April 2000

My dear Emil, the mosque was interesting, more socially than spiritually. The imam kept saying to the women up in the balcony: "Sist-arrrs, ibleez, sis-tarrrs, ibleez be quiet!" One woman was so angry at all the kids screaming that she screamed at their mothers to take their kids and walk out of the prayer hall, but she was loud and hysterical, and the acoustics of the mosque made her voice reverberate. Of course, down with the men, I couldn't see the women, but my mother said that the woman, named Hena, cried after the outburst. 
I was, of course, grumbling to myself during the sermon. Not that there was anything wrong in what he said, just that he was leaving out so much about how destructive religion is. I kept having the distinct feeling that today would be my last voluntary venture to the Islamic Center. 


It was very reassuring to have a friend tell me about your site. I think I lived so many years with the ignorance that there were no gay Assyrians. I have read some of Emil's diaries and while they are painful to see they also reflect a lot of what I went through. I would like to contact him. I understand the reluctance because I'm sure you have come under attack by the Assyrian community. I would just like to make contact by e-mail and I'm hoping Emil will give me the chance to at least correspond. Thanks. 


Emil, This is all very frightening to me to even make contact and correspond with another Assyrian gay man. I live in Los Angeles so I am somewhat removed from the tribe and I do mean tribe since they will lynch you if you are not one of them. I alienated myself long ago from the community but sadly as I get older I yearn to make that contact and find out more about my heritage. When I was told of this site I immediately reached out and how reassuring it was to have someone reach their hand out to take me in. It's strange, I was out to dinner this evening with my mother and I had such a strong urge to tell her but I couldn't. Living this way is so painful not because I want to tell my mother that I slept with another man but because I feel as though I am living a lie. I will admit something I hide from even those close to me. I have not been tested for HIV because I feel if I was diagnosed as positive it would not only crush me but I would have to come out to my mother. I know my mother knows deep in her heart but will not admit it to herself and hides behind the idea that one day I will bring her grandchildren... and what a wound that opens in itself. I don't think I need to tell you the burden placed on an only son's shoulders in our culture and what that has done to me is not easily repaired. It's a wonder I didn't become an addict of sorts to hide my pain. But you reached out and how much more am I reassured. Where do you live? If you would rather not discuss personal matters I understand. I won't divulge much of my identity because I am very suspicious by nature... another one of the many problems plaguing me from growing up gay and Assyrian. It's sad and yet as I write this I am moved but I am happy too because now I know I'm not the only one. 
Your friend,
Anonymous


I absolutely understand and respect your present need for anonymity even though I think this is a great opportunity to shed that skin, get rid of that fear, and to start something different and new. Being Assyrian and gay does not have to mean living in fear and with constant loneliness. I would advise that you take that step. I will not expose you. I will not mishandle what you trust to tell me. But take your time. Do as you please. Do and say what feels right. 
So much of what you said in your e-mail really touched some tender places in my heart. Assyrians can be so hot-blooded and mean and terrible. I've heard some awful stories from other queer Assyrians, stories about being disowned, threatened to be killed by their own brothers. It's all too real. 
What you said about distancing yourself from the Assyrian community sounds familiar. But to distance yourself from other gay Assyrians might be too extreme. I, too, feel the need to return to my roots with age. I miss speaking my language. I miss looking into dark eyes. There's nothing more wonderful than talking to someone who truly understands what you mean about family and culture. 
The HIV issue. Wow! It's a big one. Every living and sexually active human being grapples with this dilemma. Even my straight friends complain about the same fears. I dread it. I also dread any sexually transmitted disease. We feel compassion for those with cancer but incriminate those with AIDS. It just stems from our own homophobia. I have accepted the reality. On one hand I would be devastated if I tested positive, but on the other hand I would accept and overcome it. Would your mother have to know? I don't know how old you are- you could be a teenager or in your thirties, but please please please protect yourself!!! There's no reason why we should even worry about HIV. Don't fuck up, and if you do that's all right. You were only being natural and human in your desires for sexual expression. I'm no expert but I think anything can be overcome. We have to stand back and define what gay means to us, as Assyrians in America. I found out that for me it means being sexually aware and awake without risking my life and integrity. 
One of the first gay Assyrian men I met here in the Bay Area died of AIDS. He was amazing. Sweet, smart, passionate, loving. He was not an animal, he was not a whore, he was not "a fag who deserved AIDS". He was everyone. Normal. Tender. He taught me a lot. 
I imagine that being an only Assyrian son has its pressures, but you're not at fault here. Our parents need to stop being selfish and stubborn and love us for who we are. I have seen some parents do it. It is possible to love our children as they are. Assyrian parents are too stubborn. They would rather make other people happy than to accept their adult children as they are. It's always about what other people might say. 
I recently broke down and had it out with my mother. She said something insensitive and everything I had held inside came right out. I told her how selfish she is for not loving me as I am. She said she loved me and would not want harm to come to a single strand of hair on my head, but that she would not understand my being gay. 'Well then, if you won't love every aspect of me, one-hundred percent, then I will never feel loved by you.' These exchanges are always painful and one stops to see the point in them, and feels empty. So, we have to live our lives. Without our parents. I think every adult faces this for different reasons... 
We have a lot of work ahead of us. Personally, I am only concerned with loving and trusting and being the best human being for others as well as for myself. What else is there in life that matters more? 
I really hope you achieve some level of peace with yourself and your family. I wish you all the best with all my heart. Remember, I think it's amazing that you've survived being gay and Assyrian because it is not an easy task. 


Emil-baby, I must tell you I have a crush on you before I lose my nerve. It's not just about nerve- it's about wanting to see you face to face, to know what kind of crush it is, to communicate without just words across the screen. Sometimes, at the beginning of profound friendships, there is erotic energy, the feeling of a crush. There is no requirement that a crush has to follow one course, or even that a romantic relationship or friendship has to translate into a loverly relationship. But I wanted to tell you that I have a crush on you, that's all. You are a lovely lovely person. Your eyes expressed so much sensitivity to me when I met you. I felt immediately at ease with you, and beyond that, connected across the room. 
I love you,
Tariq


Tariq, you must know that I have a crush on you too, but that I am hesitant about disclosing this because I have to take responsibility for my emotions when I have voiced them. Yes, I like you... no, now I love you... on many levels, from many peaks. I certainly want to see you and speak with you, take you to the beautiful places I go here and spend time with you laughing at ourselves, and talking talking talking. But how will I feel with you in person? Will I be shy and withdrawn or natural and open? What will I expect of myself? How do I know what's right decorum and what isn't? I have had no examples, no mentors in romance, no experience. Tariq, I am complicated. I want to be healthy for you, strong and independent without being elusive and out of touch. 


