Is the birdcage a curse? Or is it fate that the cage seller found it? Did it give it’s right to the other birds to fly in the sky? Does the bird rebel against the bars of its cage or against the life that created the cage? Does it spend its days imprisoned, humiliated, while other birds enjoy their freedom in the sky? Doesn't it have the right to that sky? Were wings not given to it to soar outside the cage? By God, then what does that bird do between the bars of the cage? It sits all day, all night, in front of those iron bars, pondering its fate. Is it a curse, fate, or an involuntary sacrifice? It finds no answer, and how can it find the answer when it’s nothing but the bearer of the question? And here we are, in a cage like a bird behind its bars…

The smell of life emanates from the oven, inviting those who dislike sweets to crave them. I rose from the chair in the living room, my steps taking me towards that fragrant smell coming from the kitchen. I find my grandmother standing wearing oven gloves, smiling as soon as she sees me. 'Would you like a piece?'

It's Grandma's famous dessert, of which a quarter of the population owns, a grandma that has a talent for making wonderful sweets.

With the spoon, I took the first bite, a strange charm in my mouth, a feast of flavors and sugar in my mouth; it's the most delicious thing I've ever eaten in my life.

She asked me, 'Do you like my sweets?'

I replied, 'Are you kidding? It’s the best thing I’ve ever had.'

My grandmother, at the age of sixty, turned her back on me, poured me another plate, and handed it to me on the kitchen table.

...

'Your grandmother has been arrested.'

I stared at my father's words as he spoke about his deceased wife's mother, I ran to my grandmother's house... I ran as fast as I could... I arrived.

In her house, the empty dessert plates were on the table, and the last piece of dessert remained from yesterday, but my grandmother, holding the large spoon she used to pour the dessert for everyone and put herself last in line, wasn’t in the kitchen wearing the gloves...

...

How could a dessert maker with the ingredient of love be a criminal? The dessert was the color of hidden blood, an invisible weapon, the end of the life of anyone who doesn't adore it. The spoon, the weapon of the crime, anyone who doesn't love dessert is killed by the spoon, I had eaten from a spoon wiped clean of blood twelve times...

I haven't eaten dessert since…

Eyes of life,

They see you but you don't see them.

They mock you, ridicule you.

They age you, see the truth,

The truth of the eyes of life.

They observe you, contemplate you.

They asked you one day,

Do you choose me?

Or do you choose fate?

So you choose fate

With blind foolishness.

Oh, what a blind fool you are,

Waiting on a bridge,

Under the bridge, over the bridge,

The fate you chose...

So your features contort,

Where are the gifts fate promised me?

So life scoffs and says,

"I gave you the choice, yet you didn't choose me."

"Take this fate, and forget the exit from suffering"...

It's as if all individuals have built a cage for themselves, locking life outside, not wanting a version of that darkness for themselves. Perhaps you fear that your life will be entangled with some of that darkness, thus living miserably. But like you, although I built that cage, but it's transparent. I see through it the truth of humanity, isn't it painful? Those scenes hurt me. But what pains me more is the unknown buried under the rubble of secrecy and law, buried by the higher hands that hold the authority in the shape of the universe. What's hidden is greater, believe it or not, what's hidden is greater than the greatest. There are bones not buried under the soil, there are mouths that didn't utter their last words, there are invisible restraints over our mouths. Restraints that taught us silence and forced us to live a silent life, with no right for us, but an obligation on us to protect those who won't shed a tear upon our death. Those are the real monsters, not classified throughout history as monsters, not as serial killers, not as savages driven by their desires, not as mentally disturbed psychopaths. Those are the ones ruling the world behind the curtain of humanity, charitable donations, worldly contributions, stardom. They celebrate behind those curtains above graves of half the world, hungry, dead, victims. They celebrate their sins they built a paradise for their crimes. They mock humans who were nothing but blood and bones like their bodies, the minority being humans, and the majority being them. Those are the ones extending their hands before the whole world with some gifts they stole before our demise, we accept them as evidence of their humanity, applaud them, sing patriotic songs for them, adorn homes with their pictures, their flags color the streets. Our thirty rights were a picture inside a frame, rotting at the edges, covered in dust, unreadable, unremembered, perhaps one of the gifts they stole before our death. They are those who wrote rights for themselves, built the world as a tent for their demands, a paradise for them and misery for us, a cup of wine for them, and a cup of sorrow for us. We dig mines and buy from them a pit we've dug for ourselves and that is the gold for them and the grave for us.

Laughing at every unfunny joke, smiling at every rude comment meant to hurt my soul, shaking hands with those who caused my sleepless nights. A wide smile, a mask I put over my hopelessness, meant to please the souls that stole a smile behind the mask. I confront myself, thinking 'this will be the last day of surrender to my evil trait, pleasing humanity'. I step out of the bathroom after a ritual of tears, but the mask puts itself on my face without concern for my last promise. It sounds like a happy life, like a bird out of its cage, to confront, to scream, to break plates, and to be the devil. That is my wish, a wish of evil different from the wish of goodness. Since the goodness, left in the shape of words, smiles, helping hands, swallowed the last bit of light in my days. Will I ever scream at the top of my lungs, or will I offer a glass of wine, making a toast for my shattered heart? The devils play around, they smile when they smile, they laugh when they laugh, and they do not fear the judges of life. But here I am, not a devil, pleasing the devils as they trample on my knees, making me unable to stand up and take the last bit of hope into my hands and be the bird that escaped its cage.

