus

Never seek the win, always crave to fail

How we all do have our veil

Got No Guitar or Rhythm:

I found that I have begun introducing myself as Kalthoum... or whatever name I happen to be called at the time. Sometimes when I meet new people and they ask me my name, I stumble confused. I think to myself, "Shouldn't you be giving me my name?" So in an attempt to reassert my identity before I return home here is a little country-ish diddy I wrote. At some point we'll see if I'm brave enough to actually sing it. I sang it to Ryane and his response was to try and yank the skin off my arm and scream... this doesn't bode well. This is very silly and needs some work, okay a lot of work.

(Looking for some help with this, who can write a good country song/play a stringed instrument?... anyone?)

Grew up in Virginia ran through my fields with bare feet

Lost my favorites cats on that damn old busy street

I’ll introduce myself to you if chance says we should meet

Not layla or Kalthoum, I’m Kelsey Austin Threatte

Can’t count the times I befriended a stray cat

Have so many families from Rabat to Muscat

My name’s a little tricky, should get it printed on a hat

New mommas rename me when we begin to chat

For many reasons my name changes, not seen as legit,

But before I forget what’s written on my birth certificate

Let me sing it loud and proud:

My name is Kelsey

Got lost on back streets in Africa and the Middle East

Captetown, Cairo, Casablanca, liked Dubai the least

Could live in Oregon just for a mountain cherry feast

Love sunsets, got no regrets

My name is Kelsey

Don’t like fancy jewelry, diamonds or a big ol’ ruby gem

Never drink much, don’t do drugs, but love Tylenol PM

Loved to play in the creek all day chewin on a wheat stem

Dream of flyin though I’m scared of tryin

My name is Kelsey

I love my family something fierce, more than I can say

Cherish the long long long conversations with my brother J

I’ve gone to Church, Mosque and Synagogue, prayed in every way

I’d choose mountains over the beach on any given day

My mom and dad gave it to me

Pretty good name I do agree

My name is Kelsey

Maybe an ordinary girl unworthy of this rhyme

But here’s my opportunity to sing it one more time

My hand’s extended to you, so happy we should meet

My name’s not Cici or Maburka, it’s Kelsey Austin Threatte

Not Kelsita, Kittie, or Kate. Not Aisha, Fairuz or Khadija

I’m the only me I know how to be, My name is Kelsey

An open letter to Chester:

The man whose hand grabbed me, the boy whose demand confused me, the “gentleman” whose assumption sickened me: it is not they who have won if I should crumble. They are fed nothing by the breaking of my spirit. The only one to gain is the gray haze of unconscious ignorance. It is indifferent to emotion, intellect, and humanity. It is a numbness of the place just behind the eyes. Like the spirit still sleeps and the angels have fled. The unconsciousness is mud that sucks you down forcing you to abandon your shoes if you wish to escape. I will not, cannot, shall not abandon the beauty of the wind rippling long golden grace like ocean waves or the white stork perched on the Donkey’s shoulder as he sleeps.

If the redness of the strawberries sold in the bus stop parking lot no longer connect me to the world or inspires in me childhood nostalgia of Virginia fields, I lose.

If I forget sympathy, empathy, compassion sucked deep inside the self or attached to the shell, I lose.

If I let these incidents weigh down my rucksack, fill the space between my toothbrush and torn jeans, I lose.

If I allow these emotions to spin on the reel, chained to a reliving of events, replayed like an old movie, I lose.

If anger and passion do not step to transcend to their deeper, pure form because my grip on them is too fierce for forgiveness, I lose.

I welcome tears, anger and curses. I embrace violation, pain, and regret. It is better to live them then swallow them. Better to experience than to carry. So come with your unconsciousness. Test my patience, naivety, trust and strength. Though I will fail to say the right thing, take the right action, display the right courage I fail only in mastering the situation, I do not fail myself. If my skin is thicker, but my heart softer, I win.

Shukran,

Kelsey

PS- Spent a week with two amazing girls and a lovely adventure, then a week living out a dream of working in a restaurant at a place that I lovingly refer to as the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Now volunteering in Tangier, getting hustled, hassled, harassed, and learning more lessons than I would probably like to. Full explanations to come... insha'allah.