Abdel's party was an experience to remember, not just as a spectator but a true participant. I felt a part of things and at ease. There were men there I found attractive and as I observed them I understood that almost all gay Arab men resemble little boys, what with their long lashes, their big brown eyes so curious, eager, and flirtatious, the waves in their hair. The evening was a masquerade. No, it was not mendacity in the air, in the wine, or the white smoke that plumed out of the hookah, but a certain mystery. There was double meaning to everything, an underbelly to every phrase, a second intention, another language to each tongue- all things real and salient, yet subtle. Like vibrant sexuality in a place of worship.
I forgot my past experiences, let go.
Khaled was charming, had a snake's snicker, a panda's seemingly harmless exterior, was polite, but strange. He hung out at the hookah and offered me a hit. We smoked together. Everyone else danced to Arabic music. I stepped out for air. There were too many of us falling off the fringes of the rug.
Khaled had said I have bedroom eyes. His advances continued whenever no one was looking and strangely ceased when others were present, and the grin assumed a dignified demeanor, the eyes lessened their glare, focus shifted, body language muted. I felt that if I had said anything to anyone that they would have taken one look at him and doubted me.
It did not matter what Khaled said or did. I was safe from his advances.
It was a night of two faces, many meanings, double possibilities, opposites. To each smile there was a teardrop, to every kind gesture a crime. It was almost like having psychic sensations while talking to people- anyone: white, black, Arab, Iranian, straight, gay, young, old. I explained to myself that I am merely growing realistic in my expectations of people, all people.
Pouneh, an Iranian lesbian, asked if I was romantically interested in any of the men there. I looked down into my glass of wine and said, 'They really are cute, every one of them. But I'm just not interested in dating or whatever.' She looked at me sympathetically and asked why. The dark garden was behind her, a darling garden with a few chairs, a huge tree with swooping branches, and a mysterious shack set back. 'Because I can almost predict step by step, word for word, what will happen. Happiness with men is impossible for me.' The garden knew I was lying to myself, the night saw that I sabotaged others. The stars flickered. A night of one question with many answers. What I said was not what I meant or believed somewhere in my heart, elsewhere in the world...
Abdel had been sweet to invite me and I wanted with all my heart to get to know him, but I could not get hold of him. He was slim and slipped through the bodies, through the railing of the deck, through the cracks, like a man-shaped cloud. The one time I was able to catch up with him I spent those minutes drowning in the glare of his sad eyes. I was tempted to throw a stone in them and listen for the sound of it hitting bottom. I wanted to take him into my arms, but how does one hold mist? Next to the sadness I detected desire, like a subtle flavor on the tip of my tongue.
Why is it that when men want me it angers me and when they are indifferent I feel cheated? Of course, these are not the only two reactions I have to desire.
Someone came out to the yard and announced that "the show" was about to begin. He waved for us to "please come into the house". We snuffed out our cigarettes and shuffled inside, wondering what this show was and what it involved. I had a hunch that it was a belly dancer, maybe even Jacques! Everyone sat on the floor along the walls. The light was harsh, too bright. Someone turned up the volume and suddenly the front door swung open. Jacques came half-dancing half-running into the room. He was in costume and barefoot. We clapped, howled, screamed. Jacques pulled people out of the crowd and danced with them. My eyes were on fire. Suddenly I was pulled into the center of the room and was dancing with Jacques. We spun round and round. 'How are you? It's been a long time,' I nearly shouted over the music. "Well, but exhausted." 'Really? Exhausted? I couldn't tell.' We circled each other and shook to the drum. "I just got back from tour," he said.
'Where did you go?'
"Kuwait."
When the music stopped we kissed and I stepped outside for air. Jacques eventually came out and we strayed from others and talked in one corner. I lit his cigarette. At first the talk was idle, his eyes did not meet mine. I asked him about the tour. He said that it had been emotionally depleting and demanding, but that it had made him a lot of money. He said something fantastical about a prince giving him a car, a Jaguar. I was skeptical, but acted as though I were impressed.
"Was your audience in Kuwait straight?' I asked with interest.
"Yes! Male dancers are the rage now. I felt like I gave so much of myself on stage. On tour my costumes were more revealing, so the men responded more to me. But I got sick of the old sleazy men. They looked at me like they wanted to eat me. They had that look like they wanted to fuck me. Little did they know that I could fuck them!"
'Oh, I know you can,' I said playfully. We laughed.
Then I felt what I imagined was uncomfortable, unresolved air between us, so I said, 'You know Jacques, that night has given me great masturbation material.'
"Then how come you never returned my calls?' he asked, sounding almost affected.
'I guess we were just busy. I've been through a lot since then. But I want to talk to you because I don't want there to be anything unresolved between us.'
"I thought you didn't want to see me."
'I must have thought the same thing about you.'
When it came time to leave Jacques followed me outside. I said stupid things to pass the time. I did not want him kissing my neck. "Let's make plans right now," he said on the dark sidewalk.
'OK. Call me.'
"No, let's make plans now. Friday?"
'I work the weekends.'
"Wednesday?"
'Er... OK. Six? Metro?'
In the car Pouneh wanted to know what Jacques and I had been talking about. "You like him?"
'You know Pouneh, Jacques and I slept together once. Two years ago.'
"So, you got a date?"
'No, it's not a date. We're just going to build the friendship. I guess I don't like him in that way. I don't know.'
On the dark and lonely drive home, crossing Golden Gate, I wondered why I was so distant with Jacques. He had been expressive, bold, but I had backed away as much as I could without being hurtful. I turned down the music and the questions came. Do I, expressive and loving, have a fear of intimacy? I am not demonstrative. Is it that my parents were never affectionate with each other? But can the poor parents be blamed for everything? I crossed the bridge, passed through the tunnel, the city faded in the fog and the distance, followed the lane, got home, undressed, but found no answers.
I did not look forward to Wednesday but went. We met. I was open to good things happening. We talked further about Jacques' tour in Kuwait and he said that at the end of each night they had to pick broken glass out of his feet.
'Because you dance barefoot,' I said more to myself than to him.
"That, and my costumes had glass beads sewn on them that would fall off and I'd step on them while dancing. It was awful."
Just then Jacques' cell phone rang and it happened to be Khaled. I insisted he join us. Earlier Jacques had explained that he and Khaled had had a working relationship, but that they'd had a two-year falling out. "Khaled is fucked up," Jacques had blurted.
Over dinner the three of us had a complex and passionate discussion regarding relationships, acceptance, jealousy, abstinence, defiance. Khaled admitted that he was jealous and possessive and that he associated jealousy with love. He said that he felt loved when someone was jealous with him and wanted to know his whereabouts at all times.
I said I was unwilling to commit.
"You'll be wonderful in a relationship," Jacques said, flashing a smile.
I admitted that I had recently discovered that Arab men are extremely flirtatious and forward. Jacques agreed that it is all or nothing with Arab men.
After dinner we went to a bar. There were martinis and small round tables with votive candles. There was laughter. I was grateful for the night, but as well stifled by Jacques and Khaled's low-pressure attraction. They seemed to make intangible but palpable demands I could not deliver. I felt they resented me. When Jacques and I stepped outside to smoke I could not respond to his touch and said, "I hope I have not led you on." He said I hadn't. I was cautious, which is a terrible thing to be. It is not a graceful and natural state for me.
Back inside the music that was played on the piano filled the room and the three of us talked further, though for the life of me I cannot remember what led Khaled to say the thing that finally sent me over the edge. Mind you, earlier he had already made one uncouth remark, which had left me silently baffled, but I had chosen to overlook it for fear of being a poor sport. What he had said was, "Jacques is a slut. He will fuck any hole that moves." But the straw that broke the camel's back was, "You must have been abused, this is why you say the things you do about Arab men."
I think this is the most appalling thing anyone could say to someone they have just met. I got up from my chair, dumbfounded, and went outside. Unfortunately Jacques followed me. I wanted to be alone with my shock and Jacques comforting me made me feel even more belittled. I was also annoyed that Jacques used this opportunity to come out the stronger, sweeter one of the two. I had not come to flirt. I had not come to fight. My error was that I went to please Jacques.
"I told you how he is," said Jacques.
'Why would he say that? I don't understand it. It baffles me even more coming from a Middle Eastern brother. I expect total respect and decorum from us.'
"You give too much of yourself. I didn't know you were so emotional."
'What has that got to do with it? Am I supposed to change? Is it my fault that I am gracious and friendly and give my heart and my soul and others are stupid and abuse this?'
"I'll give it to him later," Jacques asserted.
'Please don't. Not for me. You see now, Jacques, why I am not in a relationship? People are mean, they are rude and abusive in one way or another. I just don't need it.'
I felt so foolish for letting Khaled get to me, more so for not having stood up to him. But what is the sense in arguing, fighting? To me there is no value in this.
By morning I had let go of the previous night.

Dear Emil, I'm glad you asked if I expected you to "put out" in Austin. I took the question seriously, but also tongue-in-cheek. Sitting here, from a distance, I feel affection for you, but not lust (not that there haven't been lustful thoughts.) When I first met you I did not feel lust- I felt affectionate, connected, flirtatious (yes), potentially lustful, but not in your presence at that moment. I felt like you weren't performing- and I felt close to you partly because you said you were Shammi's friend. She and every other Assyrian I have met love Palestine and sympathize with our experience and struggles, and I have to admit that maybe your being Assyrian put me at ease and made me feel that we could understand some important aspects of each other's experiences.  
Then you wrote to me. And every time you write to me I am more amazed at your honesty and more moved by you. This is where my crush on you really developed. 
So, to answer your question, no, I do not expect you to "put out". I don't know if we will feel attracted to each other, and if we do, if we will make love. And even if it turns out that we are attracted to each other maybe we should not make love. Does this sound ambivalent? I guess it is. Here is the deal: If you try to seduce me and I am not feeling it I will tell you without malice and without any hurtful or negative feelings. And if I try to seduce you and you're not feeling it just slap me silly! But I think we will be able to read each other's feelings. Maybe we should agree in advance that even if a mutual desire to make love develops, we will not. Let me know what you're thinking. 
Emil, I really mean it when I say that I am happy with our friendship and am excited at the chance of just hanging out. So let's talk about things openly when you come to Austin- sleeping arrangements, boundaries, anything. Trust yourself. Trust me. I will do the same. 
Thanks for trusting me, for coming to Austin. My only expectations are that we continue to be honest with each other. 
Love,
Tariq


I am being loved. So much has happened. I am not the same. Yet, I've not changed. My core remains intact, original. Since my trip to Austin Tariq and I have been e-mailing less and talking by phone more. Our talks are just as wistful as our e-mails. Perhaps more. The immediacy of our voices makes us long for each other's bodies, expressions, gestures. He is expressive, passionate. It amazes me how whimsical he still is at thirty-five. We talk about everything, every desire, every dream, every wish.
For years Tariq has challenged the traditions of conventional love. Now he says he will return to the ideal of monogamy if I want it. I say that I do not feel comfortable making demands of him. He says he is mine.
We are, for the time being, monogamous!
I am feeling things I've never felt before. Unimaginable sensations. A protectiveness.
One evening, while on the phone with him, drinking his voice with my leaping heart, he confesses that he has been sad. "I miss you," he blurts out. "So much!" His vulnerability makes me levitate.
I say, 'I want to make sure I'm ready for the responsibility of my words, of loving you, Tariq.'
Another night he makes another sweet confession, "Will it frighten you if I tell you I fantasize about us living in the same city?"
I am not here on earth to hold Tariq back, to possess and control him.
Tariq, my first love.
"I want to kiss you."
He says I have brought great joy into his life and deep fear. He fears losing me and being devastated. "It's not that I doubt you. It's that I don't trust the world." His voice touches my skin like diaphanous fabric.
I am enjoying myself in love.
Now Tariq is in New York. I awake from sleep feeling anxious, that I cannot have an errant lover. Am I willing to share him with the world? I do not know.
I hate saying it, but I love him.
I take my grandmother to the doctor and in the waiting room a toddler, barely walking, makes his way to me. He leans on chairs and steps sideways, closer, laughing. His smile makes me smile. An old woman watches with warm watery eyes. The child arrives and places his small hot palms on my legs. His little round face looks up at me. He shrieks. I am in love with him, with his perfect innocence, his total trust in me. I wish the whole world was like him. Inside I weep, I am sad for the world, for the child.
I am two men, always loving/hating, opening/closing, living/dying.
There are moments when I am sure I want to call it off, to withdraw, to forfeit. I want to break something because inside I am breaking.

March 2000

I found I am not a fallen angel, but an angel whose wings were clipped in his sleep. It was a gag of sorts. 

My mother and I are still in the midst of our passive-aggressive dual. It's predictable and ridiculous, but we insist on following the patterns we have etched for ourselves, wearing garments of ill-humor. Sure, this will lift and in the aftermath there will be no apologies, no mention of why and how, and life will go on smoothly, pleasantly, lovingly until the next episode. 

This week I faced my resentment for my mother. It made me moody and miserable, but I faced it. All these years I have said, 'It's not their fault for turning me away because of my sexuality. It is how they were raised...' But this week, as an adult, I allowed the child within to vent, to lay blame, to stand up and say, 'You should have fought your cultural beliefs for the sake of your own son. You did not believe in me but sided with your fears. You abandoned me. My life suffered, I suffered because you did not support me. It could have been so much better, but I am scarred. I am not a freak because I'm gay. I am a freak because I felt unloved and rejected by you.' I wept for days. In the car. While walking to class. In my room. I became nauseous. The blame overwhelmed me, but it washed me with hot tears. Now I feel a little better, and in time I know I will feel stronger. Much lighter. I hope to have forgiven my mother. I needed to blame her, to give shape and form, tangible texture to my rage, so that I could stagger through the darkness solely by feeling, by touch, by being pricked, burned, and tickled. I became mad in this sense. But I did not doubt that I would emerge. 

Can I arrive at peace by holding imaginative dialogue with my mother, maybe even through writing? In real life it is impossible to talk to my mother. All my life I have tried. But I was being "American". It is not "Assyrian" to communicate on such an open and emotional level. It is just as hard at twenty-six as it was at sixteen. It is impossible. My reticence is bigger than my heart, than my soul, than my instinct to save. 

Patterns. Shadows of rod iron bars, through which loving words slip unheard. A hand extends, bends, fails to touch. We are both on the outside, my mother and I, but the illusion is that we are on opposite sides. It is only a trick of the mind, a deficiency of the eye. Phantoms trip us. 

It's like I'm caught in one terrible moment and I do not want to hurt others, but when I am driven to hurt my family I am in fact twisting the knife into my own heart. 

