The Sprout of Pain to Joy
Page 1
The Sprout of Pain to Joy
Rania Mukhar
Austin Macauley Publishers
The Sprout of Pain to Joy
About the Author
About the Cover
Dedication
Copyright Information ©
Acknowledgement
About the Author
Rania Mukhar was born and raised in Amman, Jordan. She has been writing poetry for her own use since she was
in sixth grade.
About the Cover
Unveiling your mask in darkness takes you to the light of truth.
Dedication
This is dedicated to my brother-in-law, Hassan Akasheh, who gave my dream wings.
Copyright Information ©
Rania Mukhar (2019)
The right of Rania Mukhar to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with Federal Law No. (7) of UAE, Year 2002, Concerning Copyrights and Neighboring Rights.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to legal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The age category suitable for the books’ contents has been classified and defined in accordance to the Age Classification System issued by the National Media Council.
ISBN 9789948366676 (Paperback)
ISBN 9789948366584 (E-Book)
Application Number: MC-10-01-3245153
Age Classification: E
Printer Name:
Printer Address:
First Published (2019)
AUSTIN MACAULEY PUBLISHERS FZE
Sharjah Publishing City
P.O Box [519201]
Sharjah, UAE
www.austinmacauley.ae
+971 655 95 202
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my husband, Firas, for supporting me and investing in this process; my kids, Zoya and Raed, for encouraging me. I would also like to thank the Mukhar and Qoussous families for believing in me from day one. Finally, I would like to thank Sireen Hannun for giving me my first pen and paper to start my journey.
As she pushed her mother in her wheelchair through their garden, Joy asked her, “Why did you name me Joy?”
Mother: “Because you were the rainbow after a century of rainfall…”
Joy: “What do you mean?”
Mom: "For a long time, I had been a prisoner of my past…
I was the harsh judge of my humanly mistakes…
And with heavy chains, I sentenced my soul to eternal guilt…
My regrets executed my dreams…
And in this darkness, my tears of sorrow nourished the spores of my pain…
And like mushrooms, it spread in my sleep…
And so the visions of horror began…"
Joy: “Tell me about them…”
Mom: "Well… I was raised not to judge a book by its cover…
So it was easy for me to accept people’s true self.
I have always looked beyond the mask and never feared what I saw…
But somehow along the winding road, I dropped the wallet that holds my identity…
Partly because I was running to find my way home… And partly because I trusted others with it.
I am not sure if I lost it or if it was stolen, it doesn’t matter I guess…
Either way, I didn’t have it.
As the sunset on my path, my mask became the only weapon I had left.
With every dead end I would reach, I would get angry at myself…
With every wall I couldn’t climb, I would look down upon my strength.
It was as if without my ID card, I became a dark monster within this huge maze.
Every mysterious creature would run the other way when I would approach, except for an angel in white that came to me and held my hand…
The angel promised not to let me go until I found my identity…"
Joy: “And then what?”
Mom: "As the sun brightened the deep blue, the angel vanished…
Fear wrapped my heart with the colors of confusion…
Every flower seemed to be poisonous and every tree felt like a giant warrior…
I stayed in my place, hoping the angel had gone to look for what I needed…
The seconds felt like centuries as I waited…
The birds turned into dragons that haunted me from above…
My heartbeats invaded my entire ribcage, suffocating any good thought left in me…
Chained from the evil spirits flowing beneath my skin, I felt paralyzed…
My lips locked… My body stuck… And my soul ice cold…
I had to find my angel."
Joy: “And after that?”
Mom: "Well… I began to feel cold and numb…
Every thought I ever had had frozen in my mind…
The voices of every advice I had ever been given started to strangle my throat…
My skin became the cage that captured my soul from going anywhere…
Was I dreaming? Was I in a horrible nightmare?
If only I could scream for help… If only I could find the angel again…
Deafness drowned my sense of hearing with the terror of silence…
Blindness glued my eyelids down, forbidding me from seeing any way out…
My lungs no longer wanted to breathe in life…
All I could do was wait…
Wait to wake up?
Wait for my angel?
Wait for darkness?
Wait for someone to find my ID?
Wait to be found?
I did not know what to wait for… So I waited without a purpose."
Joy: “Did the angel show up?”
