Wealth is not in the crowd of faces,
but in the one that knocks upon your heart
before it ever touches your door;
in the hand that rests upon your shoulder
before your sorrow dares to speak its name.

The little that is honest
is a homeland of the soul,
but the abundance that flees
is an exile without end.

She asked me, how would you like your coffee?

I answered:
Black — two spoons, two sugars, please.

She smiled, a smirk dancing on her lips.

I confessed:
Once a fool told me,
“Black makes a man good in bed.”
Time proved it nothing but a myth.

So, dear,
let the sugars remain
to sweeten a man’s heart
and soul.

Hannah
Nathan, you look like a warrior.

Nathan
Yes, dear… though no one told me which knee earns the Emperor's approval.

Hannah
You’re a fool, Nathan.

Nathan
A practical one
I’ve been polishing the ironing knee.

Hannah
(laughs) Of course. That’s why your trousers gleam while your honor wrinkles.

Nathan
When the Emperor owes you his throne, knees are merely decoration.

Hannah
This world is ironic, Nathan
But only for those still pretending to believe in it.

If I gave them sight,
they’d curse the gift,
find shadows in light.

Their hearts are sand
forever dry,
a grasping hand.

I wonder!

So I guard my gaze,
let lashes veil
a fragile maze,
where dignity can quietly prevail.

As if he had broken his promise
and slipped away,
as if eternity itself
had been a secret covenant between us.

“Ahmed, son of all,”
his mother whispered,
then folded her voice into silence
for silence was gentler
than the weight of evening.

O Houriya,
did you not see?
Today the country gathered its sorrow,
and from every house a cry rose
a child carried away,
a child returned to dust.

From birth, a woman dressed in dreams,
awaiting the man
whose touch would discover her hidden notebook,
whose fingers would wander her pages,
fondling each line with tender curiosity.

At last, love arrived
but only for a brief embrace:
not long enough to quench her hunger,
not enough to wipe the dust
from her waiting scroll.

Now the night holds her confessions,
her moans of longing folded into the dark,
her body whispering its ache
to the silence between the stars.

O night, will you grant me peace tonight,
or must I pray the sun never rises?

Not a girl
but a woman,
where flowers burn,
where chocolate melts
into velvet dreams.

A woman
that is what I knew,
her secret pages
calling my fingers to scroll,
each word a hidden chamber,
each sigh a locked door.

Hiding mysteries,
she is the one I ache for,
the one my longing
chants its name to.