Tag: travel

The Poetry Collection

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by mardinLeave a Comment on untitled

My Mother Tongue shakes the balance of your state,

My Women scare your men into slate,

My Mountains have helplessly observed our fates

As seasons pass and winters press, and foundations shake.

A people whom you’ve never seen

Are born with wings to fly over the scene

Of blood and bodies of the badly betrayed

My children are the cradle of death, here watch them laid.

And as the canons growl and howl

You’re left with an odourless foul,

This is your attempt for an angry fix to enrich your soul

With the abolishment of a Kurdish whole.

Our heroes, wounded will not bow

Their souls fixed on one vow.

Our poets and soldiers fight hand in hand

Creating vibrations over your so called land.

Blindly the world watches, only they don’t see

They don’t see that the Kurds are already free

Free from ignorance, greed and hate

Filled with Azadi we recreate.

We will not weep over those we mourn,

Those very roses that cut us with their thorn

Leaving us abandoned, stateless, and rights-less,

Will regret the day they chose to repress

A nation so grand, no matter how much they try,

Kurds will fight back and defy,

Pry all you want, we will not die,

And if guns and barrels are your only conviction

We will fight your attempt at extinction

We are Kurds and we have one reply

You’ve betrayed us enough, this is goodbye.

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Mona Lisa

by mardinLeave a Comment on Mona Lisa

& her thoughts

Your friends are staggered in the rooms before and after you, while you stay stagnant in an empty, light, mustard yellow room. Everyday you see thousands of people, everyday you stand still knowingly posing for the hundreds of photos, yet you can’t help but feel alone, isolated in the glass box that separates you from the rest of the world. A smile is what you’re known for, and yet you wonder why, “Why does my smile bring such a grand allure? Why?” You ask yourself how is it that people cannot see the hollowness in your eyes, for you wear it like a scarlet letter for the townspeople to see.

There is a melancholic nature to you Mona Lisa, your eyes are sad. You watch the various faces come in and out, and you stand still like you always do, wondering whether they’re truly appreciating you or basking in superiority for being able to visit you. The more you look the more you know, you know this is not how you want to be remembered, this is not how you want to live, because when the camera’s disappear and the people are gone, you’re left in a darkened room in the middle of the night, alone, no companion, no friends, when you’re finally free to breathe and break free from your almost smile, you are left with an everlasting loneliness. You can hear your friends next door talking amongst themselves, laughing at the tourist who had to be escorted out because he dared touch one of the paintings, the Roman Antiquities come to life and start walking around, they stretch their stiff legs and visit the Gudea  to discuss the value of religion. Delacroix’s tiger’s come to life, roaming the halls of The Louvre hungry for their next prey. Your friends used to  visit you but they saw the sadness in your eyes, don’t see the grandeur of your portrait, and have since been discouraged from coming again.

Oh Mona Lisa, you’ve forgotten to use your words, you haven’t spoken in forever and you’re longing to scream is on the tip of your tongue but you’ve forgotten to. You’re saddened to never see the halls of The Louvre, visit Liberty, leading the people, peak in to visit Bathsheba at Her Bath. You often wonder, what if you were La Belle Ferronnière and she was you. Oh it must be extraordinary to exceptionally ordinary, to walk freely and breathe fresh air, to go beyond the four walls that you’re enclosed in. You lock eyes with everyone that come to see you, you wonder what it would be like if you switched out of your dress and switched into pants, place your hair up in a bun and walk away, visit the Seine, walk by the water, go in and out of the gift shops, oh how wonderful it must be to have someone to buy souvenirs too.

But your reality is that you will forever be enclosed in a glass box, bound by four walls, in an empty room filled with thousands of people. You will forever be alone as the crowds grow bigger. Mona Lisa, you are the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most industrialized, and the most critical work of art in the world, and yet no one knows how misunderstood you are.

Mardin
19/03/2019

Getting Personal, Uncategorized

Exploring the 6

by mardinLeave a Comment on Exploring the 6

you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone

My life has always been a series of movements from one place to another, and I’ve always hated it. Over the years, I’ve moved homes, made friends, packed and unpacked, forgotten friends and reset multiple times. The worst part is, I don’t pack light. I travel with my clothes, makeup, and skincare (obviously), but I also have a couple hundred books that I’ve bought with the intention of reading, which happen to turn into decoration pieces on my bedside table. But that’s beside the point, the point is, I’ve grown up knowing that I will never subject myself nor my kids to that lifestyle when the time comes, I’m going to pick a city and live in it forever. 

Sounds like a pretty straightforward plan, no? In theory, yes, it sounds good, but in reality, things never go according to plan, and I’ve come to learn that notion the hard way, and surprisingly, I’ve welcomed it, I’ve learned to be adaptable to chaos, and believe it or not, I’ve realized that Canada might only be a chapter, not the end all be all. 

Truthfully, the different countries, cities, and cultures I’ve been a part of have shaped me to the person that I am today, and yet I go out of my way to travel and explore cities, places, and cultures outside of the very one I am a part of. So in the spirit of 2019 and resolutions, I’ve decided to do a monthly intentions list, where I make a list of the things I intend to focus on for the month, after all, it only takes 21 days to break a habit or start a new one.

Here’s a sneak peek of January’s intention list:

  1. Practice more self-care: body + mind + soul
  2. Be more positive
  3. Do my bed every morning (I’ve gotten lazy, don’t judge me)
  4. Invest in experiences, not things
  5. Be present
  6. Be patient 
  7. Explore my own city: Toronto / GTA
  8. Be vulnerable
  9. Read more
  10. Write more

Number 7 is what this post is about; exploring my own city, this is something that I’ve always neglected, or put aside because I always thought at the back of my head, I’m here, the city is not going anywhere so why rush? But like I said, I don’t know if Canada or Toronto is my future, and now there is an urgency in immersing myself in all things Toronto and so that if the time comes and I have to leave, I can leave knowing that I took as much as I can from the city. 

Also, I wanted to start small, baby steps, Toronto is my backyard, and I want to explore it. First Toronto/ the GTA, and then I can venture off into exploring different cities in different provinces, I’m giving myself until the end of August 2019, but until then, no matter how tired I am after work, I’m going to make the trip downtown and explore the 102 places I’ve saved on google, disclaimer alert, I have done a lot of these already but I want to do them again from this new perspective, and here’s a little peek of my list:

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6246864,-79.5690948,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!11m1!2s59uggzp5HPek2y7NAtUWNO5YLaZJ9Q

I have a rough idea of how many people read this blog, and to be honest, there’s not a lot of you, but if you’re reading this, I have a proposition for you, join me join me if you can because why not? Even if we’re strangers (sorry mom), let’s change that and be friends, after all, we are only strangers of circumstance, we might be destined to be friends, you might even think by the end of it, “I wish I were friends with you sooner Mardin”. Just food for thought. 😉

First Stop – Toronto/ The GTA
Next Stop-?

Mardin
7/1/2019