Times Like These

Step off the bus, breathe in the fumes, walk into the hotel bathroom, change into jeans, slip, lip gloss, shine, vanilla,heels.
So late, too late, and I don't care.
Traffic jam on the bridge, past Khaled's place, wrote a letter to him
in my head "I suck as a friend and you suck as a friend and I know we don't call but I miss you and maybe you could come see me
sometime".

Step out and into the club with the smoke and the stares and the darkwooden bar table that curves into a corner full of nights that I remember of someone very like me but slightly younger.

Kiss Mariam and hug Nancy who gets drunk on two glasses of punch and one shot and almost talks to Al, her freshman obsession and still she
can't find the guts, gulps down another shot and squeaks every time he passes, and before she finds the words, throws it all up in the bathroom as I re-apply lip gloss and try to get along with a table of boys (because men is too big a word for them) who won't talk to me but think I'm hot, so I glide to the dance floor and stand in front of the drummer as he plays the tabla and I dance and he smiles and I laugh because we both love the moment where hips challenge hands to beat their own
rhythm
(and later on he trails his cold hands down my spine and I push him off telling him "I'm Ticklish" but he doesn't get the hint and says he
wants to be my drummer boy and I laugh at the absurdity of it all but secretly I've always wanted one in my room who will play whenever I
want to dance and rage and get it all off and practice my moves because I am never sexier than right then)

and someone just like me would have bitched him off and walked away but now it's too late, and moments like these have become too precious,
where I am something very much like five months ago, I can't let it pass me by, almost there but not quite to reach the picture and step
inside, another world, not mine.

And Mariam has that look in her face when she smiles at Karim, and I've been here so many times the past three years, I don't even bat an
eyelash when they move in close, and I think of Tamara who told her yesterday how much she likes him and Mariam tells me "you have no idea
how hard it is" and I try not to choke on my laughter at the irony,
because yes I do, and no you don't.

Someone leans in and tells me "I've seen you around before" and I smile back at his gelled hair and I heard once that it takes you thirty seconds to work out your attraction, it only takes me five to know that I'm not but I don't want to wait in a corner and watch Mariam,so I dance and he dances and tries to move along with me, and I'm touched at his attempt even though he can't, we've barely spoken and he glides his hands down my butt
and I think "But I don't even like you"
pull away laughing, do a little spin, walk a little way, make some small chat with Stephanie who thinks I owe her an apology for not calling, but she never did, stuck in her little world, and we all have our moments and we all have our friends, she wasn't mine when I needed her, so I smile when her date tells me she's such a sweetheart and she tells him my secret, just as she always did before, walking around saying I'm her cousin's girlfriend, when I really wasn't and I don't think I've forgiven her for that quite yet.

The night is late and I've only had pineapple, but somehow I don't want to stop,
I am so far away from you and your whims and the nights spent at home watching TV (I'm too young to be my parents- how can you think I'm
happy?)and reading my diary about nights that turn into days

and you think "Times like these should be held onto",

it was only last summer, my stomach is sick and still I dance,
laughing, hair in eyes, eyes on me, he stands behind me and says "Come dance with me while I play for you" and I say ok and let him go but
never follow because I want to stay here in this corner and Sherif says hi and talks about Agami, and he's so nice and I wonder, couldn't you
have been like this two years ago instead of making my life a living hell, and isn't it funny how the people I hated the most love me
now?

Mariam laughs into Karim's eyes as the lights are turned on and we're kicked out of the club, but someone says come to the after-party and
it's only four AM and I miss the person I was and maybe just maybe it's not too late to jump into this skin back again,

I've been watching in a corner the last few months,

she lets me drive even though he wants me to come in his 1970 Buick and even the thought
of a vintage car will not tempt me to be alone with him, they say he's harmless so I let him flirt with me, but he can't tell the difference
between nice and responding and I just can't look, so we drive along the Nile, the corniche is empty, I change into Fifth Gear and she feels
carsick as I take a turn without hitting the brakes
"I'm sorry" I chirp, she gulps and soon the sun will be coming up
if this is who I was then, where did I go?

The rooms are full of dancing bodies and a boy in a wheelchair is trying to do the Samba, someone rolls a joint next to a green bottle lamp,
and Al appears in his PJ's with a tattoo on his foot and I wish Nancy were here so I could throw her his way and end what started too long
ago to let her move on,

I curl up on the couch as some guy talks to me about fitting in and another speaks to me in Spanish and I say "Me gustas tacos " because
that's all I know, so I switch to Polish and he pokes my belly so I poke his belly back and somehow it's seven thirty AM and we're the
first to leave,
after he tried to hold my hand and don't you know you can't do that unless I let you, hands were made for certain people yet to come, and you're not him, as I wrap the jacket around my jeans and walk out into the morning sun in my little straps and blisters on feet from dancing
too hard and laughing too long.

Mariam and Karim kiss behind me and I laugh when I remember how Rami sat next to them making out, trying not to notice and look all busy staring into his drink, when all he wanted to do was say goodbye
and Karim told him to fuck off, and isn't it funny how some people never change, he tells me I have an average butt and I beg to differ but don't fall for his offer to see me bend down and walk around for him because he'll never change his stupid perceptions,

and now we speed through the empty streets as she tells me what he told her and this can be great and I remind her of Tamara and Yara and she
knows she's in trouble, I've been here before without her support, so she's on her own now, and I'm conscious of my relief that I'm no longer
part of the mess and the gossip and the backstabbing kamikaze bitches,
and does that mean I've grown?

I'm still the same height but somehow smaller, and Cairo looks just like Montreal in the mornings, in my head I'm riding my bike before breakfast, I want a bottle green lamp and cream curtains that hang from my bed, and somehow it's only round the corner, close enough to reach and jump back into,

I could really be someone, you know, if only you let me,

I wipe the cream off my face as she sinks her face into the pillow and late we have pancakes for breakfast at three in the afternoon
( she says I eat as if I have a hangover and maybe I do)

we watch trashy Egyptian music videos and dissect every moment; she laughs and tells me the drummer is harmless and practically married to his girlfriend which makes me sick because I wouldn't want to be in her shoes and I hope I never will be, but at this stage who knows,
I couldbewouldbe anyone, if I turn that corner, something special,
something new,

maybe I couldbewouldbe me.