Diary Excerpt #1: Walks With Mom/Requiem for a Dream

When we were still in Lebanon, my mom and I would go for walks on the coast, known as the Manara, every morning during the summers. We'd walk for anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, and would chat about everything and nothing at the same time. The scenery was beautiful, and morning walks were always refreshing. Having a walking partner only made it better. One time, one of our chats went as such:

"I wish I was in the US to help my parents," she said.

"Why? What do they need help with?"

"Just your uncle. You know how he is."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"What would you do if you were there?"

"...Maybe I would send him to jail."

...

"Really?"

"Yeah. Maybe that would toughen him up a bit."

"Maybe. Maybe it'd knock some sense into him."

"Yeah."

"Maybe I would send him to jail."

The words fell off of my mother's tongue and into a short silence. My mother was always an outspoken woman. She would have you believe that she never cared about what others thought. (She is a good liar. This is reflected in me. Maybe, when she realises how similar we are, she will accept me wholly.)

"Maybe that would toughen him up a bit."

I understand her point of view. But to imagine my own mother sending her beloved brother whom she practically raised, to prison, was a mental image that was hard to stomach. It was crazy, it was wrong, and it was right.

Her brother was a star student. Maybe that's where they all go wrong. (He is a reflection of me staring back in the mirror. He tells me everything that is wrong with me, and everything that will happen to me. I feel sick.)

Grandma and Grandpa were always too generous. They would give and never take. Such is the life of most 'good' parents. They are too forgiving with him.

My Uncle always took. He was never the satiable kind—never satisfied with others, let alone himself. He worked towards a goal invisible to me. I wonder, at times, if he ever reached his goal or if he simply used his insatiable needs as fuel to his terrible and brilliant fire. Sometimes I hope he burns in it. Sometimes I hope the fire crawls up the walls of his home to seep through the cracks and engulf him in a display of reds and oranges: blood and flesh. Maybe the fire would seep through the cracks of his skull and be enough to get to his brain.
He is the vomit stain on my shirt. He is the cigarette burns in the sheets.

I never used to think of him like this. Maybe it is because I am older now, and more 'aware'. I am sixteen years old and my parents' only daughter. Mom tells me everything. I wish she wouldn't, but I'd rather know than not. I wish that when I would have conversations with my uncle, he would remember them. But he doesn't. He remembers nothing.