Perspective

Looking back, I should have died right there and then In your arms, For the first time content.

We were Love incarnate, and Love is the only argument Why I should not have died right there and then.

There, In your arms, For that while under heaven's Luckiest stars, Tracing back the years, I realize, It was the only time in my life Lived in the complete absence Of the search, the questioning, the flight Toward, but without ever Finding, Hiding places.

All these jarring desires Simply were Non-existent.

Does it sound miserly, now?

Contentment.

Certainly when compared to our love, then, It must.

Yet since you left, the chasing Recommenced, And, so, The deterioration, The derangement;

The hunt for my troubled soul, until death.

There is So little left of me, now, I crave an end —

Another jarring desire, Haunting; whispering maddening guarantees Of lasting Contentment.

Hello, My name is Nadine. I am a Palestinian mother to a little girl who has become the center of my life and the reason for my strength. 💖 We live today in harsh circumstances, unlike anything we knew life to be. Our home is no longer a home… we live in displacement, fear, lack of food, absence of medicine, and a lack of safety. 😔

Yet every morning, I open my eyes to my daughter's face, and I try again. 🌞 Because she is here, I must stay strong. 💪 Because she is small, I need to create a safe world for her… even though my world is broken.

We don't have much, but we hold on to each other. 🤝

I write these words to share a moment of our reality that you may not see in the news. I’m not seeking pity, nor do I want to burden anyone… All I ask is that my words reach a heart that knows compassion, and understands that help, even in the smallest form, can make a big difference in someone's life like ours. ✨

Life here doesn’t go as it should… but it goes on. We live on hope, the kindness of strangers, words of encouragement, and hands that reach out at the right time. 🌟 Maybe you can’t change everything, but you can change one day in our lives… And one day with dignity is all we need to keep fighting. 💫

Even a kind word, sharing this post, or a sincere prayer… all of that makes a difference to us. 🙏

They both knew they’d be happy

Perhaps even happier

In another life

Where they had ended up together

But that wasn’t this life

That wasn’t this reality

And dreams that never come true

Become tiresome after a while

So they had both let it go

They had both moved on

Until they barely knew each other at all

For better

Or for worse

Don't turn "I love you" into a habit Just something said before we hang up the phone Or said blankly as you leave home for work Empty and hollow to their core

Those words should always come from passion And from the very heart of devotion Say them with the meaning bleeding from each word Say them proudly and all of your soul Let them be loud, louder, get louder Scream them so that even god in heaven hears So loud that even the deaf hear them

Don't turn "I love you" into nothing more than a routine Slowly losing their meaning every time their uttered Until, eventually their nothing at all Just as meaningless as all the conversations have become

Hold on to those words like they're your lifeline Make them rest within the chambers of your heart Slip into them with certainty and confidence you didn't know you had Let them ride on the curves of your soul Feel these three words that have the power to build a whole village And the power to completely destroy Words like these need to respected and felt and known before you breathe them to live

Say them like it's the first time every time Say them with conviction Say them like they're your holy gospel Say them as if there you doctorine Say them as if it's the last time they'll hear it from your voice Say them.

It's in the moment when light creeps through the cracks in the closed blinds and the sun begins to make it's last toast to a bewildering day.

It's in the dance between wake and sleep, when my limbs become tangled in the sweat drenched sheets and my eye lids are heavy with the weight of every what if.

There's a flaw in the human design. When love is profound, deep, and to the heart's fullest extent — true, one might say; lasting — it is an energy that flows palpably magnetic; you can feel it adhering your every subatomic particle, tying together a chaotic mess of stardust into a being of sense. Love, as such, is a power surge only survivable in connection; a unique electric current in perpetual free flow, without resistance, never letting up; travelling back and forth from heart to heart, and soul to soul, because that is simply where the current goes. Want nor need plays any part in this. It is the truest instance of nature; the perfect harmony between senders and recipients. True. True. True! — and, still, you left. This reaffirming dance of interconnection can be left. One can love, as such, and be left. I was left. You left. I understand, cognitively, people lose interest, but I just cannot wrap my heart around the fact it turned from transceiver to merely sender, or less: an uncontrolled core reactor and a nuclear disaster waiting to happen. I've come to know why people cry out, 'but I love you!', in protest, and, equally, why it is senseless. Why it changes nothing. The chord is cut. The path without resistance vanishes at dead end. And two who were one, are singular entities again. I understand all of that. But there is a flaw in the human design, because the love — that unique electric current — is not dead. It surges back and forth my heart and soul for supernova implosion; all that has survived now resides solely within me, when it is designed to be yours and mine equally. It's killing me. Senselessly killing me. That, I don't get. The entire universe makes no sense when we're not touching.

Anyway, I miss you terribly today.

I dreamt of you.

I miss your kisses.

when silence comes and takes

the wind from my lungs, the words

from my tongue and leaves me bereft?

Ache dull grey cloud: close my eyes

and shut the world out, like a blind

going down over the sky. Peepholes

covered, button holes closed.

Entry and exit: no. Shut my functions

blind. A lack of time eats my sanctum

space - between the words; demands

to be heard. The band still plays.