I have been faithfully reading Emil's diary for the past several days, every free moment I get. I would greatly appreciate it if you would forward this e-mail to him or let me know how I might contact him. His diary has been very revealing and reminded me so much of some of the confused thoughts I also had at that age (having also come out at 16). I would love to thank him personally for posting it. Thank you, Sean

Habibi, you can come to Austin for as long as you like. We'll feed you food for your belly and for your soul and for your beautiful eye. And you will return. And we will have created our own Tariq-Emil Palestine-Assyria narrative of Return. The bridge of return shall be the bones of my back for you to walk across, or as Mahmoud Darwish suggests, a bridge woven for you from the lashes of my eyes. Emil, my eyes, I love you. You are growing into an outrageous desert flower. Outrageous because she keeps flowering and flowering and throwing herself over mud-brick walls like a madwoman for all in the street to gaze at. Her beauties will not be hidden. She wears bells on her ankles and walks like a pharaoh's daughter while all the other desert flowers look on shyly. When am I going to see you, you crazy girl???


Huh??? Gay Assyrians??? You people are a disgrace to Assyrians! Did you know that Assyrians were among the first Christians on earth! And now you people disgrace the name Assyrian. How dare you say that you are Assyrians... What kind of Christians are you? Did you know that Assyria was the greatest civilization in history. There were no gay Assyrians. Our ancestors weren't gay! If there is more gay Assyrians today how can we have many generations of young Assyrians after us? As far as our population goes... we are not a lot compared to other groups. How can we even be notice. Some people don't even know that Assyrians still exist! 


I'm in my car. Dark highway. No home of my own to go to. No bone. I'm empty. The car could crash, you'd find no body. Music and stars. Temperatures. I masturbate. I throw my head back and the length of my body stretches. I exist. I do exist. 

February 2000

Tariq, I have been thinking of you and whenever there is a gap in our correspondence, which I respect, I begin to miss you. You have made an impression on my days and when that space is not filled I feel the emptiness. But even the emptiness of you is beautiful. I shall keep our bond pristine and lovely the rest of our lives. Our friendship will be a garden in a city, which I will visit frequently. 
Math class is going well. Can you believe it? 
Gardens on rooftops,
Emil 


I'm glad you loved the poem. I am not easily moved by poetry either. I used to think that poetry was impossible in English, until I found some that I liked. Maybe it comes from our other languages, with their untranslatable flamboyance. 
I miss you too- to the point of excitement when I read your name on the screen. When my messages were downloading I caught a quick glimpse of the subject line- City Garden, and I thought, I wonder who sent that lovely image... and it was you. 
My dear, you will not lose your intoxication and dreaminess. You will have periods of sobriety and wakefulness, though, and you will need those to be able to recognize your other states. 
Clay class is fun with my mother. Yes, it is quite a funny sight, the two of us sitting there making pots and vases with the instructor all to ourselves. Last time a blonde girl came and wanted to work on the wheel immediately. My mom and I looked at each other in disapproval. We whispered about her rush to work on the wheel before she had gotten her hands used to the clay. But then we admired her excitement and encouraged her when her pot collapsed. I am looking forward to the wheel. But it's a commitment. 
It is really cold now, Emil. Snow everywhere. My dad is downstairs alone. I will go play backgammon with him now. 
Love,
Tariq


It is late. It is raining. The heat is on and vents hum. So does the computer. My grandmother is up watching television. I have just come home from the city, from dinner with friends. And too much wine. There was much laughter. Hugs. Kisses for no reason. Even strangers smiled at me. I enjoyed myself. I went only to appease friends who had grown tired of my absences. They complained that I did not make an effort. How could I tell them that I have been fighting my ego and struggling with writing, finishing short stories? How could I tell them that I was arrested once and this still jeopardizes my freedom? They are American and frivolous, and as tender as they are there is always the gap. I do not fall easily into this gap, as I would want, but continue to hop over it. I have become expert at steering myself through crowds. I am happy. I have everything. I have nothing that I want. But I want too much. 
It is late. It rains. I am happy. The food was amazing. I was kissed. I kissed. The city appealed to me. The wine left a stain on my lip. There is so much missing still. The definitions change. 
I feel stronger. I have decided that I am not afraid of anything anymore, that I can overcome anything. I forget this. I want to live always intoxicated. Your e-mails intoxicate me. They make me laugh. They make me think. 
Tariq, let's make a pact. Let's not regret anything. My greatest fear is that one day in the future I will jump out of bed in the middle of the night, from a nightmare, and discover that the awful dream is not really a dream, but my actual life. That I could have done so much more, could have been so much more, but that I held myself back. 
What causes my absences? Fear of disappointment. I fear that if I see my friends too often that I will get to know them too well, too fast, and this will result in the destruction of my ideal image of them. That there will be hard disappointments, realities that surface unexpectedly. I like missing people, so I distance myself. I deny myself. I pace myself. I fast, if you will. I don't like to immerse myself in people as I do in music, food, reading. People I make last. And ultimately, my roller-coaster-relationship with life, my falling in and out of love with it, keeps me distant and moody. 
We live on waves. We are mermen. 
And kisses to you, too,
Emil


Emil, today I found a printed e-mail from my late friend and adviser, Marilyn. I miss her so much. She was the main reason I went back to Ohio State for my PhD. She was smart, compassionate, unpretentious, committed, passionate, and so much more. Working with her was exciting. Finding her e-mail at this moment when I'm preparing to submerge myself again into the PhD really made me realize again how much I miss her. She was 52 when she died of colon cancer. 
I have been feeling very sensitive today, tender. I cry very easily when I'm like this. I realize I have no friends here who really understand me. I have friends, good friends, here who understand parts of me, but no one who understand enough about me to be comforting. 
Strange, this filing and organizing is supposed to make me feel settled, more together. But I have always felt homeless in the sense of not committing to a place- if we couldn't live in Palestine, then I wouldn't betray Palestine by taking up another place as home. Of course, it is not a rational process. It's just in my veins. 
And yet, how can I be with a community that would hate me if they knew I was queer? So, I leave and I look for Palestine in other people's eyes. Kurdish workers I met in Aleppo. Iraqi refugees in Amman. Sudanese refugees in Cairo. And then it all becomes too familiar  and I dream of traveling to China, Vietnam. 
I'm glad I write to you. Usually I feel too tired after working in the study all day, but once I start I find the energy to keep writing. I want to do so much, but how will I find the time and energy? I will have to make choices. How do people get bored?
Salam,
Tariq


You are so precious. Thank you for making me feel and think. 
I can't believe how much we have in common when it comes to being and feeling so chronically overwhelmed by all that we think should be done, said, written, encapsulated in some form. I don't think it takes dedication to succeed, but obsession. It's the animal reality. 
Last time I saw Moe I drove home crying, not because Moe did anything intentionally hurtful, but because he reminded me so much of the American gay culture and men I have grown so tired of- because they are such carbon-copies of each other and catty. I had expected it to be different with Arab gays. I desired the deeper experience, the profound bond, and I had hoped to find it in the Middle Eastern community of gays. But Moe had simply skipped over the vital moments and replaced them with flirtatious glances, frivolous remarks, shrill laughter. So many times I wanted to say something provocative and earnest but I found no one was listening to anyone. People just floated about. Moe's unavailability, as well as Wael's to some extent, made me feel alone again, and inferior. I felt like a woman in the company of straight Arab men and wondered if we have adopted some of those bad habits. 
But I have recovered and want to go to dinner with Moe and Wael again, give them another chance. I want to talk like real people and I want to be taken seriously. I don't want to be manhandled and thrown aside anymore. Do people feel obliged to mistreat me because I look young, or that I am "cute" and cute people are hard to take seriously? I want to go to dinner with my brothers and know that I can feel equal. I want to learn early on in life if queer Middle Eastern men are as horrible as the straight ones, if we have unconsciously adopted the prejudices and caricatures of our straight societies, because after all, we come from them. 
Tariq, tell me I make sense. Not a little, but all the sense in the world. Tell me I'm not looking too deeply but that I have a valid concern on my hands. 
I do know one thing: I am wrong to assume that Middle Eastern men will be better than American gay men. There are no good Arab/Assyrian boys. We are just as fallible as Americans. I have to understand this. I must let go of the ideal image of the ideal person. 
When will I see you, Tariq? 


Emil, what a great way of putting it- like a woman alone among Arab men. I know what you mean. There is a way gay men of all ethnicities perform gayness (which is by definition white gayness) that gets old, feels false, and alienates. I have seen a lot of Arab men doing it. For some it's a phase, performing it as they shed their straight skin, and then suddenly remembering they have their own personality. For others it's an unending nightmare. I usually consider how long one has been out when trying to figure out how long it will last. In other words, you make perfect sense when you say it alienates you. And you make sense in giving them another chance, because with some people once you get past the knowledge of the performance layer you can begin to see other layers struggling to breathe; and with time you will see more. 
As for Wael, his unavailability is probably caution and a desire to avoid messiness, in the sense that he knows that queer Arab/Middle Eastern circles are socially (and sexually!) incestuous. I know he is very fond of you and he had nothing but wonderful things to say about you before I met you. Who wouldn't be very fond of you? 
I want to say ethnicity doesn't matter, but I can't say it without qualifying it. Of course, it doesn't matter. I used to crave the company of queer Arabs so badly and was usually disappointed when I met them, for many of the same reasons you wrote about. Superficiality, materialism, performance-mode, cattiness, etc. I was lucky to meet some wonderful queer Arab women and a few men that I connected with. I think what draws me to queer Arabs is the warmth of Arab culture. 
Can I teach you backgammon when we meet? It was always a mystery to me too. My father never had the patience to teach me. Yet, I was always amazed at men who spent hours and hours playing it, with the sound of the dice, the pieces moving mysteriously, the smoke, the voice of Umm Kulthum over the speakers. So finally, last winter, my friend Aysegul taught me how to play in Istanbul. She beat me all the time, but I learned a lot from her. Then when I got back to Damascus I played with "the guys", regular straight Arab men from the neighborhood where I was staying. I learned a different version, the one men usually play at the coffeehouses. When I got back to Palestine my father refused to play with me, dismissing me with his hand, saying that he doesn't play with amateurs like me. When I finally convinced him to play I realized why. He's brilliant. He knows what move to make before the dice even lands. He counts just by glancing. Anyway, he always kicks my ass. He's very moody about when he'll play, though, and we don't play very often. It's the only thing we do together and it has totally been as a result of my efforts, although I think he enjoys it. He doesn't say much. 
Love,
Tariq


