The breeze is blowing gently                                                           ­          moving the grapes on the vines                                                            ­           The moon is shining brightly                                                         ­                    as you put your hand in mine                                                             ­             the  fireflies surround us                                                               ­              with  neon yellow lights                                                           ­                     and  I can't get enough of  you                                                          ­                on  this perfect night                                                            ­                         The  sweet smell of honeysuckle                                                      ­  lingers  in the warm night air                                                              ­              I  can feel my knees buckle                                                           ­         under the weight of your stare                                                            ­ The  crickets are trilling                                                         ­                          just for you and I                                                                ­                               My heart is beating wildly                                                           ­                 on  this perfect night

For a year now
the cassette tape
has been played
over and over again.

We wake up
and with a swig
of loss
of death
and some tears
we swallow a pill of hope.

We follow a path
winding back and forth like a children’s swing –
long
and exhausting,
a path we know for sure
will end in a fall into
the mud of death.

Many times
we tried
to sew up the holes
that were pierced in our hearts
then we realized
our hearts have become sieves.
The pebbles of death
the tears of sadness
and the heavy memories
are too big to leak out.

by Asmaa Dwaima

. (or: the god who called me “sir”) .

He entered like a prophecy mispronounced—
storm-soaked, sky-buttoned,
his coat dragging dusk across the floorboards,
eyes lit like stolen copper.

My drink was a cathedral of neglect—
neat bourbon, no ice,
echoing the taste of promises embalmed in dust.
I drank the same way I pray:
sparingly, and to a god I no longer trust.

He didn’t sit; he disrupted.
Barstools shifted like tectonics,
shadows coiled around his boots,
and the jukebox skipped a beat to watch him move.

“You look like someone who’s been patient too long,”
he said, voice lacquered in soft thunder,
vowels curling like smoke from a burnt vow.

I gave him my laugh—
a cracked heirloom I no longer polish.
He wore it like cologne
and leaned in as if to inhale the ruin.

His hands were myths retold badly—
trembling between gentleness and guillotine.
He touched the rim of my glass
like it was my mouth,
and drank it wrong—
reckless, like he’d never been told no
and didn’t believe in scarcity.

The night flexed around us.
My watch stopped ticking.
Time, the faithful beast I’d trained
to lie at my feet,
lifted its head and whimpered.

Like wild trees,
people branch out
fiercely—unconscious.

Some limbs reach
for light,
while others curl
into shadow.

Each one is growing
in their own time.
It’s never about you.

Don’t be bothered
by the thorns they wear.
A tree must grow them—
it’s part of its nature,
like armor,
like a dress.

Let’s try without needless words,
Unnecessary pauses and empty doubts
To finish out fairy tale, titled “Unlove”.
Let’s stop all fights. We have no other outs.

Let’s try without needless tears
To recognize that we're both orphaned.
We’ve been repaid wholly for our Unlove:
Our hearts are faded, our souls're ossified.

Let’s try without needless words
To say the only one and single phrase:
“Forgive me for this poor Unlove!”
It’ll be the rare truth without any haze.