I hold onto things

 Like the foil layer inside the tin containers of Nivea covering the cream, because I know my mother always made it a point to keep it on. she always said it was an extra layer of protection from outside elements. The cream is too thick for me but that doesn’t stop me from reaching for the iconic blue container every time I see it in a store...

I wish I could tell my 7th grade teacher Mr. Valerie how his description of fibreglass insulation has stayed with me. How a moment of pragmatic warning has been impressed in m memory as a poetic urging. How some nights when I am laying in bed anxious, the thought of those tiny, invisible shards landing on my eyeballs are among the list of causes.

There is an old bottle of ه ه ه cologne that belonged to my father which I keep in the back corner of a shelf of old and unused notebooks. In spite of his passing, I can’t always bear the harsh smell. I like to look at it, though. I know that of the few material elements my father ever clung to in his world, his bottle of ه ه ه—sprayed liberally on everything and always bought by the case full on visits to cairo—was one omnipresent necessity. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I swear every time I look the liquid seems to sit lower in the bottle, like an hourglass. Another item on that nightly list—the day the cologne will evaporate entirely.