Mom: "No, the ghosts of hell started to surround my body… Whispering sounds that made my spine shiver…
They seemed to be growing from points below the ground…
Each shadow moved in harmony with the other as if the devil was orchestrating their evil sounds…
I tried to scream but my lips were tied to one another…
I felt my cries racing within myself from head to toe desperately looking for an escape to be heard…
What were they saying? Why was I so scared if I didn’t know what was being said?
They moved around me as if I were a fire that fed their energy…
The terror inside my mind’s maze fulfilled their spooky appetite…
They kept getting bigger and closer…
Until finally, the sound of horror erupted from within me…
And suddenly they were gone…
Until this day, I do not know if I was awake…
But I am sure I was terrified… And since then… I believe there is a hell."
Joy: “What happened to you after that?”
Mother: "I got up and tried to go to a safer place away from the haunting spirits…
I kept walking as fast as I could but my knees kept on freezing…
My legs collapsed to the ground so I crawled…
My voice echoed from one tree to the other…but silence answered me with its cold whisper, sending icy chills into my core…
My crawl kept getting heavier and heavier, making my movement still…
I found myself back at the same point…
It was as if that spot was a magnet pulling me back with all its strength…
Hunger began to sail into my appetite…
Thirst intruded on my sense of taste…
For
the first time, I was relieved to be hungry, for I knew I was somehow still alive…
I looked around and grabbed some flowers, imagining them to be a warm hot meal…
As my hand picked one more, an army of bees declared a war on me…
With one sword after another cutting through my skin, I had wished the ghosts had taken me… Or had they?"
Joy: “Why didn’t anyone help you?”
Mother: "There was no one to be found, I woke up in my own bed…
My heart was pounding… My body soaking wet…
I went to look at myself in the mirror but there weren’t any signs of war…
Was I dreaming now? Did the bees tranquilize me into this comfortable state? Or maybe it was the petals that poisoned me to death?
I slowly walked out of the room and found myself in my grandmother’s kitchen…
I sat and watched her cook while I ate my breakfast… but she did not say a word…
She was wearing a long green dress with yellow flowers…
But she seemed to walk through me rather than around…
Why wasn’t she speaking? How could this be real? Why was I here?
I felt as if I were beneath the ocean hearing all these faint sounds as she moved…
As she began to fade, I cried and begged her to take me with her…
I quickly ran back to my room, closed the door and forced myself to sleep…
And instead I found myself struggling to open my eyes…"
Joy: “Did you wake up?”
Mother: "I guess, because I opened my eyes and found myself back in the forest…
I was lying on the ground in the middle of a field…
It was as if years had passed or at least the height of the grass gave me that feeling…
I heard an army looking for me so I held my breath…
I couldn’t see them but they seemed like giants with weapons…
I was sure they wanted to kill me but I could not remember what I had done to cause this search…
They began to get closer… I could see their boots tainted with blood…
I could smell their desire to hunt me down and slaughter me for pleasure…
The evil leader stood next to my hand and I felt his anger burn the grass that protected my life…
I closed my eyes, hoping the horrible murderers wouldn’t find me…
But the child in me could not remain silent… the volcanic screams in my heart began to erupt… burning everything around me into ashes…
The cloud of death weakened my sight… As I passed out, all I could smell was the burning of bodies into their skeletons."
Joy: “How did you get out?”
Mother: "I am not sure, but suddenly I woke up, turned on the light and found myself next to someone I think I met the night before…
Why was I with a person I barely knew?
Had my true love abandoned me somehow? Or was this my revenge for what I thought he had done?
Maybe the leader of the army survived the fire and kidnapped me?
The room didn’t have any windows and I could smell every cigarette that was smoked…
I could feel the cheap alcohol flowing in my blood…
My mind was blocked… It was as if my memory had been shot with a thousand bullets…
I was shivering from some sort of withdrawal that hurt every fiber in my body…
I put on my clothes to cover any shame that may gossip to the eyes of the curious…
Like a ballerina, my feet flew softly across the room…
Escaping from this thief who robbed me of my innocence, I ran outside…
Only to see myself fall down the stairs and somehow deserving the pain from every bump…
The endless staircase seemed to be punishing me for my careless acts…
I kept falling…step by step…into an unconscious state."
Joy: “Where did you wake up next?”
Mother: "I woke up in a huge hole surrounded by bones…
My only way out of this dark grave was to climb up the mountain of skeletons…
Were these of the soldiers who tried to kill me?
Did they belong to the black souls that haunted me?
Will climbing over them upset their slumber?