Hello gawwaad (pimp,) I'm all mixed up like a musical composition that's undecided whether it's happy or melancholic. Is it possible to be both things simultaneously in life? I just stood in the kitchen, in the silence of the empty house, and said to myself: You're gonna have to decide now, once and for all, if you're going to live in anger, fear, and regret, or with love and faith in goodness. 
I just have a hard time believing that in life truth always prevails. I am convinced that I will lose, that it doesn't matter how good a person you are- sometimes in life you pay, regardless. It is only in movies that the protagonist wins. In real life innocent people are sent to prison, women are raped, children die of cancer. 
Strength is not a decision. Happiness is not a decision. 
My evening with Wael and Moe was absolutely delightful. I will tell you about it. I got into the city, which was lively, the weather temperate, and already dark. I found parking far far away from Cafe Flore and walked the many blocks wondering what the night would be like. When I walked into the cafe Wael and Moe were already there amid all the men that crowded the small space. Wael looked as cute as a seven-year-old, with the same whimsical tendencies- how his face changes expressions like a child, and Moe looked handsome. I dreaded the moment Moe would disappoint me. 
And he did. There were wisecracks, he said coquettish things and I matched his bantering with shocking retorts. We flirted and Wael joked that he would go home and leave us alone. If it meant flirting to get on Moe's level, to break through, to break the ice, then by God, flirt I would. It was a dangerous method. 
We decided on a restaurant and walked to it. Moe now asked me about being Assyrian and seemed genuinely interested, and when he showed he had the ability to listen and focus I began to warm up to him again. It was at dinner that we really got to move beyond gay superficiality. Moe told us a personal story about his first relationship in the U.S., which was tragic and made me wince. We began to talk more seriously now about other things. The deeper Moe emerged- compassionate, human. Aspects I would like to believe all men possess. When Moe wants to be serious he can be, though this did not help me forget his arrogance and incorrect reference to my age being "less" than his. 
Wael was precious, insouciant. He and Moe talked about a possible trip out of the country and invited me. 'I'm not comfortable leaving the country,' I admitted. "Why?" they both asked. 'Oh, I don't know. I wouldn't want to risk being denied re-entry,' I found myself divulging. "Have you been arrested?" Wael asked with a smirk on his face. I didn't get into the whole story of my youthful errs, I'm so tired of rehashing it in my head. Moe had his own tragic story, similar in some ways. Wael said wistfully that he had no such adventures to speak of, adding, "I have always lived my life avoiding trouble." I wished I had. Having brought up the subject left me saddened and feeling far away from people and things the rest of the night. 
But we went for drinks after dinner and spoke further, and I was able to laugh with them. I met an Egyptian fellow whose accent tickled Wael. I guess something in the Egyptian accent amuses him, though I couldn't tell what! I asked about Umm Kulthum and both Wael and Moe's eyes lit up. The conversation turned to music. We talked about sex too, of course! Wael and I said that we saw no problem in two friends having sex. Moe, on the other hand, disagreed that often this created problems for the parties involved. Then he sat back and acquired a puzzled look about him, "Can I ask you something?" I knew immediately what he was going to ask, 'You want to know if I'm cut or uncut.' Moe was stunned. He doubled over in laughter, "Yes! How did you know?" 'I could just tell by your expression. And I'm not telling you!'
Wael asked if you and I e-mail each other often. Once or twice a week, I told him, about which he seemed surprised. I added, 'We write each other long meaningful e-mails. Tariq is a wonderful human being.' "Tariq is very intelligent," Wael agreed. 
A customer at the restaurant said today that I was "the best waiter". She said that I was thoughtful. Her son agreed. I was deeply moved. She reached out and touched my arm. It is moments like these that are high to me, that make my day complete. This is what I am doing in life right now and I may as well make it more than what it is- put into it breath and heartbeat. Why else do anything? 
I hold you so dear. Know that. Your presence comforts me and I am lucky to know you.


Tariq Al-Amin, I have been reading "The Veil & the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam" and although I'm not much of an intellectual and the book often loses me I am quite enjoying it, and learning about Islam from a woman's vantage point. Mernissi does not attack the Prophet himself, who seems to have been a sensitive and reasonable man, but rather exposes the misinterpretations of the Hadith by the isnad. I'm amazed by how much respect the Prophet had for his wives and women in general. He often depended on them for advice in political and military matters, and was even human enough to rely on them for emotional sustenance. He even worshiped in her presence, even though she was menstruating! 
Tonight I thought again about what Moe said about sex and friendship, especially while reading about the Prophet's open necessity for sex and intimacy. I had to ask myself: Does a person who does not value sexual intimacy within a relationship, a friendship, not value sex at all? Or does he not value his lover as friend because he may share his bed? 
I really try to stay clear of resolutions like: I don't want to have sex again unless I'm in love with the person. Though, a part of me is just idealistic enough to believe in this. But how realistic is abstinence? 
I have to admit that I have been living with the stupid idea that my life is worth nothing if I am to live as a gay man. Being gay all these years, struggling to make gay fit for me, somehow led me to assume that I would be alone all my life, that the rules that apply to other men and women regarding family do not apply to me. Why shouldn't I strive for a sense of community and family? 
It scares me to know that there is so much holding me back that is unseen. How can I challenge oppression, refute self-hate, if I don't recognize it, identify it, acknowledge it? And why should life, a sovereign right, a natural and sacred gift, be such a constant struggle for some of us? Every move, every day, every feeble attempt, every special breath... 
I will not be held back- by others or myself. I will fear, I will hate, I will fail, I will forget these high moments, but I will overcome, Tariq. 


Today has just been delightful, Tariq. I met Jackie this morning at the rest home after class and we had breakfast with my grandmother. We were both shocked when my grandmother informed us that we had offended a friend of the family the afternoon before by laughing too much in her presence! Can you believe it? The older Assyrian woman, religious at that, has been made uncomfortable by our laughter, and she thought we were laughing at her. We were dumbfounded by the suggestion and thought grandmother was playing with us. Jackie was indignant that a woman she has known for years, with whom she has had many afternoon teas and conversation, would even consider to accuse Jackie of something so puerile. I had to roll my eyes, 'That is so classically Assyrian!' Jackie looked obviously miffed, even hurt, "I have lived my thirty-four years abiding by all the proper codes of Assyrian behavior and have never done anyone wrong. I have always accepted my position in the Assyrian community and in this family. It is time that I lived as I pleased and if I want to laugh I will laugh!" 
I respect my grandmother but I was so upset with her for siding with the lunatic friend, the deeply insecure and pious friend. How dare she incriminate us for laughter, for love, for getting along so well and enjoying each other's company? 
It's not news that Assyrians are serious people, religious, even unhappy people. All our lives we've been uprooted time and again, our very existence challenged and threatened. We are mourners. Anything remotely different is considered rebellious and sacrilegious. Americans are animals in Assyrian eyes- because they have fun, are sexually liberated, and adventurous. 
The immigrant mentality simmers in constant displeasure and guilt, sorrow. It keeps us in a small dark box that we call being Assyrian. 
We are judgmental and critical without a right. We live small insecure lives. Oppressively Christian lives. 
I'll show you family photographs when you come. I have visual proof of just how serious we are. 
Life is meant to be viewed with panoramic vision. 


Yes dear, umm means mother. Your e-mail made me laugh. It's hysterical. We are mourners too, but we are extremists- so we mourn and we laugh in extremes. I have often heard Palestinians compare themselves with Lebanese, noticing how the Lebanese went to the beach during cease-fires during the civil wars. We, on the other hand, cancelled even wedding celebrations during Intifada (Uprising) because it would be disrespectful to celebrate at a time when so many families were mourning loved ones. 
The Lebanese party wherever they are. Palestinians are like Assyrians. 
I remember my mother telling my sisters not to laugh too much. And especially brides, they should not laugh or smile too much! 
Good for you and Jackie to rebel and laugh! Although, brooding is lovely too, but I bet you do enough of that. 
I'm listening to Eartha Kitt sing "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". Does smoke get in your eyes? 
I read your story "The Necrophile" yesterday morning. I am amazed at the level of insight and ideas in your writing. I think you are asking yourself really intense questions in your writing. They are sometimes tortured, but I don't get the feeling that they are just that: there is always a kind of euphoria and idealism that reflects what I already know of your spirit. There are some gems of language too. You are also an acrobat, performing wild jumps and mid-air spins with language. Part of it is traces of your perfumed Farsi/Assyrian tongue. 
You wonder about building a family, having taken your life less seriously because that didn't seem to be an option. For so long I cringed when I heard people talk about "family" and recreating family, especially the qualities of constancy and loyalty and boundless love and willingness to give to each other, hopefully avoiding the possessiveness and control and projecting unhealthy expectations and limitations. I thought my partner and I had worked out a way to do that. We had figured out how to be together in a loving relationship without possessiveness and control. What we hadn't done well was the polygamous part of love. I think we both had different experiences and needs. 
I want to have a partner or partners, to build together lives, houses, spaces, art, food, children, animals, solar ovens, ceramic pots, gardens, wood furniture, to change the world, to nurture passion in each other, to hold each other on cold nights. And I want to be free to build whatever I want, to travel wherever I want, to experience my body however I want, to have my time apart when I need it- without offending or hurting. 
My friend Vern is town to see the national ice skating championships. He was my first crush when I was a young chick at college. He is a rural Ohio boy, grew up down the street from a cow-crossing sign, across the street from a corn field. Sweet boy. We were roommates in a dorm. He was Catholic, wanted to be a priest. I was Muslim, wanted to corrupt him with my desire. We gave each other massages and felt guilty, but my desire surpassed my guilt. I think his Catholic guilt prevailed over his desire. I went to church with him, which made it all the more exciting. He joined the Peace Corps and I went to DC for grad school. I came out immediately, he took it more slowly, especially since he was on an island in the Pacific with only a handful of people. He came back three years later and eventually came out and is now happily partnered with a man he met in a Catholic gay group. My mother doesn't like him. I think she has a secret scenario in her head of how I was led astray, and it involves him. 
I dream of sunny places. Of Egypt. Austin. California. 
I'll write you more tomorrow.
Love,
Tariq


This is my life. Bottomless. Without walls but possessing glass borders, psychological limitations. A sanguine sky above. This is my secret life. Without I am a student, a waiter, a man. Within I am tempest of fire and song.
I smile, I drive, I listen to music, I smoke, I daydream, I work, I complain, I cry, I love, I forgive, I walk in the rain and the water drips off my hair onto my face, and these are the small moments that remind me I am alive. The smallest moments seem connected to something greater, revelations.
Sometimes I just lean on the kitchen counter and through the window watch it rain in the yard. Everything looks shiny. Small birds hop in the soil where the roses will grow and feed. They don't seem bothered by the rain. The apple tree is bare. The clouds low. The entire neighborhood empty and quiet like a ghost town. And I sigh because I am happy- although I am not where I want to be. Would you like to hear all that I have lost? My faith in goodness; my certainty that justice will be done for the kind-spirited; my innocence; my ignorance; my trust in God; my love for my parents; my self.
What happened? And when did it all happen?
I no longer envision the kiss, the love, the caress, the whisper, the body with the fine hairs, the conversations in the dark, the man himself. All that is left are the holes through which I fall fall fall contemplating.
But I am happy. Genuinely happy.
I have disowned my father, haven't I? There is no desire to reconnect with him. There is nothing to connect on. At times tears well in my eyes because it feels like he has died. The tears well in a tumult of joy and despair. Everything is intermingled now more than before, more intensely than ever!
I am made of marriages of contrasts and opposites. Life is a chapel of contradictions.
Even my sleep has recently been chopped down the middle by a strange wakefulness, moments when I sit up in bed, look about me in the darkness and see objects floating in midair. Then I am satisfied and fall right back to sleep. No fear, no anxiety.
I have learned that nothing is gained without loss. Life is a barter and we are neither winner, nor loser.

