Dali

My fortune cookie told me
love is the only true adventure
and I understood then how I 
never wanted to arrive anywhere 
but the moment I met you. 

I remember wanting to build
a home there, when you called
me for the first time. 

I couldn’t sleep for days thinking
this is probably what everybody else
dreams of when they dream of love.
 
I think love is everything you have
offered me on a golden plate…

It’s everything you had said
to me without having to say it.

Every ‘hello’ and ‘talk soon’ and ‘be good’
and every bit of small talk we engage in often.

Sometimes I spend weeks
missing you in a single minute.

The hours go so slow without you.

You’re at dinner with your friends and
I am still stuck on the morning coffee I shared with you. 

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like
to wake to you in bed, finding your things in
the bathroom when I catch myself thinking
I must be dreaming, and hearing your voice
from inside our apartment calling my name. 

My heart was so right about you.

You’re the vacation I mentally check
out to every time I need a little loving.

Jaded was my face before 

you walked into our 

favorite bakery. 

I couldn’t ask the world 

for more than to have you

sitting across from me.  

The cookies and tea 

aren’t as sweet 

as when you look at me.

Months later, 

I still wonder

how I got so lucky.

Honey, I can say in all honesty 

that I haven’t loved any-

body this tenderly.

In Palestine, 

and I mean within 

the holy walls of mosques, 

prayers are incinerated

at dawn. 

I stand there collecting

the dismembered limbs 

of my people

while the world

watches behind 

screens. 

If moments of

silence were held

to honor our dead,

the world would be

silent indefinitely.

If I, too, shall go

amongst other casualties,

you must resist till 

my land is free.

To you who arrived

and sat tenderly on

the hills and valleys

of my heart, I am writing.

Here, there are forests to

wonder and hours to waste

enveloped in pleasure.

I have come to know you

as perfume knows memory,

as windows knows light, and

as streets know the quiet

after midnight.

I have known your skin

and wore it better than

I often wear mine.

Even time forgets it is

moving when you’re nearby.

Even hands don’t

know to hold after

holding you.

Even I pretend I know love,

foolishly hoping you don’t

notice that I have not been

blessed with a joy this great.

You, beloved, are all

the light I have searched for,

indefinitely. Open arms that

welcome me sweetly when I

am waiting, eagerly, to meet

tenderness that is you.

It is as though I have not dined

in joy, in wonder, in bliss of this

feeling before I entered your

apartment, your mind, or life.

I sit here afraid you

may be the start

of a real thrill

to my heart.

I sit here thinking

what a joy it is,

just to be next to you.

I sit here thinking,

and the more I think,

I wonder where you

have been every

time I needed

love like you to arrive.