As I reached up closer to the light, I prayed to God that I would not fall into another trap…
What if the army was waiting for me at the top?
The smell of death lingered around me and formed a new mask over my face…
It was so cold… It was so dark…
My lips couldn’t say a word even though my mind was screaming for help…
It was as if I had been stuffed with stones down my throat…
As I climbed up, I was too terrified to look down… The horrible feeling of the dead following me kept getting stronger…
It was as if the skeletons wanted to feed on my skin…
I kept imagining their ivory hands reaching for my legs to pull me back down…
Finally, I found myself outside of the coffin yet inside a cage…"
Joy: “What was in the cage?”
Mother: "I heard the breathing of an animal… I felt its strength in every inhale…
The cage was so big it looked like an open field…
But somehow I knew I was locked inside a place I had invaded…
The bull walked around me slowly as if it were afraid of my presence…
I tried not to let my body reflect the terror felt inside…
What did the bull want? Was I wearing a color it did not like? Did it know where I had been?
I had forgotten what I was wearing and I couldn’t move my eyes…
Scared of being misunderstood by the bull, I stood still like a statue…
My body froze with fear and my heart became the axe that dug through my chest…
I tried to shout for help but my lips were sewn to each other…
The bull started to push me gently as if trying to see if I was real…
Was the bull giving me a warning? Or was it telling me it was my friend…
As it started to chew on my shoes, I felt its teeth excited to reach my feet…
I panicked and started to run without looking back…
I felt the bull’s danger in the speed of its steps…
The beast chased me to the corner of its home…
Too scared to turn around, I closed my eyes and screamed…"
Joy: “So where did you find yourself?”
Mother: "I woke up and found myself playing a game of hide and seek in pitch dark…
Hiding in a corner behind the door, I felt his presence behind me…
Following the rule of survival not to make a sound, I stood under his mercy…
The hand that should hold me in time of need was touching me in sin…
I was old enough to know the difference between black and white…
But I was too young to understand and deal with the shades in between…
My body turned into stone from the evil spell his hand cast upon me…
Hoping to be found, I coughed to bring color to the shadows of darkness…
Yet it only awakened the other hand to cover my lips for safety…
As the hands felt like ropes getting tighter to hang me from the throat…
I felt my legs struggling to break free and my eyes began to drown in tears…"
Joy: “How did you escape?”
Mother: "As I fought my way out of that nightmare, I saw myself in the middle of the ocean looking for land…
I sat on the boat trying to figure out if this was real…
The souls of the people in my past haunted the space around me…
On one side the ghosts kept trying to tell me things I did not understand…
And on the other, their bodies lay there stone-cold…
Even though I knew them all when they walked the earth, I felt terrified of their spirits…
Were they angry a
t me or was this my guilt? Was I hallucinating because I was lost at sea? Or was this another nightmare that tore down the doors of my sleep?
I kept screaming for help, yet every cry drowned in this mysterious blue desert…
The ghosts kept trying to get closer to me and even tried to hold my hands…
Did they need help? Were they stuck in limbo?
I had a horrible feeling that their bodies would jump and attack me…
Their eyes began to fill with hatred as they stared endlessly at me…
My screams began to echo as if they were imitating me…
I dove into the water and kept going deeper and deeper until I drowned myself, hoping to wake up if this was a nightmare…and hoping to die if this was real…"
Joy: “Did you swim back up?”
Mother: "In a way, I did…and I woke up finding myself sitting on a bench in the forest…
So this must be real, I thought to myself because my clothes were still wet…
Opposite me sat a beautiful, calm dog who watched me with trust…
Somehow I felt it knew that I was scared of her…
She guarded her master with all her strength and loyalty…
Her kind eyes watched her master walk over to sit next to me…
Maybe he had found my wallet and that’s why he seemed friendly…
His familiar face started to invade my space as he tried to get closer to my face…
The closer he got, the more faces I saw…
Switching in fast motion from human to a clown to a beast, the sight scared me to death…
My eyes turned to the observant dog for help but she did not move…
I saw her guarding the body of her owner as his schizophrenic soul threatened my comfort…
The red paint concealing this force began to burn me…
The strength of the angry blaze could only have come from the wretched underworld…
I must have drowned when I dove in the sea to have awakened in the bottomless pit of death…
I closed my eyes and all I could hear was the howling of the dog… And suddenly everything had gone quiet, wrapped in the blanket of total darkness…"