i'm stirred by our rhythm
we talk, and my heart starts to beat faster
or maybe slower…
i can't tell
i stumble across my counts
i fall off of time
i forget how to exist outside of this presence.
our conversation is my favorite dance
i savor each of your words, each of your pauses, each of your murmers
i save them in music boxes that i decorate with my favorite treasures. 
i replay them later in my solitude
like comfort food
like warm blankets
and scented candles
and i find myself gently tracing them in other talks
just like when hear your favorite song
playing in the distance.

trembling fingers, palpitating heart, and the corners of my lips shake as i say hi to you. i fear my feelings are looking for an exit. i am terrified that they’ll show you how much i long for you.

i say "hi, how are you today?"
but i mean hi, i want to take a swim in your eyes, i want to devour your very soul, your hair looks so soft today, is this how your embrace feels? did you see the moon yesterday? it reminds me of you, you know. the fullness, the coldness, the light, the madness, the distance. i dreamt of you yesterday. you drew henna on my hand, and that gentle hold is all i crave right now.

i say "hey, by the way, i think you might like this book."
but i mean can i read it to you? can we lay on the grass on a brisk morning as i do so? or maybe i can read it to you on an evening instead, in a warm living room that smells of musk and tenderness?

i say "here's my copy, give it a read, i left some notes in it though"
but i mean maybe it's better that i can't read it to you. maybe it's better that you'd read it alone. i like that you'll carry pieces of me home.

i say "let me know what you think"
but i mean your voice soothes me. i want to take a calm stroll down your thoughts. i like the way your dark eyes twinkle when you make a witty remark.

i say "enough of you today. see you later"
but i mean time is a spiral, and i feel like i explored some of its folds with you before. i carry you with me everywhere i go nowadays. i'm not sure i like it, i'm positive i cant help it. i'm always both scared of and grateful for my feelings.

i say "salam"
i mean salam. i send it you as i’m driving home. i send it to you as i'm looking at the lake at night. i send it to you as i write this.

I saw death before. It isn’t still. It’s intense.

So yesterday when my stomach built itself into a sinking ship,

And my fingers were colonized by earthquakes,

I realized what you meant by “love hurts”.

My strong sea, my sweet spring,

I now know the ashy taste of your kisses, The salty reek of your definitions,

You read love poems just to read their ends.

I looked for love,

In high language novels read by men who always dress in plaid shirts, big glasses, and intellectual endeavors.

In independent films with moody pianists for protagonists, or extravagant detectives, or mad prophets.

In the disappointments of post-12 AM conversations with strangers smoking outside an underground theater.



I looked for love,

In old photographs with brown spots, and wrinkled covers of vinyl records.

In candles with mysteriously inviting names, like “white musk” and “black forest".

In dictionaries that show how nostalgia and exoticism are alike: a type of longing for the imaginary.



I looked for love,

In between the lines, and tucked into metaphors.

In the closet where I used to hide as a child whenever I played hide and seek.

In everywhere except for the coffee shop in plain sight where a 23 year old goes to have coffee, and write about how love is nowhere to be found.

Dear Sabah,
For the past forty-four days I have been waking up at dawn so I can reap sunlight the way an old peasant in a jasmine farm does.
My brother said he might have seen sunflowers but he never saw suns flowering; “the sunlight you reaped is useless” he said “why are you collecting it?"
My grandfather collects stamps, my mother collects china sets, my father collects rare books, my uncle collects money, and my grandmother collected hearts. “Because I want to be like Teta”, I answered him.

Dear Sabah,
I have been waking up at dawn, and I can assure you that they lied about dew being playful.
Dew doesn’t slide on a rose petal the way a child does in the park.
Dew sits still in an ungenuine grace the way an aristocratic woman does in a third cousin wedding; Dew is my aunt Fatima in her brother’s wedding.
However, they didn’t lie about how early birds get the worm..
This morning, I saw a bird eating two worms, and the eldest of my cousins cutting off his brothers’ allowances right after taking over his father’s company.

Dear Sabah,
I read in The Little Prince that people like watching sunsets when they are sad; that he watched the sunset forty-four times in one day when he had a fight with his rose.
So for the past forty-four days I have been waking up at dawn and morphing my notebook into a camera lens.
I now have 44 synonyms for your name, and each evening, I read the scribbles of morning I managed to pluck: fresh, fragile, blue and pink hues, childlike, clean grass, birds chipping, family…

Dear Sabah,
This morning, when my uncle told us how his son is now running his company, my 11 year old brother asked me if our family is a monarchy. “No, Hady” I said, “our family is an Arctic morning; for six months straight it is a cold dark environment, and for the other six, the sun doesn’t set.”

Dear Donia,
I found myself writing your name because I have always preferred alliteration to rhyme.
I prefer alliteration because beginnings are always exciting, passionate, and full of life, and endings are always a brown shade of autumn.

Dear Donia,
Spring is a lover whose hands were cut in war but never fails to gently caress every skin inch of skin  
Spring is a lover who would build his tongue a hand, and leave me in awe because hands grab but tongues grasp.

Dear Donia,
I hope your lover never falls short of using her tongue the way a poet uses his.
I hope you find meaning between the folds of her body.
I hope her kisses taste like your favorite words.

Dear Donia,
I hope she helps you see the free verse that you are; full of alliteration, and with no rhyme.