My dear, so you want to be a nurse? You would be such a caring, nurturing nurse. Why don't you get your nursing license and move to Austin with me? Just when I think I have decided to move to Austin I think of New York. New York is an amazing place. I always feel so intellectually satisfied and stimulated when I'm there. 
I need to think about financial security and a place to come back to... an Arab house, simple, but with a sunny courtyard, rooms all around, orange and lemon trees, an olive tree, a grape vine, flowers, lots of mint, thyme, green onions growing between the flowers. A small fountain. A workshop. Maybe some power tools for the dyke in me. Where can I afford that except in a place where I can buy land and build myself? That's why California is not an easy option. It's too expensive. My friend Patrice lives in Austin where she teaches at a charter school. She's a radical teacher, her students are "at risk" and have been kicked out of other schools for everything. They are wonderful, they thrive in her hands. I taught them when I was in Austin. I loved them. I could teach with Patrice. 
See what Ohio winters do to me? My fantasy life is keeping me going. 
Love,
Tariq


The moon has rings around it and the rings light the yard. I have had wine with Jackie. Too much. Laughter too. When I was a child my aunt smothered me with kisses, now that we are older she confides in me. Amazing what time does to relationships. Tariq, I can't tell you how awestruck I am by it all. It is essential to hold burials sometimes- to forget and move on, even in anger and dissatisfaction, but to revisit the graves that we create along the way and to celebrate the spirit of youth, of family, of mistake, and of love. I feast on memories... a wind swells under my wings and whispers your name, lifting me up to where I was not meant to be. I see so much clearer from up here. I know so much more. I await your arrival at these dizzying heights. 


Dear Sir or Madam, 
I am writing you with concern to your web page. I am not prejudice, but I feel as though this type of work should not be posted. My twelve year old son ran to me saying "Mom, there are Assyrian gays, and I'll prove it to you". I was so embarrassed. You guys should not post your diaries for people to read. You have no age restrictions posted and it contains some dirty vocabulary. Please do something about this. If not, I WILL!!!
Very truly yours,
Concerned Assyrian


I certainly know that I cannot censor my diary because that would compromise its integrity, deplete its honesty, its queerness and "outness". But I think there ought to be some kind of advisory. Still, I can't help but think that it is the parents' responsibility to monitor what their children do on the Internet and to be available for open dialogue.
My diary is by and for queer youth, though it may be inappropriate for a twelve-year-old. When I was in my teens I would have given anything to know that I was not the only queer Assyrian, alone in my dramas, sadness, and turmoil.
But what is the point of an advisory if the child is left unsupervised, the parent is embarrassed? Can we protect our children from the Internet, films, books, paintings, poems, music videos, playgrounds, the streets, and the varied dynamics that may play out in their own family unit? We can't hide our children from information and we cannot hide information from our children.

Hello, my name is Chris and I would like to thank whoever thought of this idea. Now I know I'm not the only Assyrian out there that's gay! 

Naturally, fluidly I do not love or respect my parents. I try and am grateful for all that they have done: sheltering me, feeding me. But they did not venture beyond their cultural obligations and primitive duties, instead denying me understanding and deeper nurturing as I was made, in turn destroying my being. As a child my mother ridiculed my effeminate characteristics. As a teen she turned me away, denying me support, nourishment, guidance. The essentials. I resent my parents today. I hold them accountable.
This afternoon while I was on the phone with Jackie my mother told me to "grow up and be a man". She accused me of being childlike and silly. I just looked at her, the laughter erased from my lips, and without thinking said to her, 'Fuck you. Fuck you. You're a bitch! That's what you are mother, a bitch. All my life you have been a bitch to me. Fuck you!' I got up from the sofa and left the room, but my rage brought me back and I shouted, 'Who are you to tell me who and how to be? When you've been a good mother then you can tell me what kind of son to be!' My throat still burns from shouting. My head is pounding.
At twenty-six I'm still trying to establish my place with my parents, but am transported to the past, to all the times I fought with them for a hint of acceptance as I am, a shadow of unconditional love. I lived in war and am still scarred from the memory of war, the harrowing images, the obstinate voices, everything easily conjured from the smallest provocation. Now my duty is to painstakingly piece the fragments that have lost their meaning. My throat hurts from the razor words I flung at my own mother. It shouldn't be like this.

Dear Emil, I have been missing you too. Will you visit me in Austin? 
My cousin Salam was kidnapped at gunpoint and forced into the trunk of her car. He drove around with her for an hour, while she was on the cell phone with the police, who tracked her down with satellite technology. There was a high speed chase. Then the car crashed and miraculously she survived with only a few scratches. When I talked to her she was happy and bubbly, only 22 years old, beautiful and innocent. This is the first time she has ever lived away from her parents. She was abducted in the parking lot of their apartment building. I heard her voice on the national news talking to 911. She was so terrified. It still gives me chills and makes me angry and I feel so powerless to protect the women in my life (or the men, for that matter.) I still have not talked to her father, my uncle, because I know we will both cry the moment we hear each others' voices. It's so painful that this happens in a country we call home, away from the imagined safety of an imaginary Palestine, cut off, alienated, threatened with losing more than has already been lost. 
I went to a talk yesterday. Two Israelis, one "progressive", the other a "conservative" nationalist. Both journalists, though the latter is also connected with the right-wing Likud Party. I asked a question about Jewish Nationality Status in the Basic Law of Israel- the law that substitutes for a constitution, which Israel does not have. Are any Israelis willing to give up the discrimination that distinguishes between Jews and non-Jews (Palestinians) in the fundamental definition of citizenship? I asked this of the "leftist" guy but the fascist went ballistic. He shouted and told me that if I didn't like the way it was I should leave "Israel" and go to any of the 22 Arab countries, with whom I have "a lot in common". I told him he was being a racist and that I didn't even ask him to begin with. It was jarring. I was mad at myself for even engaging him, then satisfied that at least I had forced him to show his true colors to everyone else there. The leftist didn't give his own position or say how he as a Jew could live in a state that defines him as a fully-empowered citizen, and the Palestinian natives simply as "non-Jews" in a "Jewish state". Never mind the millions of Palestinians who were driven out completely or who live as occupied subjects in the West Bank and Gaza. Incidents like that remind me how much many Israelis hate us and wish we would just disappear off the face of the earth. 
So, my rage takes me to dreams of land, putting stone upon stone to build a house, planting trees. And when I'm feeling too safe and too domestic I will leave again. I once wrote for Punk Planet Magazine: Departure has always punctuated the grammar of my Palestinian experience.
You know, Assyria and Palestine exist for us in the longing for justice- a longing that has to translate into a creative expression. That's a more interesting place to exist- everywhere- than just on territory. 
Ride out the darkness. You know it will pass. You shouldn't expect to always "get" yourself or trust yourself. We go through periods of volatility and periods of constancy and it will balance out. 
I wanted to send you a poem by Audre Lorde about surviving, but I can't find it. My friend Nuzhat gave it to me once when I was battling demons. I think poetry saved her life. 
Kisses,
Tariq


The day is cool but sunny. I drive on a country road that stretches beyond our neighborhood, where the hills are green this time of year. The clouds are white and fluffy. They remind me of spring. I am smoking a cigarette and listening to music- the windows are all the way down. The road curves playfully. There are horses and cows beyond wooden fences. Peace just beyond my own wooden fences. I cannot believe that I am in Northern America. It is a bitter-sweet location.
Mom and I are not speaking. We are both stubborn. The scars may heal, but the wounds close up on our lips, silencing us. We keep our rage in, we hold our apologies in. But this will pass and we will laugh again.
I weep for the children who are wholesome as I was, but made to feel like abominations. I weep for myself and hate that I have to endure such debilitating self-pity at this age. My mid-twenties are spent trying to piece together the unrecognizable, but familiar fragments of youth, the wholeness that society and family worked together to undo. I am unraveled. I am crippled. I am turned inside out so that I do not recognize myself. My center has been ripped out of me, my heart broken, my confidence challenged to shreds so that I can only depend on the rags of what was once my birthright to be happy, healthy, and worthy. I am a freak, not of nature, but of other's undoing.
Angry, so angry...

January 2000

Tariq writes:

