A quiet witness, once a breeze, sat beside us,
The roads, curious yet jammed with morning rush,

With words wrapped in warmth,
He spoke of family,
Of those seventy years & life weathered,
About Eid waiting with the unseen moon,
just beyond the shore,

With a gift of nine minutes,
I, in a stranger’s voice,
knowing that his world and mine were briefly one,
let my dreams slip between syllables,
soft and borrowed,
eyes fixed on an unseen dawn

When we parted, the auto carried him
And something more,
Some lies of a lover, my children without a mother

Was that such a crime?
Briefly that world was mine.

A leaf landed, just for a breath—
then let the wind decide its fate.

-

Will sound envy the language of touch?
Will fragrance ever wander far from beauty?
Will shadows sing their secrets to the light?
And when dawn leans into the afternoon,
will my heart finally be free of its weight?


"Why do you chase what cannot be held?"
asked a traveler draped in twilight.

Come, sit beside me, where the ocean meets the sky,
let me tell you a story, once upon a time.

-

Once in a while, when I try to open those doors, not sure if it's the warmth of the desert or unnerving winds of snow clad mountains that I need to step into

Will the pages talk about yesterday or free itself from reality

Will it take me years or am I close to him?

Will it be a rainbow or another tide pulling me deeper, whispering secrets of the sea?

-

After a deep slumber, she woke up to fly. Her feathers tattered, soiled with moist dew.

The wind took her along.

She was the universe herself & she named this moment 'sunrise'

-

Tonight,
Promise me you’ll hold me,
Let me walk along warm tides,
rushing within you, a final embrace.
Am I too late?,
did I tell you how your hands anchor me,
Their gentle grace tames my roughest shores

Wait, let's walk just a little further,
Did you hear the stars whisper?
And everything in between, a secret was being shared.
I clung to your cloth—did it just fade?
Little did I know,
those seashells that washed on my feet,
were vessels of your rhythms, tenderly cared.

I woke up warm but, why are you so cold & stiff?

Promise me, you'll let me hold you again
In the next page, where our story is retold.

-

Have you seen the shadows walking,
Clouds gliding over the ocean?
Veiling the sun with their tenderness,
Could you see the Winds frown with jealousy?
Have you heard the flowers giggling?
Have you ever looked out of the window and wondered if you could walk with them on the stage and play their role
Just for a day?
Hand in hand.
Wouldn't that be lovely?

Maybe Vincent did.

-

None of us are prepared for loss,
Should I have known when she
smiled at me, promising
everything is going to be okay,
Should I have known,
this is our last embrace?

I am oceans away,
Whispering to her in my prayers
"I am right here as I promised,
It's time to wake up ma,
Breathe, please"

I hope she's listening
Pray for her good health, will you?

None of us are prepared.

-

What do you call that unspoken skin of thought, my love, that flickers between you and me tonight?

I stand at edge of the cliff hanging by the loose rock, sweating under heat, lips discolored silence smudged by time's slow procession, tick tock, tick tock, tick TOCK.

Am I still waiting to be caught before I descend to ashes, while you slowly become the wind of the fall?

-

Memories are strange you know, at times at 2'o'clock in the night, I stare at them like looking at tombs in the graveyard. Melodramatic, it might sound. In this stillness of silence, every instance I laughed while standing on this square feet of our vitrified floor, I am reminded of those days where memories kept digging their grave in the soils of time.

-

"If you and I were words fallen from those creaky shelves that night, would we lie beside each other, straying closer & closer yet, until we'd become part of a meaningful sentence?"

-