The Psyche of a gay Muslim By Bashir Al-hamim for my friend brown lips

The Psyche of a gay Muslim By Bashir Al-hamim for my friend

I first saw him and was struck by his soulful eyes, he a round melancholy face
He wore an 80’s porn star style moustache back in the 50’s
He was the silent type never talking always observing the world
He was a fierce man of passion; we loved but never committed the act of love with me
He was afraid he’d burn in hell for being true to himself
He was drinking Coco in Paris when I first saw him, ahh those round brown lips
I think back to that moment and repeat to myself on how beautiful he was
Once a year for forty years we met in this small musty smelling café and loved
He was a poet of sorts a fellow truly never at home in this world
For years we always stayed in a damp cold hotel, for years I begged him to hold me for years he refused, but he did love me thou he never spoke the words
When we first met he was a chain smoking fool with suicidal thoughts
He smoke everywhere and I hated it but that was the fashion back then so I excused him
He was a Muslim and I was the whitest powdered Jew that ever lived
He aged to be a genius in his own langue often he’d write poetry then burn it or throw it in the rubble
He suffered agoraphobia nose-bleeds

He wrote about Islamic saints and lovers of god, I sometimes read his attempts in English or French but always he threw them away.
I hated him because he was a giant in small shoes, always saying “You are left to accept what fate has delivered” fuck him for Saying that to me so often
I loved him because he is the only one who truly knew me
With him I fell madly in love for the first time in my adult life
We sat around in the coldness of winter sipping mint tea; he always brought a suitcase of Persian carpets which made the small flat homely
He always spoke of the dark side of are love for which I hated him
He was a rebel three times jailed and tortured for speaking about social injustice, he never said what they did to him but by age forty he walked with a cane, he body worn flesh, dints and for ten years he had no fingernails
Often he’d drink wine and cry but would never make a sound, only the tears in his eyes showed true signs of emotion
He was gay poet his writing aroused so much discussion, controversy, praise, denunciation, mystification and interpretation but it didn’t matter because he was closeted

He was the greatest case I’d ever know of the elevated human condition
He made a lot of money but remained poor giving the majority of his money to Islamic charities, the main reason I loved him so over the years
He shunned the public and fought for privacy which was hard in his home country, we the victim of political bosses and religious zealots but he would always return for what reason I could never understand
Once his coldness almost destroyed our love but after a spirited debated and a bottle of wine we fell in love again
He was smart and creative he had much more lovers then I, I know from all the poems he wrote to them
It was only in the last year he wrote one for me not even a fucking love poem
He alternated between long stretches of being alone and one-night stands, while I a had was short loveless affairs
“Our” love conquered jealousy
We fucked but not each other, ahh the days before aids and whinny fags, I toast those days where a man was still a man even as a bottom
I look out now and see a lack of trust in gay man with their partner its numbing
One remains innocent like he was
Ever afraid of true intimacy he worked so hard to avoid love but always found he way here every winter into my arms he hobbled the last few years
The last poem he wrote which I found in the rubble five years ago went

I have love few but those I loved I love with the enduring passion of mountains
I’ve cried more for myself then my people my country this makes me cry more
So many people have died, too many people have been tortured, too many people are up in arms, why oh why my god
The crimes committed against the innocent, the babies stolen innocence, why oh why my god
To the young lovers in the streets to them I leave a kiss and my last breathes
To the protester for justice I leave a heart full of prayers
To you I leave brown lips which you can kiss without fear of rebuke

I took his body to his home country and after mustering money and support he had a grand Funeral, one which would have angered him, he would have felt betrayed but I don’t care because I loved him, I buried my kindred spirit in a small plot in his home village were I discovered he had a son
Who kissed me with big brown lips