Saturday, 20 February 2016

بريدك

It was almost as if she was living out the entire spectrum of human emotion, within this one person.

"بريدك" is what he told her. And she relished in his comfort.

She relished in his affection.

When they first met, she never knew what drew her to him. He was the opposite of everything she had ever looked for in a man. But between them was a chemistry that fueled a short lived, high-powered roller coaster ride that had her friends wondering if she was even the same person.

She knew something was not quite right. A tiny but significant part of her mind was telling her she was chasing a crazy dream. But like all women, she wanted to stick around and hope for the best.

Even when that dream collapsed all around her, before she'd had time to enjoy it, she still gave it life. It would crash, and she would put on a brave face while trying to get through the grueling process of removing him from her heart. She would almost succeed, until he was a distant blip in her memory, a mistake to be forgotten.

And then he would contact her. Whether it was a call or a message, his name would appear on her screen after six or seven months of silence, completely melting her resolve. Six or seven months of her not giving him a second thought would end as abruptly as they had started, with her welcoming him back into her life with open arms.

And the cycle would start again. All the things she'd grown attached to in the past would slowly become a part of her life again, until she grew to cherish them. She fell for his words, perhaps a little too deeply; she fell for how he told her she was beautiful, how he missed her when they had lost contact. He'd tell her she'd sometimes put a smile on his face whenever he'd remember her, even when they had fought and weren't necessarily on the best of terms.

And this was the grief she had to live with: at times, he had the ability to make her soul soar from the rooftops. At others, he shook the very grounds on which her confidence lay. It became the norm; a process that showed no signs of changing. She no longer had the energy to keep up with it, but she kept going back. She kept reliving it all, through his pictures that she couldn't take off her phone, to his messages that went back to the day they first met. She would get angry, mostly at herself, for having no will power to see it through to the end. Because at the end of the day, after all the hurt was out of her system, she could only see herself through his eyes; the eyes of someone who, when she went to bed at night after a long day, calmed her anxiety when he expressed her affection for her. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was that one word...

"بريدك"


 







Eyes Closed Tight

Eyes closed tight

I remember the way your left dimple made the perfect path to your lips
Asking me to kiss you.

Eyes closed tight, I remember the way your fingers curled around my hands
Holding on to them like a mother cradling a child
Keeping it safe from the outside world

Eyes closed tight, I remember the way your lips hugged my eyelids, my cheeks
The way they caressed the folds on my neck, the dip between my collar bones

Eyes closed tight,
I remember the way your arms wrapped themselves around me
I'd hear you say my name, and my heart would skip a beat
Or two
Or three
I remember the way it would fill my entire being
Leaving no room for thought, nor a care in the world...
As long as we were one.