Emil, it's OK to run to me. I am a willing participant, so don't feel like it's inappropriate. I hope I can weep with you. I usually weep alone, though Deana (my sister) and I cried together on Sunday before my parents arrived. I didn't think I would cry, but I was afraid of losing her to the world of her dreams because of how closed our community is and how much pain she fears she will cause the family by loving someone outside the community. She asked, "Why can't we have both family and free lives?" 
I have been asking myself the same questions for years. 
Last time I wept intensely with someone was with my ex, the summer we parted (June 1998.) Actually, he didn't cry, so you could say I wept alone. We had a huge fight the night before we moved out of our house and both left town in different directions. I was so furious and emotional. It scared me. Then we made up and parted the next day, and again I cried. He says he can't cry. I wanted to see him shed tears. We saw each other last night. He's in town visiting his family. So we had dinner and exchanged family stories and laughed about them. 
Usually, I weep alone, in bed when I can't sleep or in the car when I'm driving long distances and my mind starts spinning scenarios. I need to write too. Something, anything. I also feel robbed- I feel like I have expended so much energy on just surviving as queer, as Palestinian, as an abuse survivor, as an alienated American, as a disenchanted socialist, that I could have been using to create things- writings, films, new realities. The joy is there, though, and the intense and passionate curiosity for life. I sense it in you too. The challenge is to find out how to appease our demons while feeding our joy. Last year, after my departure from Columbus I came to Cleveland, moved in with my sisters, and started rebuilding my relationship with them. I came out to Deana. She was ready and supportive. Sunday she told me that she had wept for me after I came out to her, thinking how isolated and hurt I must have felt all those years. 
I had come out to Raida (who is two years younger than I am) seven years ago. She was also supportive, but more afraid for me and sad about the loss of the kind of older brother she always imagined, married with children, a full part of the family. 
Then I left for Palestine in October. I stopped in London to see a friend of mine, Mervat, whom I had met in Palestine years before. We had a great time together. It was my first time in London, and I felt completely renewed and so curious and so happy to be seeing a new city, new faces, new books, more immigrants. I sent Anita and Fred a postcard from the British Museum, where they have the most precious Assyrian art in the world, plundered from Assyria/Iraq. I was so amazed and enraged at the same time. I especially liked the hair on the warriors and gods of the stone carvings- their curly leg and beard hair was familiar. Your curly hair reminded me of them. 
Palestine was intense. I helped a friend work on his video as soon as I got there. And we worked every day for the next month and a half, interviewing Palestinians who have gone through everything from imprisonment to bone breaking to home demolition to expulsion to denial of education to to to... I was overwhelmed again with the loss of Palestine. The new "Palestinian Authority" was also corrupt, dictatorial, controlled by the Israelis behind the scenes. I love that place... I was willing to die for Palestine... but now wonder what I would be dying for. When the work ended I was home with my parents, surrounded by relatives. I enjoyed them but hated it at the same time. I was made to feel like a failure for not being able to explain why I took a leave of absence from my grad school, why I was thinking about not finishing, why I wasn't interested in making a lot of money, why I wasn't looking for a wife. 
My friend Nuzhat came from Toronto to visit me and she and I left for Cairo, where I felt free. A big city, chaotic, dusty, loud, unbelievable traffic, and Ramadan. It was lovely. My queer self came out. Tourist policemen flirted with me. It was exhilarating to see Arabs that weren't under occupation, even if they had their own set of problems. Then we left for Damascus, travelling to Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Singapore. I lived on $5-$10 a day. I stayed with friends where I had them. I didn't care about not having a job or health insurance or an income. But there was some madness to it. People thought I was crazy and kept wondering how I could afford to do all of this (not realizing how cheaply I was able to live because they are so middle class now that they couldn't imagine staying in some of the places I stayed in). But you have to be crazy to survive in this world if you are sensitive. Being normal is not an acceptable option. Avoid it at all costs. Sometimes I am forced to impersonate normality, but I can only do it for short amounts of time. 
I saw your sensitivity when I met you at Wael's. It's beautiful. 
My mother woke me up at 4:45 a.m. to eat a predawn meal (called suhoor), so forgive this rambling e-mail. 
Can I hold you when you weep? I promise not to try to salvage you or talk sense into you. 
Salaam,
Tariq


Emil, Tonight is Laylat al-Qadr, or Night of Destiny/Power/Honoring. It is usually celebrated on the 27th of Ramadan. The heavens are open and receive all sincere prayers tonight, which is said to have the power of one thousand months of nights. I went to the mosque with my mother for prayers. I was moved but also felt alien. I made up alternative prayers at some parts of the service. I told my mother in the car that I believed that atheists and idol worshipers could be righteous and are entitled to heaven. She muttered something about that being "too much". 
So, even though we have only met once, I miss you. I miss you because I just read the piece you sent me, (There Are Sharks In My Bed.) And last night I read your other message, and I want to hang out and talk to you. I don't know where to begin- but I feel like we have so many hours of talking to do. 
Your story reminded me of so many things from my experience. Of coerced departures and uninvited arrivals, of having to make home in a place that we never wanted to be and being unwelcome in the place we wanted to be. Of being harassed as "Iranian terrorists" during the hostage crisis, the nationality changing every time there's a new crisis. Of diaspora, desire, guilt, mother. Longing for language, straight Arab men. The excitement of the possibility of anonymous sex. I'm feeling encouraged to write, despite my fears. Thanks for sharing this last piece with me on Laylat al-Qadr.
Did you know that in Arabic the word poet (shaa'ir) literally means "one who feels or senses"?
Sending you the smell of coffee and cardamom,
Tariq


I feel inside as dark as the sky. I want to die. I do not want to struggle anymore when I have not even moved an inch toward any sense of accomplishment. My days are empty. I grow complacent. The past haunts me. The future terrifies me. I am not healthy. My imagination takes me to possibilities I would rather not contemplate. I question everyone and everything. Nothings stands as true or solid. Everything crumbles at closer glance...

Math is beautiful. You can do it. It's just a matter of releasing your resistance, then working at it block by block. One thing builds on another. If you miss any of the blocks you will have a hard time moving on. I used to love math, algebra, calculus, then something happened my second year in college and I nearly failed calculus. I think I was sabotaging myself. That year I also failed History of the Vietnam War, taught by a retired colonel who was a fascist. Most of my classmates were ROTC guys who romanticized war. I was so rebellious in that class. 
Yes, Ramadan is nearing its end, and I have to admit I'm tired. It has given me a chance to develop a certain routine, to be mindful of what I put in my body, what some of my privileges in life are, what some of my duties are, how to renew my resolve. It has also renewed my distrust of organized religion, even as I am amazed at the colossal unity of the effort of Ramadan- so many people in so many places fasting, praying sincerely, feeling for the hungry by experiencing hunger. Fasting can make people more sensitive, more aware, more vulnerable. The greatest strength of Islam is its passion for justice and mercy. Its greatest weakness, though, is in the recent trend to dogmatize its teachings and to discount the more mystical and poetic interpretations of it. You asked me once why I fasted this year. I am still not sure. I think part of it is nostalgia over last year- I was in Aleppo, Syria, with a new friend who was fasting and we fasted together the last ten days and prayed in old, beautiful mosques. His neighborhood mosque in the Old City of Aleppo was a Hittite temple in ancient times (before the monotheistic religions even existed.) We went to a Sufi mosque on Laylat al-Qadr and heard the most beautiful songs in praise of God, sung by teenage boys who were in training. There was such longing and vulnerability in their voices- something I didn't hear in the reciter's voice two nights ago at the Cleveland mosque. My friend in Aleppo, Saher, said that he could tell I was moved and he was happy, implying that I had finally come back to Islam. I wanted him to know that I have been just as moved by gospel singers. I wonder if he ever got it. He was religious and encouraged me to pray. I came out to him and it didn't seem to phase him, except to make him tell me that actually engaging in sex outside of marriage was a sin, though he was confident that if I sought forgiveness I would receive it. 
I was always honest with Saher and told him I didn't believe that everything in the Quran was true and good, and that I wasn't even sure that I believed in God in the way Muslims, Christians, and Jews do. To me it's more abstract and not really about God as a personality in the way He is in the three Abrahamic faiths. 
Last night I told my mother that it wasn't the end of the world if a woman has sex with someone before she gets married. She retorted that it was the end of the world and that I was going too far. I guess I'm pushing her, and also testing her. I don't know how things are going to be with us, how open I can be with her. My level of openness to her translates into my level of openness in public. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know how to have a conversation with my parents about me. The words don't make sense to me either. I can say I'm gay, but I don't really mean it. I don't identify with gayness or gay culture. And I'm not even sure "queer" does it either, though I'm more comfortable with it. Maybe it's better not to say anything. 
Emil, my hunger is making me weak. I need to sink into a soft heart. 
Yours,
Tariq


My dear Emil, happy Orthodox Christmas and end of Ramadan Eid. I just got back from Toronto. I had a lovely ride with Abu Ahmad, the man I drove to the Toronto airport. Abu Ahmad told me stories of how he became a refugee from Palestine in 1948, the path he and his family took, and how they ended up in the Ain al-Hilweh and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. He had a family of nine children, his wife, and two parents to take care of. He's 80 years old and he composes poetry. He wrote a 175 verse poetic memoir of Palestinian experience, through his eyes, which he had to burn when the Israelis invaded Lebanon in 1982, for fear that they would find it and put him behind bars. He was a fisherman in Palestine and continued to work as one in Lebanon, and during his visit to Cleveland he and his son went out with the fishing nets to Lake Erie and caught 40 kilos of fish. I feel lucky to have met him and have the chance to talk for five hours. I was impressed by him. 
I am so tired. I have been sexually wired, having strange unending fantasies about some of the men I met in the Middle East in the last year. Mostly straight men who engaged me in homoerotic cruising, touching, propositioning. The three most intense fantasies are of course with people I did not have sex with. 
A hug to you, 
Tariq


Living in a small space between total fear and moments of immovable highs, when I know nothing and no person can harm me. I prefer the latter but find that the contradictions and the transitions are essential. I assure you I will overcome my fears, all of them. Even the neurotic ones. I'm twenty-six. A man. My identity has waited in the margins of life for too long and it screams for acknowledgment. It is a time of revolution and reformation. There will be pain and many deaths- many dreams will be sacrificed, many illusions, innocence. But I will emerge from the shadows with my identity, my talents, my dreams. I know this. Whatever I dream happens.
I'm going back to school.
As well, I would like to come to terms with the truth that I am not the most talented being on the planet, that I may never be recognized as a writer/artist, but that this is not the end of my life, or a reason to stop trying. Instead, I am driven to try even harder.
Why can't I be simultaneously artist and practical? Why should my future be made to shuffle in the shadows of others' successes?

December 1999

This is the happiest I have ever been. At least since childhood. I have my home, I have my family, I have my loyal friends, I have romances, and I have moments of artistic inspiration. Although, creatively I feel I could be doing so much more, but sometimes I would rather sit in the family room and converse with my aunt and grandmother, and not read, not write, not e-mail friends, not type out my diary excerpts for All Out There. Jackie encourages me to take these intermissions. I appreciate her concern and undying support of everything I choose to do.
It takes so much energy to write. So many people and characters, so many moments and occurrences to recount.
I met Grant at Cafe Flore and he was sweet like in his e-mails, shy, quiet, a little strange- like a wildflower that looks out of place in a vase. He's like a creature that does not belong to this human society and it will take him some time to acclimate to this planet, where he was dropped off and forgotten. I asked him questions and he answered them with his eyes turned away, in search of words. He was fragile. We weren't alone for too long. Soon others joined us: Wael, Firas, Moe, Ahou, Adessa, Tracy, Paul, Danna, and others.
Grant had to be at his uncle's by eleven so we left before everyone else. On the street he slipped his arm around mine and we moved against the cold wind. I found this a tender gesture and savored it. We made a stop at the ocean that was lit up by the moon. A couple of days later Grant wrote the following:

Dear Emil, I had a very nice time on Wednesday night with you and all those other fabulous queer Middle Easterners. My favorite part was the walk on the beach though. Well, it wasn't really a walk, but it was absolutely spectacular. I've never seen the ocean like that; violent and dark and deep. I wanted to run into it and have it take me away from the world; swallow me. Not because I'm suicidal; I think it's more primal and erotic. I want to merge with something; I want something to submerge me. Do you know what I mean? Sorry, I think I need some sleep. 
When can we meet again? When can we meet all those other people? 
Anyway, shall I tell you what I thought of you? I thought you were a perfect gentleman, and one of the exceptions to the "menarescum" rule. You have nice friends. I loved Paul and Tracy; I thought they were great, and one can usually tell a lot by one's friends. You have a wonderful sense of beauty and mystery that is so lacking in people today. And you looked literally radiant in the moonlight. You're lucky I didn't throw myself at you at the beach. 
Love,
Khata Grant


