A Short Collection

By Naïli Cheballah

A house on the hill  

There once was a big house on a mountain. This is a story about it; it’s been told before, and you’ve probably heard it.

It was a big house with nearly no furniture, just marvelous empty spaces. Marble floors, different tapestries in every room, stained glass windows that obstructed almost all sunlight, a fireplace that was never a host for any warmth, mirrors bordered with gold casting no reflection, an oak dining table and ten vacant chairs around it…

In the space designed to be a living room, a sagging leather couch; on it lay two stained pillows and a scratchy wool blanket. Unlike the house it inhabited, this couch was lived in.

A chandelier in the hall looked up at a staircase; the staircase led to the first floor where there were bedrooms with windows that let through beams of light by morning.
The people in the house never went up the stairs because their knees were too weak to climb. Many visitors, when there were visitors, would offer to call a doctor, but the people in the house were too tired to go to his office. Many offered to have the doctor come over, but they said the house wasn’t to be seen yet.
The people in the house went to bed weeping every night, and you could hear them from up the stairs.
If you were there, you would have wept too.

I did.

When of age, I went out of the house, downhill by the foot of the mountain. I heard the people cry even from so far away.

So I went even further to a place that’s not a mountain, where lights are very bright, and there is furniture and music on every street corner.

A few years passed, and I could still make out the sobbing noises. I went back to the house. The people were there, waiting for my arrival on the sagging couch; they embraced me, and said, « We’re so glad our daughter is home. »

After a few days back at the house on the hill, I felt too weak to go up the stairs. I called a doctor who affirmed there was nothing wrong with me and that it was probably just the mountain air; that I had grown unaccustomed to it.

I held my breath and went to bed on the sagging leather couch.

About me

I don't believe in astrology, yet I make sure to listen when someone explains how the stars make up my personality.

When asked whether or not I'm religious, I tremble because I am not, but saying it out loud feels like an affront.

I can't look in the mirror at night; it frightens me.

My lips are pink; they turn violet when I'm cold or anxious. I am often anxious, and my lips are often violet.

I always play favorites - favorite artist, favorite song, favorite color. Ask me about my favorite anything; I probably have one.

I talk loudly, and I'm sometimes ashamed because of it, never enough to quiet down.

My heart skips a bit; I think it's failing. I have gone to the emergency room about it more times than I care to confess, but I've had a bad knee for years, and this is the first time I've ever told a soul.

I continually feel guilty, though I don't believe I've ever had a reason to.

I make lists like this to get a grasp of who I am.

I have so many lists.

bridges burned, lessons learned

you move up north and you write pop songs; though you’d rather just listen to them in your childhood house.

the house was never a home, the walls didn’t keep you safe and the people didn’t look at you kind.

what’s it like to have someone say i love you and not expect anything in return but an i love you too ?

that’s something you’ll figure out later, if you let a girl look at you long enough before you start waving a forced smile.

the north doesn’t feel far enough from the arms who couldn’t hold you and the ones embracing you now are getting weary. you let them flee to a place that demands less strength from them.

you move somewhere bigger, hoping to drown in the mass of apish souls.

day by day, the city takes you in and maybe you don’t need anybody’s arms but yours.

though kindness is no longer reliable or available, you still seek it.

you find something else while looking, yourself. but only for a short time.

this life is yours and no one else’s, you try living according to your own will.

your youthful will wishes to party like your peers. drink by drink, you regain consciousness.

it feels good to lose your mind in a stranger’s inner thigh. but only for a minute.

the next morning, guilt is back. you call up a friend.

they reassure you but not adequately and never enough.

they say “what you did doesn’t matter”. what you need to hear is “you were never at fault for being a child without a good parent.”

you cry, faking a newly found sadness. the sorrow dates from a lifetime chasing love that should have been made available from the moment you took your first breath and you cried your first tears.

the drinks don’t fill you up anymore and they seem to hurt more than they heal.

inebriation feels like alienation.

from now, you’ll chase the gaze of women who’ve lived thrice your allotted time, searching for a spark of lust and mountains of empathy.

you’re losing momentum and authenticity. you’re no longer sure you ever had either.

for every kind word, you get two disapproving looks. for every gaze, the knife of hatred stabs you twice.

the math quickly adds up in your mind – though you were never good with numbers – it’s a losing game and the faulty player pays in pride.

you swear you’ll stop yearning for external validation.

from now, it’s cheap thrills and quick wits and you pray the combination will finally make you interesting enough to be stared at without having to stare first.

move on up, you tell yourself. you desert the country.

but you’ve found yourself before so you don’t quite know what you’re looking for this time.

you just know you don’t have it yet.

hopefully you’ll finally find self love at the other end of the earth, it’s a costly price to build confidence.

stay careful you’re not taking a trip to bridge the gap between amour-propre and vanity.

Naïli Cheballah is an aspiring writer currently based in Paris. You can find her frantically scribbling diary entries in a notebook at a coffee shop, making a fool of herself at a poetry open mic and read her work on her website wordswinesandworry.fr