My Parisian notebooks

My soul was floating in the polluted air of the country, and the smoke of explosions was stealing my breath. I, who am troubled by allergic asthma, was swimming amidst that horror as if I was announcing myself to the bullets in the madness of the shameful fighting. I find myself fragile as a handful of ashes, or as the ruins of a house collapsed in an earthquake or a fire. Then suddenly I float in the void. Should I scream? Is it a vision or a fragment of memory? .. No, you must be silent, for you are in a city that is no longer Baghdad, the historic, turbulent city with music and maqams, but has become a city that writes its history of cruelty with blood and draws tomorrow with ash. In silence, I threaten my heart like an orphaned, rejected child. I feel the tremor in the veins. Strange, wherever the star strikes you, oh heart, lonely amidst the crowds, neither the cities rescue you nor reaching your goal. Neither wandering nor staying in the mirage is your aim. So where does the deceitful journey take you?