Take me out of where I am, leave the world and leave your life, and find an exit for me, be the savior and take me out of here. Build a door, dig a hole, draw a path, and guide me outside, walking, crawling, or perhaps swimming. Take out what remains of me to live a part of me free. I do not demand the rest, the rest of my parts. Don't stumble upon them, forget about them, and place them somewhere only they know. Leave them, for the fire will swallow each one of them until no trace of it remains. Even its ashes will scatter with the smoke to hide it completely. Find a pen and draw a path with it, let it be straight. Don't care about its color, for it does not concern me. Be wary not to let it slip from your hand, for no one but your memory holds the evidence for my exit, and no one but you holds the key to my solitude. Perhaps rust has covered its shape, but it is forgotten in your pocket. Do not mistake between taking the pen and the key, and locking away the last remaining part of me to be consumed by fire along with the ashes of the remaining burnt parts.

I can remember the day I received a precious gift of fear. A fear unknown to the child's mind inside of me, a tingling sensation of goosebumps running down my arms to my feet. The darkness of a Saturday night devoured my room as I sat in the loneliness of the darkness. My heart started pounding, faster than I had experienced running the little marathon at school. My scream held itself captive inside my lungs as the fast breaths I was taking guarded any sound from escaping. Tears rolled down my cheeks, landing on my chin, and finally dripping onto my knees, forming wet drops on my shorts. It was a hot summer, the heat of the sun that had gone down a few hours ago still lingering on the sides of my room, making it hard not to sweat. Or was it the fear that caused those little drops of sweat to refuse to mix with the tears on my shorts?

With the eyes of a child, the arrogance that kept me alive that night, the bet I had made my biggest regret, never to be weak, never to be scared, the self-taught bravery that I smeared all over my expressions, I gazed into the red-like screen as Chucky pulled one of his knives and presented it to his victims with a heavy grin on his face. The next scene of the knife was a bloody terror shown through the filter of his victims eyes. The shock prevented my eyes from looking away, suddenly consciousness logged out and I went to sleep, promising myself in a calming manner to never be brave again.

I can remember the day I received a precious gift of fear, my cousin with a smile on his face handed me the Chucky toy, the bearer of the killer's soul.

I see every flaw in every virtue, I see every unknown in every answer, I see all questions in the shadow of knowledge, I see life as short yet I do not believe in its end, I see life as empty yet I resist for its continuation, I see friends as a blessing, yet I struggle to engage with them, and I see people as barbaric, hence I avoid meeting them. I see every mistake no matter how abundant the correctness, I see every incident no matter how minimal the injuries, I do not see myself, but rather, I see a mass of flaws, a mass of sins, a mass of criticisms, a mass of hatred without a source invading my days.

So I spend my days, blaming and rebuking myself, as if I am wrestling with myself, as if I am my own enemy, as if I do not love myself. Thus, the notion of self-love seems absurd to me. However, what I fear is that it could be a weak point that feeds into the major weakness. The former, being self-aggression, and the latter, being the cause of my own misery. How many individuals have I seen being the cause of their own misery and thought to myself, why would they do that to themselves? And yet, I did not know, and all the answers were within my grasp. But I did not see, I did not see that the aggression comes from within, I did not see that every drop of blood shed was from my own hands, and every tear shed was due to the horror witnessed by my mind's eye. For my mind saw me, and my heart saw me too, yet I did not see either of them. Instead, I saw a shattered being unworthy of salvation. A being, discarded and not healed, dead yet not alive, hurting yet not hurt, a being decreed by fate with a charred black pen that it was born broken and shall live broken, born miserable and shall spend its days miserable, born extreme and shall remain alone, born alien to every known form and shall remain alien to every known entity. All of this is nothing but a small glimpse of self-hatred. Do you hate someone with that hatred that if you were alone with them and their abhorrence, would you kill them? Would you destroy their existence? Wish for their life's ruin? Delight in their tears? Gloat at their downfall? And what if that hatred was directed towards yourself, and you were alone with that hatred alongside the abhorrence day after day, what would become of the abhorrence? And this is what has become of me...

Years have been lost from the pocket of my life in getting rid of a picture after picture of those faces from my memory. Like a photo album holding the features of people, I hold a picture after a trivial farewell, light the matchstick and bid farewell to its burning remains until the last fragment of it. The stock of matchsticks has begun to diminish... Then I hold the picture that follows, no one told me that your picture would also be thrown among the pile of pictures. Then to the next picture, and the one after that, won't it all end someday? I am not saddened by their farewell as much as I am saddened by the wasted time, let's be honest, I spend more time burning their memories than the time I spend meeting them. I gaze into the trash bin, where the ashes of burnt pictures lie, I check on the remaining pictures in my memory, when will it be time to burn them too? Will we sit voluntarily like adults, with a fake smile drawn on our faces, bid farewell after half an hour of meeting, and that will be the last meeting? Or will a tear be shed, and will I shed one with you? Or perhaps as usual, as taught to me, I visit the grave of pictures in the trash bin and see nothing but a heap of ashes. And in this state, there will be no more matchsticks left, and my basket will not have room for more waste.