Grant reminds me so much of myself at that age. I feel in his words a need to seduce me, but that he himself does not know this. He needs to seduce me and overcome me. He wants to be conquered by me, perhaps this is because he is feminine and a virgin. Is this the virginal craving the carnal experience? Our relationship reminds me of Santi and myself. Tracy and Paul asked what it felt like to be a mentor. 'Dangerous,' I answered.
My high school choir instructor, David, writes:

Dear Emil, the reason I have taken so long to write you is that with your first message, which mentioned your diary, I did a search and found them, and started reading them. They aroused so much emotion that I had to let them settle and digest before I knew how to respond. Finally, tonight I revisited them and read the latest entries that you posted. My first reaction is one of feeling stupid, that I knew so little of what was going on. Of course, I knew that you were probably gay, but I'm very inhibited about talking to students about being gay, and I feel bad that I was of no help to you with all those troubles. 
How terrible to be both teenager and gay! And how wonderful too. Of course, I recognize most of the people you write about. 
Mr. Hacker, who is of course gay, and I have been friends, but as he ages he withdraws from most of his life. All he can manage is to play the organ on Sunday. He has terrible health problems now. But what a wonderful, cultured, intelligent man he was, and I'm glad you knew that. As is true of all gay men, he was conditioned by his early life to act a certain way, and his ways seem as strange and quaint as mine must to you. And of course, I knew Jude and Santi were gay, and we felt stirrings of some friendship and solidarity for a while. But since I have had Bob with me for almost 22 years we didn't really socialize much. I wonder what has happened to both of them? Jude, especially, went through some very difficult times. 
What a strange and cruel environment for a gay teenager St. Gregory is! Now that I am gone I see how bad it can be there for some people, and I give thanks often for the good ones who went there and somehow survived and even prospered. I know that there were other gay students in my classes and I wonder how they are doing. 
I have had a strange and wonderful time reading your diaries. At first I felt like a voyeur. But I realize that you want me and others to read them and I have enjoyed watching you grow and change and find out about yourself, even though it was very painful to read at times. You are a good writer already in the entries you have posted. I'd like to read something you've done recently, if you ever would care to send me something. I don't find your diaries shocking. I'm not easily shocked by sexual behavior. I am shocked often by how cruel people can be to each other. I hope that much of the troubles and torment you write about has passed at this stage in your life. It will always be with you of course, just as I am formed by things that happened to me when I was in high school. I feel bad that you had to go through all this shit in your life, and privileged that you want to share it. I hope that life is better now. 


An e-mail from Shammi: 


Khouni (my brother,) Your sister's in Cairo already and after only a day-and-a-half is having the time of her life. I love this city. Iraq was cool, eye-opening, but rough as fuck. Things are hard for everyone there and I was forced to be a lot more dependent than I'm used to being. There's been an increase in crime there since the embargo and I never left the house unless accompanied by someone else, which was hard for me. I am sending out a group e-mail about the specifics of Iraq today, so I won't get into detail. 
Thanks for your beautiful poem, and as always your work allows my spirit to take flight. You set me free sometimes without even knowing it. Also, your other message saying that you envy my courage and passion couldn't have come at a better time. That day was my toughest day so far on this trip. It was my first day of truly traveling alone and I just freaked out and got really scared and started wondering what the fuck I was doing. Your e-mail gave me strength, khouni. 
I'm so much better now and feel alive, motivated, and excited about being alive. There's about a million things I want to do. I'm staying with my friend Sahar- an Egyptian singer/dancer- which is awesome and gives me that experience in Cairo that you just can't get from staying on the beaten path. Her life is wild, and that's an understatement. 
Please keep the poetry coming and anything else that comes out of that perpetually intoxicated and spiritually soaring brain of yours. I love it. 


Ahou wanted to introduce me to an Iranian boy she met and I resisted the idea at first. Being set up just did not appeal to me. But I gave in. We went out in the city and I spoke Farsi with him. He was sweet. There was laughter. I drank too much. He said I ought to spend the night. I did. We had sex. He said sweet things. I did not. I knew they were temporary things, misty things. I kept quiet, but smiling in the dark. A light came through the window. The city fell apart around me.
He made plans. He made promises I did not demand. He cancelled. I felt deep disappointment then, even anger. Why do men make promises they do not intend to keep? Why can't they just be quiet and enjoy me? I'm already in their bed, why try and woo me?
Tariq was the one who liked me at Wael's. We've been exchanging e-mails. I don't know why I feel I can be comfortable with him, romantic, literary, funny.

Tariq, friend, brother, thanks for your sweet note. I have learned that it's not the size of the e-mail that counts, but its content. Yours tickled me... I'm always in awe of people who have a natural reserve of energy. I'm just not like that. I easily fatigue and am in general mellow. Like you. Upon first impression you're like a pillar in an empty church, a strong presence, but without being intrusive. Your voice is like the music of an opium den. Soothing, indolent, low, humming- not boring, no. 
I find that in letters and in my diary, unlike in real life, I can reach beyond the everyday and become poetic, indulgent. But in normal conversation to be this way sounds ridiculous, unreal, even pretentious. I love correspondence and speaking through the written word. I think if I ever marry I will intentionally live far apart from my husband so that our bond will be profound, creative, filled with longing and music, and never hackneyed. 


I got bored with my life and with the faces that danced before my eyes, distracting me, making me tired. I even resented friends because I felt so much energy was spent on loving them, thinking of them, wanting the best for them. I escaped the voices and the images because so often love turns into hate and this transmutation occurs without having noticed. So, I drove to Modesto. I blew a tire. It was twilight in Livermore. Cars passed without pausing. Then, without a second thought one car stopped upon seeing me. It was a tidy man in his forties. When he got out of his car I shook his hand, 'Thanks for stopping. I just blew a tire. I have a spare but not a jack.' He was good-natured. 'I hope this doesn't keep you from any plans or engagements.' He said, "Oh no, I'm retired. I have no place to be." We conversed casually. He guided me as I changed the tire. He was fatherly, but youthful and must have retired young. He said he was born in Japan, and I saw traces of Japanese qualities in his face. He must have been a product of American and Japanese parents. He said he moved to South America when he was nine and asked where I am from. I said I am Assyrian from Iran. "Do you have a wife and children?" 'No, I'm not doing that lifestyle.' With the spare now installed he advised me to keep under fifty miles an hour, and offered to follow me all the way to Modesto to make sure I arrived safely, but I thanked him profusely for his kindness and said that I could manage. I shook his hand again, though it seemed that he wanted to talk further, so we conversed a bit more. What a nice man.
Modesto was great, and it was good to see some old friends.
The other night in San Francisco, at El Rio, Amahl and I moved away from everyone and found a seat on the back patio. We talked solemnly in the darkness. She said she was lonely. 'Why are we so fantastic and so without love?' I asked, losing myself in the smoke I had just exhaled. Amahl was like a tall boy who hunched over, looking beautiful and defeated- a German boy and an Arab boy. There were many friends nearby but to them I would not have said, 'I am disenchanted with men.' "Maybe you should not sleep with them right away," she advised. How does she know, I thought to myself, and does she assume this because gay men are known to be promiscuous? I never asked. Instead I said, 'But what am I to do, Amahl? Bribe them with sex? Hold myself like a carrot in front of a horse? Is that real?' She gently argued that with time and with feeling sex would come naturally and would be even better. I argued that all people are integrally the same, that we already know one another upon meeting, and why must we betray each other, why must sex seem like a mistake? We found no solution, no proper explanation, maybe because there aren't any. Without words we decided to wait and see what would unfold. That night I drove home with a heavy heart and cried, got lost among mansions and at dead-end streets. I decided to remain alone forever.
Amahl e-mails:

Never never give up your sensitivity.
It is part of you like your eyes, like your heart.


You suffer not simply because you are homosexual, but because you are human. 


Today on the bus I had the heaviest feeling.
Like life was one eternal day... one eternal night.
Like we had only imagined it in pieces. 


Surely as the sun was shining on my face in San Francisco, it had shone on my face in Jordan as I walked through the orchard.
On a day like this one, before I knew you... 


Expect nothing because someone is from your "culture".
In the end, it means almost nothing. 
Expect nothing from that line called man or woman.
You will go, you will come back.
You will be disappointed. 


Look for human. 
As for promises, they break, we change. 
We grow, we move. 
These are the cycles of us. 


Weeping is not for women. 
You suffer because you are human. 


Withdraw if you want to. 
Sometimes I feel like that's all I want to do. 
I feel censored by the world. 
Like I'll always be new here. 
The protocol of interaction works for us and against us. 


I feel so in the closet about my fag stuff, Emil. 
Today I bought these Tom of Finland postcards and was so turned on by them. 
A lot of lesbians don't get it, I struggle with myself. 
"Are you bisexual?" 
Dysphorically so at times. 


We are complex. 
Weeping is not just for women. 
You drive into a deep dark night, into dead end streets, mansions lurking and you feel the weight of darkness. 
And you write to me. 
And I know it. 


Who is my lover? 
Who is yours? 
There is no lover, only love of life reflected... in a beautiful dance, a sitting by the sea, a woman's laughter, an intimate moment with someone you think you know. 
The illusion of permanence, of absolute truth, the myth of purity... 


Your diary is like a lantern in my night, Emil. 
Write Emil, write... 


Fadochem,
Amahl




Tariq, friend, diary. I'm excited about this new phase of my writing. You see, for almost ten years I have handwritten my diary in notebooks of various sizes and colors- some spiral and ordinary, others hardcover, fancy. Then I purchased a computer and decided to keep my diary on it. Writing by hand remains one of the most fulfilling moments in life and one day I will return to the notebook because so much can be gathered from what is said by the curvatures and drastic turns of words written in ink. In penmanship there is vulnerability, moods, a giving away of emotion. But you're a new phase of my diary. I don't know how long I will do this or how truthfully I can write to a person. I don't know what I will censor and to what I will admit, but that is the thrill and the challenge of it, isn't it? 
Why do I want to write to you? Because you remind me of my diary- you're gentle like my diary, which has been a place whose door is always wide open for me to wander into. Because I needed a new incentive in this ten-year-old refuge, a new mood, a new intention. Because writing to you will force me to explain things in more detail, to expound. What writer does not need an exercise? And maybe there are other reasons to which I am not yet privy, and won't be until some time. Perhaps I had grown to feel unheard and you're human. 
You spoke of film and how difficult it would be to devote yourself to that passion. Half of my each and every day is spent being anxious that I will be lost in this market, this sea of mainstream writers, but not only this; that I am fooling myself to believe that one day I will have a willing audience and make a living as a writer. 
I think it's grand that you're immersed in your studies, no matter how colorless they may seem at times. You must have a passion for history or you would not have lasted this long. Or maybe you're just a good Palestinian son doing his duty, and what's wrong with duty? You'll have the security I never will. My every moment is spent on a glass tightrope. I have renounced so many of the expectations that were aimed at me. I have dodged those bullets, but the pressures of being an Assyrian fugitive are great. I am gay. I am an artist. I am not going to marry a woman. I am not going to have children. I am not going to school. I am not. I am not. I am. 
One day you will make films. You will find a way to do this. It will not leave you alone until you have given it a face, a name, an expression. I heard talk about a film you have already made. 
You say you have no copyright issues. I like that!
You speak of home, of land, of ownership. A haven where you can study, rest, strengthen your love, and entertain. I do not dream of this. I am to wander still and fall prey not just to others' false promises but my own habits and cravings, unhealthy fixations. I am far far away from settling down and independence. 
If it were not for my grandmother and aunt I would not be living in Marin. I am blessed but handicapped. 
I hope you achieve your A-frame dreams...
Do you ever think about how homophobia has disrupted your life? I wonder if I'm behind in life because I am gay, because others are homophobic; that I'm missing out on life's many successes because I could not cope. 


Tariq, How much longer will you be fasting? Although I lived in Iran I know very little about Ramadan. Feel free to enlighten me. It amazes me that so many of my new queer Muslim friends and acquaintances are partaking in the tradition. I would think they would have renounced such religious convictions by now. I asked someone why he was fasting and he said that it gave him a sense of belonging, that it made him feel closer to his family. This I found beautiful, and sad because I know his family does not invest as much in him as he does in them; that they do not ask about him, his lifestyle, acknowledge it, as he does their spiritual month. 


Tariq, I enjoy and require change, and try to make it happen as often as I can bear it. I can't even drive on the same streets too often. They bore and frustrate me. I try to find new routes to old destinations. Routine deteriorates me from within. Are you the same? 
I have a friend that dreads change and gives her great anxiety, and I judged her, even tried to change her. But looking back I understand that this was her nature. Normalcy is what most people desire. The ordinary and the steadfast is what we strive to attain. These are conditions I myself crave at times and would even make great sacrifices for. But to remain in one place? At my age? Isn't it human to become easily bored and restless? Wouldn't things that were once highly prized eventually lose their sheen and become mere objects, places, and relationships to resent? 
Is it even natural to be married? Is marriage even a realistic option for us gay men? 
I would like to think I am strong enough, enlightened enough, reasonable enough to allow my partner to grow beyond the walls of our garden, to live fully and thrive beyond my love for him, which I'm sure would be to some extent insecure, demanding, and possessive. I don't think I'm that mature. I assume that I will be hurt- although I will let him go gracefully. The need to know others in intimate ways is natural- the urge to experience, the necessity to experiment and put to sleep the demons of curiosity and satiate the ghosts of infidelity. I almost feel that I would not have any respect for a man who did not desire wandering, slipping away into his own identity and world. 
I don't know what a relationship between two men entails. I have had no role models, no childhood story books, no lessons. I only have my imagination that has not been tarnished by expectations, rules, and specifications. Some sense of direction would be good, though. I will not know what to do or how to feel with another man. 
Saying 'I am gay' was child's play. We thought we were revolutionary when we stood before a mirror and whispered these words to a reflection that did not perish or get struck by lightening. Defining 'I' is an entirely new struggle. Defining 'am' and 'gay' are world wars; miracles that have yet to happen, unrecognized wonders of the world. 


Emil, habibi, you have my full permission to write to me anytime. You had it already, without me saying it. I'm going to cook zucchini and yellow squash with tomato sauce and garlic, then pour it over toasted bits of pita bread. A simple peasant (fellahi) dish my great-great-grandmother Nazha used to love. I will imagine you and she are sharing it with me. 
Tariq


Shammi e-mails:

I hate to repeat myself, but your writing is so moving. Thank you for the last three messages. Thank you for your love. You sustain me. 
By the way, I would never try to talk you out of approaching the world and love in any other way than the way you have chosen. You are truly on your own path in this life and I respect this so much about you. 
I'm glad you met Tariq. The man is real, mature, and deep with a lot to say about the world around him. You have a lot to teach each other. 
I'm still very content in Cairo, Emil. Something in me is not at war and not refusing my surroundings the way I was there. I just miss all of you. 
Still in self-exile,
Shammi


Christmas came and went and Jackie insisted I go with her and Mom-Suzie to the Assyrian church in San Jose- a town I dislike for its sprawl and lack of charm and character. Inside the church I was surrounded by my own people in a way that is rare. Everyone looked like me. Here I was not different and exotic, and actually cherished this. I tried to listen and grasp what the priest said, and while I understood the language  my interest soon faded, my attention wavered against his high-pitched ramblings and uninteresting regurgitation. I learned nothing new. I felt I was deep in the presence of hypocrites. The message was to think of the poor and the needy, to love all our brothers, except homosexuals? I started to daydream and decided that I would never again set foot inside a church- not for a sermon. An empty church has far more spiritual value than one with homophobic people and their politics, their empty hopes, false faith.
After the service I fled the crowds that gathered outside to shake hands, kiss on both cheeks, offer Christmas greetings, and gossip. I felt resentful and awkward. I fled not these people in particular, but the past and my grim associations with Assyrians. I fled to Jackie's car in the parking lot, rested against it, the sun warmed my back, and I felt free. I saw someone I knew from my childhood, but turned away. What ordinary and artificial things would we have said to each other? How do you answer perfunctory questions from relatives and acquaintances when all you want to say to them is, 'I am suffering because my brothers and sisters are suffering and I am doing nothing but posting my diary from the safety and anonymity of my room, which I have painted a bluish-gray color because it inspires my pretentious literary side.'
I had tried to understand my relationship with God and what His purpose in my life might be. Why was I born Christian and Assyrian and queer and what does this mean? What is my destiny? Is it to continually question my upbringing and struggle to redefine my self to myself as a perpetual stranger? Always changing faces, juggling beliefs, trading Assyrian ways for American and American for Iranian and so on and so forth. I remembered my street experiences in San Francisco and the men there, and thought, God took me there... No, I took God there. Hand-me-down ideas just don't work for me anymore, my Assyrianism. My childhood and teen years were difficult because I was living for others; my twenties are painful because I am trying to begin living for myself, and this is confusing, there is darkness... and danger. Deep guilt. I am trying to liberate myself, as human being, but also as an Assyrian and a part of two societies. I have to live openly, though their expectations will always be in the back of my mind, looming invisibly but persistently- like God himself.
But if He insists on being ubiquitous and force Himself into my psyche and spirituality then He must endure my pain, my life, and my mistakes, my revelations, my dishonesty and my glories. I'm feeling quite lost and uncertain, but this is not the first time, nor the last. I will stay afloat. I will live. And maybe one day I will find the comfort and the life I am trying to build up to, and maybe I won't. For now I will live this imperfect life because it is mine and I must be proud of it as if I am its parent.
I have begun to feel weary of a world I have been desperately trying to paint a lighter shade, but which is actually made of darker pigments. I can't keep up.

Tariq, I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to break things and break free. Not because I'm miserable, but because I am a happy young man whose joy sees things far more subtle and nuanced than my sadness could. And it is my joy and love for life that weep so hopelessly. 
What does my joy see that I, the person, can't? It sees that I cannot find my home- not in Iran, not in America, and if there were an Assyria, not there either. 
Where do I belong? In Assyrian circles I feel American. In Iranian circles I feel unsuccessful. In American circles I feel misunderstood. I stand out. In straight circles I feel like an oddity. In gay men's circles I feel desired or resented. Where then do I go? 
I am a person who needs attention- to give it and to receive it. But I fear that as I grow older I grow less social, less tolerant, and more cautious. 
Today I cried. I cried because my joy ran out of excuses and patience. It got tired of sustaining me through the days when I am a waiter and my future seems uncertain and unlikely. My dreams are weighing on me like mountains, dramatic and beautiful mountain ranges that belong in the vistas of all our lives, but not on our backs. I feel so small and ineffectual, so cowardly even as I question my upbringing and God. There is pain in living in oppression and pain in attempting to liberate my spirit. And guilt. So, I falter. I make an ass of myself. I weep like a child. 
I just feel such power and beauty in life- a power beyond my comprehension and my grasp. And yet, this light is within me. A 'me' that is yet locked away with the light and the power. And THIS me is left helpless in the dark. I hate it! 
Joy should not have to face such regular tests and challenges. It should just be. It is not life that's cruel but the people who occupy it. 
I have resolved not to let my mistrust guide me, anger build me. I want to remain honest and naive, wild-eyed and enthusiastic. 
I do not begrudge humanity its crassness, insensitivity, criminality. I only blame myself for being weak and unwilling to accept the reality. 


Tariq, I figured it out! I wanted you to be my diary because of my need to feel as one with another human being. I think unconsciously I wanted to surmount this great gap that I cannot otherwise overcome between myself and other human beings- specifically with other men. You became the subconscious subject of my diary because you made such a dear impression on me and were so meek- not weak- and accepting. I ran to you and I don't think it's appropriate or realistic. It's unfair to you that I should come to you with such intimate feelings. I think I am in need of a relationship with a man on a profound level and making you my diary was voicing this desire for intimacy that has always been lacking in my world. Tariq, forgive me. I apologize. Please know that I am a just person and would never try to harm or manipulate you. 
See the effects of homophobia in action in me? Do you see how it has sabotaged the child so that he grew to always struggle in his adult life with other gay men... in relationships, in eroticism, and in brotherhood? 


Shammi, life of mine. As I read your last e-mail I felt vivified with images of Arab dykes and ancient pyramids, celebrations in a place where I imagined you reeling amid brown people with black hair, a place where you and I both belong. 
I'm glad that you're feeling more and more settled in and are moving into your own apartment. It makes me extremely happy, because as you know I live vicariously through you. I am there in your shoes, and when you go barefoot my feet burn in the hot sand. I am not in bland and correct Marin. 
Here? There are good things, moody things, amazing, funny, and dramatic things. You know, Emil things. 
You said you no longer felt resistant to your environment. Wow! What's that like? I want to feel that which you are building for yourself. Building. Feeling. Living. I forget why our parents struggled to bring us here and I forget why as a child I prayed to be allowed to come to America. But we did, and we were let in, and I entered apologetically and politely, like a sacrificial subject, and am now struggling to break free, but of what? Of being Assyrian? My Americanization? The Christian God? What I thought being gay meant? My dreams that hang from my tongue like a weight strung from chains?